The European Law Group, a grassroots, researcher-led Initiative of Max Planck Law, has established itself as a significant forum for scholarly exchange and research. Through its annual conferences and monthly online meetings, the Initiative provides a platform for postdoctoral and doctoral researchers to present their work, collaborate, and explore new frontiers in European law. Two of the organizers, Dr Victoria Hooton and Dr Mateusz Grochowski, explained the importance of their monthly meetings: ‘These meetings are where we make critical decisions and plan for our annual conference. They are collaborative and successful, providing a space for us to update on current conference plans, vote on key issues, and set future agendas’.
Their first conference took place 14–15 July 2022 and had around 25 participants, some in-person and others online. ‘The conference aimed to consider the limits of commonly used (ie doctrinal) methodologies for assessing the development and issues in European law, and to consider how one can introduce or use a more interdisciplinary approach to the study of the European legal order in a way to better understand it and perhaps propose potential reforms in difficult areas’.
Their second conference, held 12–13 October 2023, saw an increase in participation with 27 in-person attendees and 47 online viewers. ‘The conference dealt with areas in need of change to face forthcoming challenges for Europe, such as increasing numbers of refugees, water management in a time of climate change, implementation of Europe’s climate deal, potential need for a centralized military power in Europe, the need to invoke public norms against private organizations to avoid regulatory failure. It also provided some thoughts on where or why Europe has stagnated in its ability to tackle pertinent issues head on’.
The organizers noted how successful the conference was, evidenced by the over 100 applications from which they could pick the highest-quality papers, as well as the involvement of the European Law Open journal: ‘The publication process for the conference papers is still being undertaken, but we are happy that most participants will have a publication as a result of this event’.
The European Law Group hopes to build on their previous success with their ‘Third European Law Group Conference 2024’, which will take place 7–8 October 2024 at Harnack House in Berlin. This conference promises to bring together scholars to exchange ideas on longstanding and emerging issues of inequality and discrimination in Europe, with the aim of contributing to a more egalitarian society.
Visit the European Law Group’s webpage to find out more and get in contact.
Image: The many organizers of the European Law Group.