A presentation by Mark Dawson (Hertie School). This session is hosted together by the European Governance Colloquium and Fundamental Rights Research Colloquium.
This paper investigates how the EU’s political process affect the level of rights protection afforded by EU law. It does so in two steps, firstly by analyzing how institutional politics plays an important role in the evolution of the EU fundamental rights framework, and secondly by demonstrating empirically how legislative interaction affects the level of protection provided by three important EU legislative acts. As the paper will demonstrate, this interaction tends to result in the overall level of rights protection being increased. Analysing this finding, the paper uses institutionalist theory to argue that the EU’s political process carries certain positive effects: the diversity of the legislative process (both within and between institutions) make the explicit overlooking of rights-based concerns difficult. These findings carry implications for the increasing tendency to channel EU law and policy outside of the ‘ordinary’ legislative process.
Mark Dawson is Professor of European Law and Governance at the Hertie School. His research focuses on the relationship between law and policymaking in the EU, particularly economic governance and human rights protection. Dawson was previously an Assistant Professor at Maastricht University, where he remains a scholar within the Maastricht Centre for European Law. He has held visiting positions at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), the University of Wisconsin and Harvard Kennedy School. Dawson holds degrees from the Universities of Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well as a PhD from the European University Institute in Florence. He is the Principle Investigator of LEVIATHAN, a research project exploring the legal and political accountability structure of EU economic governance. LEVIATHAN is supported by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council.
Prior registration is required. Registered attendees will receive the dial-in details as well as a draft paper, on which the presentation is based, via e-mail prior to the event.
This session is hosted together by the European Governance Colloquium and Fundamental Rights Research Colloquium.
