Rule of Law and Democracy in Europe

Jan Wouters

Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies

KU Leuven

Jan Wouters is Jean Monnet Chair ad personam EU and Global Governance, Full Professor of International Law and International Organizations, and founding Director of the Institute for International Law and of the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, an interdisciplinary centre of excellence, at the University of Leuven, Belgium. Apart from his participation in many international scientific networks, he advises various international organizations and governments, trains international officials and is often asked to comment international events in the media. He was Coordinator of RECONNECT (Reconnecting Europe with its Citizens through Democracy and Rule of Law), a large Horizon 2020 Project

Joelle Grogan

Senior Lecturer in law

Middlesex University London

Dr Joelle Grogan is a Senior Lecturer in law at Middlesex University London. Her primary areas of research are UK and European Union public law, with an expertise on the rule of law. Her current focus is Brexit, and legal measures taken in response to the COVID-19 crisis.

Joelle was the Convenor of 'COVID-19 and States of Emergency' Symposium, jointly hosted by the Verfassungsblog and Democracy Reporting International under the re:constitution program supported by Stiftung Mercator. Over the course of 50 days, the Symposium published 82 contributions from over 100 scholars worldwide analysing states of emergency and the use of emergency powers in response to the COVID-19 crisis from the perspective of democracy, human rights and the rule of law.

Julinda Beqiraj

Maurice Wohl Senior Research Fellow in European Law

Bingham Centre (BIICL)

Julinda is Maurice Wohl Senior Research Fellow in European Law. She has experience both in research and implementation of rule of law related issues. Julinda has managed several projects addressing rule of law and access to justice challenges across jurisdictions and occasionally works as CoE expert consultant on improving court efficiency.

Ben Crum

Professor of Political Science

Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Ben Crum studied political science at the University of Amsterdam and the London School of Economics and holds a Ph.D. from the European University Institute Florence. Before joining the Vrije Universiteit in 2004, he worked at the Centre for European Policy Studies in Brussels, at the University of Twente, and at policy consultancy firm Research voor Beleid in Leiden. Ben Crum's research focuses on the way processes of internationalization – European integration in particular – affect established practices and understandings of democracy and solidarity.

Camille Kelbel

Associate Professor and head of the academic programmes

Lille Catholic University (ESPOL)

Camille has participated in different national and European research projects in the field of elections, party politics and European integration. Before joining the Lille Catholic University, Camille has worked at the College of Europe in Bruges (Belgium), at the Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium), and at the CEE / Sciences Po Paris (France). She holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from the Université libre de Bruxelles (Belgium). Her thesis focused on the process of candidate selection for European elections in political parties.

Petra Bárd

Associate Professor at ELTE School of Law, Budapest

Central European University

As a lecturer at the Central European University’s (CEU) Legal Studies Department, Petra Bárd teaches EU constitutional law, EU criminal law, and selected issues in criminology and forensic sciences. At ELTE School of law, she teaches criminology and data protection law. As a researcher at the CEU Centre for Ethics and Law in Biomedicine (CELAB) she was participating in EU FP6 and FP7 projects investigating the legal framework of biobanks including their use for forensic purposes. She is the Vice-Chairperson of the Hungarian Europe Society since 2003. In her writings, she primarily addresses European constitutionalism, human rights in the European Union, the rights of persons living with disabilities, and judicial and police cooperation in criminal matters.

Pieter de Wilde

Full Professor in European politics, department for historical studies

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Pieter studied political science at the University of Amsterdam and holds a Ph.D. in political science from ARENA, Center for European Studies, University of Oslo (2011). From 2011 to 2016, he was a Senior Researcher at the WZB Berlin Social Science Center in Germany. Pieter has also been a visiting fellow at the University of Copenhagen, Stockholm University and the Minda de Gunzburg Center for European Studies, Harvard University. Since 2016, he has been teaching and researching European politics at NTNU.

His research focuses on patterns of contestation over European integration in the public sphere, it's embedding within a broader globalization cleavage and its implications for democracy in Europe.

Lise Rye

Professor of contemporary European history

Norwegian University of Science and Technology

Lise Rye's research focuses on European economic and political integration, with emphasis on French European policy, EFTA-EC relations and the European Economic Area. A specialist in Norway’s relations with the EU, Rye has conducted several empirical analyses of ideas of the EU and ideas of democracy, as conveyed by parliamentary and civil society discourse.

