Research Centre for European Law - Led by Prof Tobias Lock and Dr Karen Lynch Shally

     

    Overview
    The Centre for European Law serves as the institutional hub for the School’s significant European Law expertise. The Centre creates an environment to facilitate formal and informal exchanges between researchers interested in European Law and aims to ensure greater internal and external visibility of this expertise by giving it an institutional home. The Centre contributes to achieving the University’s strategic goals, notably concerning engaged and impactful research (which members of the Centre produce); postgraduate education (by including research students as members); and equality, diversity, inclusion (notably inclusive digitalisation) and interculturalism as well as sustainability, biodiversity and care of the environment (as research themes pursued under the banner of European Law).

    Thematically the Centre for European Law endorses a broad conception of European Law. This includes the Law of the European Union (public and private), the law originating in the Council of Europe, most notably the European Convention on Human Rights as well as their comparative law dimensions.
     
    Activities
    The Centre’s activities range from the organisation of external-facing events, such as conferences, workshops, and lectures, to collaborations and exchanges between members, notably in the Centre’s European law discussion group. Centre members are responsible for the delivery of European law teaching on the School’s various law programmes. Centre members have been successful in securing significant external funding, including two ERC awards (Professor Delia Ferri and Professor Aisling McMahon and Horizon 2020/Horizon Europe awards (Professor Delia Ferri; Dr Mary Dobbs); and a Jean Monnet Chair (Professor Tobias Lock).

    Centre members successfully engage with policy makers and the wider public on a regular basis, e.g. by providing evidence to parliamentary committees, by drafting policy briefs, etc. Prof Michael Doherty has worked on a number of European Commission funded projects on cross-border working terms and conditions (including a current project for DG EMPL on industrial relations in the aviation sector). Dr Mary Dobbs was a legal expert for the Citizens’ Assembly on biodiversity loss; Dr Mary Dobbs and Prof Tobias Lock act as advisers of two Scottish Parliament committees. Furthermore, Centre Members regularly provide CPD training to legal professionals.
     
     
    Membership and research interests 

    Member Research Interests
    Dr Ollie Bartlett EU health Governance; Better Regulation; Free Movement
    Dr Mary Dobbs Environmental Governance/Law; Brexit; Agri-environmental Issues
    Prof Michael Doherty Employment/Labour Law; Social Dialogue
    Prof Delia Ferri  EU Constitutional Law; EU and Comparative Disability Law; EU Cultural Policies; EU State Aid Law
    Dr Orla Kelleher  Environmental, Cimate and Human Rights Law
    Prof Tobias Lock (Director and Contact) EU Fundamental Rights; EU-ECHR relations; EU Constitutional Law; Brexit
    Dr Karen Lynch-Shally EU Consumer Law; European Private Law, Financial Services Law, Regulation and Policy 
    Dr David Mangan  Employment/Labour Law; Information Technology Law; Private Common Law Obligations
    Prof Aisling McMahon European Intellectual Property Law; EU Health Law; Unitary Patent System; EU and ECHR relationship; EU/ECHR's impact on health and IP law
    Dr Clíodhna Murphy Migration and Asylum law; Human Rights Law; Company law
    Dr Maria Murphy Privacy Law, Surveillance, Data protection
    Dr Charles O'Sullivan EU Social Security Law; EU Fundamental Rights; Migration and Asylum Law
    Dr Hubert Smekal The Court of Justice of the EU; the European Court of Human Rights; EU fundamental rights

     

    PhD Researchers affiliated with the Centre

    Affiliate Research Interests
    Eva Krolla Eva S Krolla : EU Fundamental Rights; EU Disability Law; EU Law and Language
    Iryna Tekuchova EU Disability Law, EU External Relations Law, and European Neighbourhood Policy
    Léa Urzel Francil  EU and comparative disability law; EU Cultural Policies