I. General information

General Theme: European dimensions to national law Time: 24-28 August 2009 Place: Ghent University, Faculty of Law Session leaders: assistant and junior professors to be confirmed

II. Structure of the workshops

Workshops will be organised over 3 days, from Monday to Wednesday, during which the participating PhD-students present their own papers for discussion. Ideally 3 or 4 papers will be introduced at every morning and afternoon session.

Each session should be led by a session leader. The session leader is an assistant professor or junior professor from the different participating universities and will present the findings of that session during the conference taking place on Thursday and Friday.

III. Topic

The deepening of the European integration process presents the EU Member States with many challenges in terms of the policy space for the evolution of national law. Even in domains which used to be mainly reserved for national lawyers such as family and social law, tax law, penal or criminal law, the impact of EU legislation can no longer be ignored. For example, in terms of family law, the Member States transferred competence for judicial co-operation in civil matters to the European Community. Also, the European Commission issued a Green Paper on the conflict of laws in matrimonial property regimes in 2006. Examples of new developments in penal law at EU level include the 2005 proposal for a Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights and the recently adopted Directive 2008/99 on the protection of the environment through criminal law. In an era of globalization, EU law also increasingly impacts on the legal systems of third countries and on international law instruments in many areas of law. On the other hand, legal developments at national level obviously also influence EU law.

IV. Paper presentations

PhD presentations should consist of a 15 minute oral presentation introducing the rationale and methodology of their paper and their findings. Thereafter, each paper will be refereed by two other PhD students (7 minutes each), who preferably will be selected from one of the other collaborating universities. Each PhD student will be informed in advance of the paper they are to referee. Each presentation and subsequent discussion will last for 45 minutes at most.

As concerns the written paper, the aim is to present the PhD project, including one or more methodological aspects relating to European law. Each participating PhD student should write a paper of approximately 3,000 words with full referencing and footnoting, as would typically be required for publication in an academic law journal or for presentation at an academic conference. In particular, papers should be drafted in such a way as to be accessible to a diverging audience and keeping in mind that the referees have to read and comment on the papers.

V. Literature

In Uppsala, the summer school is a 7,5 ECTS part of the PhD-course (5 points according to the Uppsala Syllabus). In Groningen, PhD’s are also credited 7,5 ECTS for participation in the summer school. This implies on average 800 pages reading material in addition to the paper to be written by the PhD students. The 800 pages will be divided in a compulsory part and background literature. The literature consists of the texts of the other PhD-students and the texts that will be presented at the Legal Research Network Conference 2009. The final list of literature will be published at the beginning of June 2009, after which distribution to the participating PhD students will begin. The Finnish and Ghent PhD’s will also receive their credits from the course.

VI. Deadlines for registration and submission of papers and course materials

Each faculty has reserved place for seven PhD students. Students have to apply for the summer school at Friday 24 April 2009 at the latest. Registration by e-mail/fax/post has to be submitted to the contact person in each faculty (see below). In the application the subject of the presentation has to be indicated.

Notice that each faculty may use their own criteria for allowance. This arrangement is due to the limitation of maximum seven PhD students from each faculty. For more information, contact the person in charge at your own faculty (see below).

A definitive list of participants will be provided on Friday 8 May 2009.

Last date for submission of the PhDstudents´ papers is Friday 19 June 2009.

The participants will receive the PhD students’ papers on Monday 6 July 2009 the latest.

VII. Venue, accommodation and other practical issues

The summer school takes place at the University of Ghent, Faculty of Law and nearby venues of the University of Ghent where and wherefrom transport will be arranged from and to the Faculty.

For accommodation reservations will be made at a Hotel in the city center of Ghent. For each session leader from Turku, Groningen and Uppsala, a single room will be booked. For PhD students from Turku, Groningen and Uppsala, double rooms will be booked.

Arrival on Sunday afternoon, 23 August 2009 is preferred. The course will begin at 10 am on Monday morning.

Organizing committee

Prof. Torben Spaak (Uppsala); Torben.Spaak@jur.uu.se Prof. Jukka Mähönen (Turku); jukmah@utu.fi Prof. Reinhard Steennot (Gent); Reinhard.Steennot@UGent.be Dr. Joop Houtman (Groningen); j.houtman@rug.nl Prof. Inge Govaere (Ghent): inge.govaere@ugent.be Dr. Peter van Elsuwege (Ghent): peter.vanelsuwege@ugent.be Dr. An Vermeersch (Ghent): an.vermeersch@ugent.be Dr. Kirstyn Inglis (Ghent): Kirstyn.Inglis@ugent.be

Administration

The administration of the summer school is covered by Joop Houtman (Groningen), Elina Reinikainen-Vänni (Turku), Reinhard Steennot (Ghent) and Torben Spaak (Uppsala).

PhD’s are asked to send their applications/registrations to the administrator of their own faculty.

Additional information

If you need any more information about the course, please contact:

Prof. Reinhard Steennot or professor Inge Govaere e-mail: Reinhard.Steennot@ugent.be; Inge.govaere@ugent.be