Paul Blokker

Associate professor in Sociology and Social Theory

University of Bologna, Charles University in Prague

Paul Blokker holds a Ph.D. from the European University Institute. Currently, he is an associate professor in Sociology, Department of Sociology and Business Law, University of Bologna. Until recently, he was an associate professor and Jean Monnet Chair in European Political Sociology, and programme director of the MA programme Sociology in European Context, at the Institute of Sociological Studies, Charles University, Prague. He also teaches European integration at Syracuse University in Florence.

His research interests are democratization, constitutional sociology, constitutional politics and change, multiple democracies, critique and dissent, pragmatic sociology, political theory, and social imaginaries.

Dimitry Kochenov

Professor of EU Constitutional Law and Citizenship

Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Dimitry Kochenov is an expert in citizenship, nationality and immigration law and constitutional law of the European Union with a particular emphasis on the Rule of Law and other key principles of EU law, EU external relations law, and EU Law of the Overseas: the former colonial possessions and their upgraded ties with the European Union. His research focuses on the principles of EU law, especially democracy and the Rule of Law; EU law of external relations and EU citizenship law.

Sylvia Kritzinger

Professor for Methods in the Social Sciences at the Department of Government

University of Vienna

Sylvia Kritzinger obtained her Ph.D. in Political Science at the University of Vienna and then held post-doc positions at Trinity College Dublin, Institute for Advanced Studies (IHS). She was a Visiting Professor at the Danube-University Krems, the University of Podgorica in Montenegro, the Keele University, and Trinity College Dublin. Her research focuses on Political Behaviour and Electoral Research, Democratic Representation and Political Participation and Quantitative Methods.

Sylvia Kritzinger is an expert in political and electoral behaviour (including local, national and European elections), public opinion, including citizens’ perceptions of the trustworthiness and competence of the political institutions, and survey methodology.

Elina Pirjatanniemi

Professor, Director of the Institute for Human Rights

Åbo Akademi University

Elina Pirjatanniemi works as a Professor of Constitutional and International Law as well as a Director of the Institute for Human Rights at Åbo Akademi. She is an alumni of both the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi and carries the title of Docent in Criminal Law at the University of Turku. Elina Pirjatanniemi works in the focus areas of ETMU as a teacher, researcher and expert. She has among others studied asylum and immigration law, human rights in the context of criminal law, human rights and societal change as well as the relation of national and international law. She has in-depth knowledge in issues relating to the Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ). She has significant experience on the management and monitoring research projects.

Kolja Raube

Senior Researcher, Programme Coordinator and Assistant Professor for European Studies

KU Leuven

Dr. Kolja Raube is a senior member and research manager at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies. He is Assistant Professor for European Studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences at KU Leuven. He is programme coordinator at KU Leuven’s ‘Master of European Studies: Transnational and Global Perspectives’. He is adjunct professor at the American University Washington D.C. (Brussels Campus) and was a visiting professor at Kobe University (Japan) as well as Visiting Research Fellow at the EU Studies Centre at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

At the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, he takes part in the H2020-project RECONNECT, the interdisciplinary research programme CONNECTIVITY, the Jean Monnet Network EUCROSS, the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence FRAGOLA and the Jean-Monnet Module EUSUM ('Euro-Asia Summer School').

Kolja Raube has published widely on the European Parliament, interparliamentary cooperation in the European Union and global governance, as well as security policies, the rule of law, legitimacy and coherence in EU external action and global governance. His articles and chapters have appeared with the British Journal of Politics and International Relations, Global Affairs, Cambridge Review of International Affairs, Journal of European Integration, Politique Européenne, European Foreign Affairs Review, Hague Journal of Diplomacy, International Spectator, Asia-Europe Journal as well as Oxford University Press, E. Elgar, Palgrave, Routledge, Hart and Nomos.

Axel Marx

Deputy Director Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies

KU Leuven

Axel Marx is Deputy Director Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies, University of Leuven. He studied in Leuven, Hull and Cambridge and holds a PhD from the University of Leuven. Axel Marx has managed over 50 funded research projects including multi-team and international projects and acted as a consultant to several national and international governmental organizations including the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Committee of the Regions, International Labour Organization, United Nations Industrial Development Organization, United Nations Forum on Sustainability Standards, OECD, IDEA, and the Belgian, Dutch and German Governments and private organizations.

