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About us

We build on the Birkbeck School of Law's rich heritage in the field of critical jurisprudence, to promote studies of European Law throughout Birkbeck, and beyond.

Aims and objectives

  • Our objective is to encourage the evolution of European law, by promoting policy-makers' use of critical legal methodologies in the development of laws. Our interest is not only in the law of the European Union but also the broader law applying within the European area.

Research focus

  • We aim to offer and to promote new, sometimes unexpected, perspectives on the role of European law within and beyond the United Kingdom. Current projects include:
    • the Romani Justice project (Eddie Bruce-Jones in collaboration with the Centre for Research on Race and Law)
    • expertise and combating populism (Michelle Everson)
    • space, law and boundaries (Mukesh Bhatt).

Research collaboration

  • We welcome opportunities to collaborate with individuals, organisations and networks with shared interests. Many of our collaborations involve or support policy-makers.
  • In the past, we worked closely with the TARN project, which was co-founded by Professor Everson, our Director. TARN is The Academic Research Network on Agencification of EU Executive Governance, which sought to foster academic research on European agencies and to provide a platform for dialogue between researchers and EU and global policy-makers.
  • Dr Bruce-Jones currently collaborates with the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History, where he holds an Assistant Director Fellowship in European Legal History. Previously he has co-hosted workshops at Birkbeck in 2016 with Max Planck researchers to promote their research projects on legal transfers in the common law.
  • Dr Bruce-Jones also works with the European Roma Rights Centre on the Romani Justice project, which aims to document, translate, analyse and educate the broader public on discrimination litigation involving Roma communities across Europe. This project (the first of this scale and significance) aims to analyse both European and national court decisions for the benefit of academics and legal practitioners.

Boards and committees

  • The director of the centre is Professor Michelle Everson.  
  • We are supported by an advisory board made up of members from other schools at Birkbeck as well as internationally renowned scholars in the field of critical European Law.