Research activities Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER) (Jean Monnet Grant)

Sep 1, 2010 - Aug 31, 2011

Project description

Since the start of the integration process, the legal orders of the EC/EU and the Member States have co-existed and been influenced by international law. Conversely, the EU is a regulatory superpower with a policy lead in many areas. But the EU has failed to pull its political weight in the world. The entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, new secondary legislation and new case-law create conflicts with the evolving international legal order. Building on its research programme and first year of activities, CLEER carried out research centred on the analysis of the reception of international law in the EU’s legal order, the projection of EU law internationally and issues of coherence and consistency in EU external policy-making and implementation. International experts from academia and practice furthered the debate on these issues in two international conferences and disseminated their findings in 10 working papers made available to a global public via SSRN and the internet. Thus, the project contributed to the development of academic studies and promoted innovative solutions to practical challenges to the external dimension of the EU’s legal order.

Topic

The Asser Institute (est.1965) is an inter-university research institute in the field of international and EU law. Its fellows combine academic research with post-graduate education and consultancy activities carried out for Dutch, EU and international donors in EU Member States and third countries. As such, experience gleaned from practice feeds into academic research output, and vice versa. The Institute’s research department has developed a strong scientific reputation in the field of the external dimension of EU law, partly thanks to a string of academic and commercial projects in Central and Eastern Europe which have led to books produced by its in-house publisher TMC Asser Press, an affiliate of Cambridge University Press. Through the Centre for the Law of EU External Relations (CLEER, est. 2008) the Asser Institute coordinates high-level academic research activities in a niche area between all law faculties in the Netherlands. The natural ambition is to expand CLEER’s activities across Europe.

The project contributed to the development of academic studies and promoted innovative solutions to practical challenges to the external dimension of the EU’s legal order.
- CLEER’s developed its research programme in structural cooperation with centres of excellence from other Member States.
- CLEER’s activities and outputs informed and brought together hitherto unconnected groups of colleagues with varying years of seniority and at different levels of their careers.

Objective

Network building among centres of excellence on EU external relations law
- Developing a (pan-)European academic research programme on EU external relations law in the wake of the entry into force of the Treaty of Lisbon
- Convening international conferences, providing an interface between academia and (national and EU) civil service
- Publication of 10 state-of-the-art working papers
- Dissemination of a bi-weekly news service via a new and growing mailing list