His academic publications (150+) have appeared in four dozen leading international peer-reviewed journals and 6 languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Dutch and Chinese). He recently co-edited books on Global Governance of Labor Rights (Edward Elgar with J. Wouters, G. Rayp & L. Beke, 2015); Global Governance Through Trade (Edward Elgar with J. Wouters, B. Natens & D. Geraets, 2015) and edited a Research Collection on Global Governance (Edward Elgar, 2019 with J. Wouters). He was guest co-editor for special issues in International Labour Review (2016), Global Policy (2017) and Sustainability (2019).

He is on the editorial board of Chinese Journal of Global Governance, Politics and Governance and Sustainability. As a guest lecturer, he has thought at European University Institute, China University of Political Science and Law and several European universities. His research interests include voluntary sustainability standards, sustainable development, human rights, global governance, governance through trade, EU trade policy and comparative case methods.

Amichai Magen

Senior Lecturer (US Associate Professor), Director of the Program on Democratic Resilience & Development, and Head of the MA Program in Diplomacy & Conflict Studies, Lauder School of Government, Diplomacy and Strategy IDC (Herzliya)

Interdisciplinary Centre Herzliya

Dr. Amichai Magen, is an internationally regarded expert on the rule of law and the quality of democracy in national and supranational governance systems (particularly the EU) who has published on these topics in leading journals and academic book presses. Amichai Magen received the Yitzhak Rabin Fulbright Award (2003) and was the first Israeli to be awarded the prestigious National Fellow Award at the Hoover Institution (2008). In 2016 he was named Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow of the Robert Bosch Academy, Berlin.

Laurent Pech

Professor of European Law and Head of the Law and Politics Department

Middlesex University London

Laurent Pech is Professor of European Law, Jean Monnet Chair of European Public Law (2014-17) and Head of the Law and Politics Department at Middlesex University London.

Laurent is also a Visiting Professor of Law at Bordeaux University, an expert for eLabEurope, and a member of the editorial board of the Hague Journal on the Rule of Law as well as a member of the scientific board of the Montesquieu Law Review. He has been a visiting professor at many institutions, including his alma mater: Aix-Marseille University. In 2018, Professor Pech was appointed Fernand Braudel Fellow at the European University Institute. Professor Laurent Pech specialises in EU Public Law and Comparative Public Law. He has published extensively on respect for the rule of law in the European legal space with his research currently focusing on the issue of rule of law backsliding in the EU.

Cristina Fasone

Assistant Professor of Comparative Public Law

LUISS

Cristina Fasone holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Public Law from the University of Siena and is currently Max Weber Post-doctoral Fellow in Law at the European University Institute, Florence (Italy) and Academic Coordinator of the Summer School in ‘Parliamentary Democracy in Europe’, LUISS Guido Carli School of Government, Rome (Italy). Dr. Cristina Fasone is an expert on parliamentary procedures, parliamentary accountability and EMU.

Oliver Treib

Professor of Comparative Public Policy Analysis and Methods of Empirical Social Research

University of Munster

Oliver Treib is Professor of Comparative Policy Analysis and Research Methods at the University of Münster. He received his Master’s degree and PhD in political science from the University of Cologne. His professional career began at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies in Cologne, where he worked as a doctoral and post-doctoral researcher. Prior to joining the University of Münster, he worked at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, first as an Assistant Professor, then as Head of the Department of Political Science, and at the University of Salzburg, where he spent a year as tenure-track Assistant Professor.

Professor Oliver Treib’s research focuses on the role of Eurosceptic political attitudes in European Parliament elections, on party-based Euroscepticism, and on the impact of Eurosceptic political mobilization on EU-related attitudes and voting behaviour. He is an expert on qualitative research methods (expert interviews, focus groups) and has experience in quantitative research.

Anna-Luise Chané

Project Manager RECONNECT – Research Fellow, Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies

KU Leuven

Anna-Luise's research focuses on the relationship between multilateral organizations, in particular, the United Nations and the EU, on the EU and human rights, and on human dignity in the case law of international courts and tribunals. Since 2018 she is the Project Manager of the large-scale Horizon2020 research project RECONNECT ('Reconciling Europe with its Citizens', GA No. 770142). Previously she was a researcher on the FP7 project FRAME ('Fostering Human Rights Among European Policies', GA No. 320000).

Anna-Luise studied law at the University of Cologne and the University of Leuven and passed her First and Second Juridical State Examination with distinction. She holds a Master of Laws degree from Harvard Law School, where she was an ERP Scholar of the German Ministry of Economy and Technology and the German National Academic Foundation.