Projekte

Jean Monnet Chair mit Förderung der EU-Kommission im Rahmen des Lifelong Learning Programme

Zielsetzung: Courses on EU law have been taught in Germany for decades, reflecting its status as a founding member of the European Communities. This tradition has a drawback: most courses on EU law at German law departments follow a conventional outline mirroring the situation in the 1980s and 1990s when the fundamental freedoms and the single market dominated ECJ case-law. As a result, most mandatory EU law courses at bachelor level first introduce the institutional foundations of the EU before focusing on the fundamental freedoms. This is reflected in most EU law textbooks and the qualification requirements for the State Diploma in Law (Staatsexamen) in the German regional states. This application aims at updating legal education, in particular in the field of human rights. In order to achieve the overall modernisation objective a three-pronged approach will be followed:

(1) Mainstreaming EU Human Rights: Mandatory courses for all law students at bachelor level (and participating students from other disciplines) reflect the traditional approach to EU law as the law of the single market and neglect the constitutional dimension of EU human rights. The new relevance and visibility of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights shall be used a trigger to demonstrate the relevance and reach of EU law for all law students, including those who do not choose EU law as the area of specialisation.

(2) Specialisation on Migration and Human Rights: The curriculum for the State Diploma in Law (Staatsexamen) gives universities discretion to design specialised modules as optional add-ons. Within the context of this application, in 2013 a new module on European and international law shall be established in Konstanz, which will include specialised courses on migration and human rights law. These courses will be based on new teaching methods, such as, delivering lectures in English, an approach that has up until now been absent in law lectures in Konstanz (see below D.2).

(3) PhD Students in Dialogue with Practitioners: The debate about the legal regime for the cross-border movement of persons is dominated by practitioners. This is true for both intra-European migration of Union citizens (workers, family members and others) and the distinct legal regime for third-country nationals (border controls, visa, immigration, asylum). It is therefore of crucial importance that PhD students engage in regular debates with practitioners to develop an understanding of the functioning of the politically sensitive area of human rights and migration law in practice. In sharp contrast to this, most PhDs students in Germany, in particular in law, write their PhD thesis in relative isolation. Therefore, within the context of this application, the applicant’s chair will support PhD students from Konstanz working on migration and human rights to establish personal contacts with practitioners from the government, the judiciary and non-governmental organisations within the ‘migration policy forum’ and ‘migration roundtables’ (see below D.2).

• Thym, Daniel - Projektleiter*in

• AG Thym (Öffentliches Recht mit Europarecht und Völkerrecht)