The Law and Politics of Multi-Level Governance -- A Jean Monnet Research Workshop at Rutgers University, June 14-15, 2013

We had previously posted the call for papers for the Jean Monnet Workshop on "The Law and Politics of Multi-LevelGovernance," on June 14-15 at the Center for European Studies, Rutgers University, organized by network member Dan Kelemen. We're please to let readers know that the program has been announced.  It includes a keynote by network member Karen Alter (Northwestern), papers by network members Bill Davies (AU) and Hellen Hartnell (Golden Gate/Berkeley), as well as contributions by several other network members as discussants: Gráinne de Búrca (NYU), Mark Pollack (Temple), Peter Lindseth (UConn), Francesca Bignami (GW), and Catherine McCauliff (Seton Hall).

For those interested in attending, the first part of the program - the Welcome, Introduction and Panel I - will take place on Friday, June 14, at the Center for European Studies, 102 Nichol Avenue, New Brunswick. The remainder of the program will take place on Saturday, June 15, at the Eagleton Institute of Politics, located at 191 Ryders Lane, New Brunswick.

CONREASON Survey on Judicial Attitudes towards European Law and European Integration

Arthur Dyevre, Senior Research Fellow at Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, has forwarded the request below, asking readers to participate in an expert survey on judicial attitudes towards European law and European integration.  This survey is part of the CONREASON Project on ‘Constitutional Reasoning in Comparative Perspective’, of which Arthur is the co-investigator (more details can be found on the project website here).

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TAKE THE EU LEGAL INTEGRATION SURVEY!

As part of the Schumpeter CONREASON Project, we are conducting an online expert survey on judicial attitudes towards European law and European integration in the European Union. The survey focuses on supreme and constitutional courts and their doctrinal response to the legal integration process. The survey targets all those who are potential experts in the EU legal integration process: academics, judges, law students, etc.

The online questionnaire takes only a few minutes to complete. You can choose on which court you wish to report and even take several surveys in case you want to report on more than one court.

To take the survey just click on the link below, which will take you to the survey page of the CONREASON Project Website:

http://www.conreasonproject.com/expert-survey.html

Please feel free to contact us (conreason@mpil.de) for questions and remarks regarding the questionnaire. Feedback is welcome.

The Hungarian Dilemma from a Pluralist Perspective (Matej Avbelj)

With this cross-post from Verfassungsblog, we'd like to welcome Matej Avebelj (Graduate School of Government and European Studies, Kranj, Solvenia) to the network.  This post also continues our earlier discussions on the troubling direction of the Hungarian regime.

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The constitutional and political developments in Hungary in the last few years have stirred a lot of controversies and also raised significant academic attention. This blog has provided not only a wonderful forum for an exchange of different views, but it has also produced original and thought-provoking proposals for tackling the Hungarian problem.

However, the “reverse Solange” idea, the call for the establishment of a special Copenhagen Commission, for a straightforward supremacy of the Charter and other insightful proposals, all appear to be addressing the Hungarian dilemma from within the constitutional register. This is, of course, a legitimate choice, but it is neither exclusive nor neutral.

As the Lindseth-Halberstam exchange in particular demonstrated, the answers sketched for the resolution of the Hungarian dilemma are heavily dependent on the assumed or the desired character of the European Union.  Without engaging with the merits of the constitutional account of the European Union and without necessarily taking sides, I would like to use this post to explore – out of intellectual curiosity – the Hungarian dilemma from a pluralist perspective.

The European Union as a pluralist entity is a union (der Bund). It is composed of autonomous national and supranational constitutional sites, which form a non-hierachical common whole, founded on a relational principle of primacy, rather than supremacy. In a pluralist Union boundaries, jurisdictions and competences matter. They do so not merely because of the formal reasons (eg since the Treaty stipulates so), but because they are a guarantee and a sign of respect for autonomous development: for a veritable self-government of the Union’s constituent entities.

Therefore not every constitutional conflict inside a Member State is automatically turned into a supranational EU affair. A national constitutional conflict can trigger an EU reaction, if it causes negative externalities: be it to the other Member States, to the EU or to the EU citizens.  It should also lead to the EU reaction when a Member State violates the normative spirit of pluralism, by undermining the double commitment: to the plurality and to the common whole, both at the same time.

Events in and around the EUSA Conference in Baltimore (May 8-11): the "ASEAN-EU: Dynamics of Interregionalism" Conference at American University, Washington DC (May 13)

Numerous network members will be participating in the EUSA Conference in Baltimore on May 9-11 (program downloadable here) and we're looking forward to seeing many of you there.  Of special note, on Thursday, May 9, the JCMS will sponsor a special lecture by network member Andrew Moravcsik (Princeton).

In addition, for those of you remaining in the Baltimore/Washington area beyond the weekend, the School of International Service (SIS) at American University in Washington DC is hosting a conference in Room 120 SIS on Monday, May 13, entitled "ASEAN-EU: Dynamics of Interregionalism" (full program here).  The conference is organized by Amitav Acharya, UNESCO Chair in Transnational Challenges and Governance and Chair of the ASEAN Studies Center; network member Michelle Egan, Jean Monnet Professor; and Pek Koon Heng, ASEAN Studies Director, School of International Service, American University, Washington DC.  The keynote luncheon speaker Michael Fuchs, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Strategic and Multilateral Affairs, East Asian and Pacific Affairs, State Department will speak on issues pertaining to the U.S. and EU strategic dialogue on Asia.

For those interested in attending in person, you can RSVP here.  For those interested in following the live-stream, the link is here.  American University (AU) is located in North West Washington DC. AU’s main campus is located at 4400 Massachusetts Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20016.  The closest subway (the Metro) station to AU is the Tenleytown-AU stop on the Red line. There is a free campus shuttle bus from the Metro stop. The university is a ten minute walk from the Metro.  On campus parking is available in the garage below the SIS Building. The parking is located at the intersection of New Mexico Avenue and Nebraska Avenue.

Book Announcement: Bill Davies, Resisting the European Court of Justice: West Germany's Confrontation with European Law, 1949–1979 (Cambridge)

With apologies for the delay, we're pleased to announce the appearance of a book by network member Bill Davies (American University).  Entitled Resisting the European Court of Justice: West Germany's Confrontation with European Law, 1949-1979, it is published by Cambridge University Press.  The book is major contribution to a developing literature on the history of European legal integration that we've blogged about before here and here.  An excerpt can be found here and the publisher's description is reproduced below.

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The European Union's (EU) powerful legal framework drives the process of European integration. The Court of Justice (ECJ) has established a uniquely effective supranational legal order, beyond the original wording of the Treaty of Rome and transforming our traditional understanding of international law. This work investigates how these fundamental transformations in the European legal system were received in one of the most important member states, Germany. On the one hand, Germany has been highly supportive of political and economic integration; yet on the other, a fundamental pillar of the post-war German identity was the integrity of its constitutional order. How did a state whose constitution was so essential to its self-understanding subscribe to the constitutional practice of EU law? How did a country who could not say 'no' to Europe become the member state most reluctant to accept the new power of the ECJ?