Common Market Law Review 60th anniversary conference

About the conference
Join us for a one-day conference, to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Common Market Law Review by exploring the legal dynamics of what it means to be a Member State of the European Union.

Being a Member State is binary: either you are or you aren’t. But Membership isn’t just about  joining or leaving, but needs to be viewed within its broader constitutional perspective. What are the core values of Membership, and how important is it for these to be shared by all Member States? Who decides what those values mean in concrete situations? The Court of Justice increasingly insists that the Union’s founding values are not merely aspirational, but create defined and enforceable obligations for the Member States. At the same time, the latter continue to test the legal nature and implications of the Union’s own duty under the Treaties to respect national constitutional identity and the limits of conferred competence. Those forces engage into their most tense interactions when it comes to the problem of “rogue countries” who argue that respect for their “national identity” should take priority over their adherence to the Union’s core values, leaving the other Member States as well as the Union institutions to ponder how best to manage the threats that illiberal and indeed undemocratic regimes pose to the principle and practice of membership. 

Circumstances also affect the significance of Membership. How have changes in the Union’s institutional balance impacted upon the Member States as such? And how are citizens affected by and involved in the dynamics of membership? What happens when a Member State leaves the Union?

Our discussion of membership also needs to look outside the bounded legal world of the Union and even beyond the structured relations of our European neighbourhood. How does our understanding of Membership engage with the Union’s place in the wider international order?

Conference speakers
Prof. Christophe Hillion, Professor Department of Public International Law, University of Oslo
Dr Verstert Borger, Assistant Professor Europa Institute, Leiden University
Dr Ruth Weber, Postdoctoral Researcher, DynamInt Humboldt University of Berlin
Prof. Paul Dermine, Professor Centre for European Law, Université libre de Bruxelles
Prof. Sara Iglesias Sanchez, Professor Administrative Law Department, Universidad Complutense Madrid
Dr Eleni Frantziou, Associate Professor in Public Law & Human Rights, Durham University
Dr Andi Hoxhaj, Lecturer Faculty of Laws, University College London
Prof. Eleanor Spaventa, Professor of EU Law, Director BLEST (Bocconi Lab in EuroStudies), Bocconi University
Dr Maria Haag, Lecturer Tilburg Law School, Tilburg University
Dr Anna W. Ghavanin, Associate Professor of EU Law, Assistant Head of Department, University of Gothenburg
Dr Alessandro Petti, Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Private Law, University of Oslo

Remote attendance
Are you not able to join the conference on location in Leiden? No problem. We will arrange a live connection with the conference location. This way, you will be able to view the conference from an alternative location. 

Do you have any questions?
We will gladly answer them.

E-mail: pao@law.leidenuniv.nl
Phone: +31 (0 )71 527 8666
All contact details

Friday 9 June 2023

Academiegebouw

Rapenburg 67-73, 2311GJ LEIDEN

Attendance to this conference is free of charge.