News and events
The latest activities from CELI
CELI Director appointed to Advisory Board of Leading Journal in European Law
Professor Katja Ziegler was invited and accepted to join the Advisory Board of the journal European Public Law, published by Kluwer.
CELI ANNUAL LECTURE 2024
Tom de la Mare KC on 'Taking back Executive Control: the post-Brexit Democratic Deficit of the UK'.
Tom de la Mare KC is a leading barrister in the field of EU law, public law and regulatory law. He has been involved in some of the most prominent recent cases involving EU Fundamental Rights and EU Treaty rights issues. He is an acclaimed expert on the UK’s post-Brexit constitutional landscape (in particular, the implementation and effect of the Withdrawal Agreement and the Trade and Cooperation Agreement) and its implementation in the UK (in particular, through the EU Withdrawal Act 2018 and the EU Future Relationship Act 2020). He acted for the Public Law Project in the Miller 2 litigation and for the UK in CJEU Grand Chamber hearing in Wightman, as well as in the two last references from UK Courts (London Steam-Ship Owners Mutual Insurance Association and CG), both of which have spawned significant post-IP Completion Day litigation.
His lecture he will illuminate the continued effect and relevance of EU law in the UK (through “retained EU law”, now “assimilated law”), drawing on his case practice in recent years. It will discuss how the conferral of extensive and largely untrammelled powers of delegated legislative powers, including unparalleled Henry VIII powers to amend primary legislation have unbalanced our domestic order, leaving the UK with its own democratic deficit in the form of largely unaccountable executive powers.
Details:
Open to: all
Date: 8 May 2024, 16:00 (UK Time)
Venue: University of Leicester, David Wilson Library - Meeting Room (ground floor)
Organiser: Professor Katja Ziegler
Are we becoming more tolerant of immigration?
Professor Lauren McLaren, School of History, Politics and International Relations of the University of Leicester.
After decades of large-scale immigration to European democracies, are mass publics becoming more accepting of immigrants and immigration? If so, what explains these trends? Do policies regarding the treatment of immigrants have any bearing on public opinion about immigration? And what are the potential implications of trends in public attitudes to immigration for governments that continue to ‘talk tough’ on immigration (and vice versa)? This lecture addresses some of these pressing questions using decades of public opinion data from Britain and other European democracies and ultimately argues that gradual but significant change may be underway in many countries.
Details:
Date and time: 12 March 2024, 13:00-14:15 UK Time
Venue: hybrid JGR Room, Fielding Johnson Building
Organiser: Dr Konstantina Sampani
“White Supremacy, Racial Segregation and Contested Ideas of Freedom in the USA”
Professor George Lewis, School of History, Politics & International Relations of the University of Leicester.
Many commentators have framed the rise of an authoritarian political right and “Trumpism” in the United States as a Twenty-First Century aberration, variously located as a reaction to the first African American President or, for example, as an indicator of the decay of traditional party structures. This lecture seeks to place that rise in the context of a long historical arc, and argues that the modern US right reflects strong continuities rather than sudden fractures. In particular, it will look to the ways in which segregationists from the 1950s and 1960s tried to formulate ideas of freedom which conformed to their deeply conservative world view – one in which that freedom was routinely denied to whole sections of the nation’s citizenry. The long civil rights movement, it will be argued, is as much about ideas as about protest, and the battle over those ideas continues to rage in the modern USA.
Details
Open to: all
Date and time: 21 February 2024, 12:00 - 13:00 UK Time
Venue: hybrid JGR Room, Fielding Johnson Building, Leicester School of Law and on Teams (Link here)
Organiser: Dr Konstantina Sampani
'The role of the ECOWAS Court in subregional efforts to address the challenge of unconstitutional changes of government in West Africa'
Justice Edward Amoako Asante, President of the Community Court of Justice, ECOWAS
Justice Edward Amoako Asante is a Ghanaian jurist, judicial administrator, and judge of the ECOWAS Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the Economic Community of West African States, the 15-member West African political and economic bloc. Appointed to the ECOWAS Court in July 2018, Justice Asante was elected by his peers as the 6th President of the Court for a two-year term. He has since served as the President of the Court, having been re-elected for a second term in August 2020 and a third term in October 2022.
Justice Asante received his legal education at the University of Ghana and the Ghana School of Law and was admitted to the Ghana Bar in 1991. After about a decade of legal practice, including as a Legal Officer of the Ghana Legal Aid Commission, Justice Asante was appointed as a Circuit Court Judge in Ghana. He was elevated to the superior court bench as Justice of the High Court of Ghana in 2008 and served as the Supervising High Court Judge in the Western Region of Ghana, where he managed the administrative functions and staff of over 30 courts.
Following his stellar legal and judicial career, including his tenure as the President of the ECOWAS Court, the President of the Republic of Ghana, in August 2020, appointed Justice Asante to Ghana’s Court of Appeal, the second-highest court after the Supreme Court.
Justice Asante has over 30 years of experience as a lawyer and judge, with expertise in many areas of law, including public international law, international human rights law, mediation, and arbitration. He has acted as a resource person in these areas at various conferences and seminars and has been invited to deliver lectures and presentations at reputable institutions around the world.
Details
Date and time: 18 January 2024
Venue: Online
Organiser: Dr Joycelin Eze-Okubuiro