Professor Carlo Panara

I am an expert in EU Public Law, with my area of specialism being in the role of regions and local authorities in the EU. My interest in this field originates from my PhD in Comparative Public Law at the University of Perugia, Italy, where I compared the legislative powers of the German Länder and of the Italian regions. Later I broadened the scope of my research and became a leading legal expert on multilevel governance and subsidiarity in the EU. I joined Leicester University as Chair and Head of the Law School in August 2024, after holding teaching and research positions at Liverpool John Moores University (where I led the School of Law from 2019 to 2024), Hull University and the University of Perugia. I am the co-Editor-in-Chief of the peer reviewed journal European Public Law (Kluwer Law International, European Public Law - Kluwer Law Online).

I have internationally leading expertise on multi-level governance in the EU, on the role of the regions and local authorities in the EU, and on subsidiarity, fields in which I am widely published in some of the most reputable legal and political science journals and received external funding from important funding bodies including the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.

My work takes multiple systems of law – domestic, EU, comparative, international – as key points of reference, deconstructing convergence and divergence, to expose connections and discordance between the different systems. My second monograph titled “The Subnational Dimension of the EU – A Legal Study on Multilevel Governance” (2015, Springer), was the first book to offer an extensive legal insight into the notion of and debate on multilevel governance in the EU.

(2026) Substate policies and internal market rules, in: European University Institute, Oxford Encyclopaedia of EU Law (OEEUL), Oxford University Press.

(2026 update) Casamance Conflict, in: Rüdiger Wolfrum (ed.), Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

(2025) The New Relationship between the UK and the EU, Springer, Heidelberg, 466pp. [edited by Carlo Panara and Emmanuel Guinchard].

(2025) The European Office of the UK Local Authorities and Devolved Administrations After Brexit, in: E. Guinchard and C. Panara (eds.), The New Relationship between the UK and the EU, Springer, Heidelberg, 2025, pp. 429-455.

(2024) Engagement with the EU by Local and Regional Authorities from South East Europe [by Carlo Panara and Jasmina Džinić), in: Croatian and Comparative Public Administration, 2024, Vol. 24, No. 4, pp. 603-634.

(2023) The European Offices of the UK Local Authorities and Devolved Administrations in Light of Patrick Birkinshaw’s Concept of European Public Law,in: Katarzyna Gromek Broc (ed.), Public Law in a Troubled Era: A Tribute to Professor Patrick Birkinshaw, Kluwer Law International, 2023.

(2022) Subsidiarity vs. Autonomy in the EU, in: European Public Law, 2022, Vol. 28, No. 2, pp. 269-296.

(2021) The activities in Brussels of the Local and Regional Authorities from the Free Trade Area Countries, in: Regional & Federal Studies, 2022, Vol. 32, No. 5, pp. 557-572 (published online on 17 February 2021).

(2019) Religious Symbol or Something Else? The Legal and Political Signification of the Crucifix in Italy from the Unification of the Country (1861) to the Present Day, in: D. Jensen and J. Bhuiyan (eds.), Law and Religion in the Liberal State (Hart Publishing).

(2019 update) Peaceful Coexistence, in: Rüdiger Wolfrum (ed.), The Max Planck Encyclopaedia of Public International Law (Oxford University Press) [by Carlo Panara and Paul French].

(2019) Deconstructing and Reconstructing Good Governance in relation to Regional and Local Participation in EU Decision-Making Processes, in: G. Abels and I. Battke (eds.), Regions and the Future of Europe (Edward Elgar).

(2019) The ‘Europe with the Regions’ Before the Court of Justice, in: Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, 2019, Volume 26, No. 2.

I welcome prospective doctoral candidates in European law and policy and particularly from candidates interested in the subnational dimension of the EU, multilevel governance, subsidiarity and the Foreign and Security Policy of the EU.

Undergraduate
Law of EU-UK Relations LW2240

The new and still evolving relationship between the UK and the EU.