Book Launch: A Union of Peoples - Europe as a Community of Principle

In his recent book A Union of Peoples: Europe as a Community of Principle (Oxford, 2020) Oxford academic Pavlos Eleftheriadis proposes an ‘internationalist’ theory of the EU and argues that the substance of EU law is not constitutional, but international. He argues that the EU is a union of democratic peoples, freely organizing their interdependence on the basis of principles of equality and reciprocity. In this official book launch, Professor Eleftheriadis will be discussing the main ideas of the book with two leading legal scholars: Professor Takis Tridimas (King’s College London) and Professor Stephen Weatherill (Oxford). The discussion will be chaired by the Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights Professor Kate O’ Regan (Oxford). 

The event is co-organised by the Jurisprudence Discussion Group and the European Union Law Discussion Group of the Faculty of Law. 

An audio recording of this event is available to listen to on Soundcloud

Pavlos Eleftheriadis is Professor of Public Law at the University of Oxford.  He specialises in constitutional law, European Union law and jurisprudence. His books include Legal Rights (Oxford University Press, 2008) and A Union of Peoples: Europe as a Community of Principle (Oxford University Press, 2020). He is also the co-editor (with Julie Dickson) of the collection of essays The Philosophical Foundations of European Union Law (Oxford University Press, 2012). He practises as a barrister in public and EU law from Francis Taylor Building in the Temple. He has been a Fellow of Mansfield College, Oxford since 2003. 

Professor Takis Tridimas is a leading scholar in the field of European Union law. He served as référendaire to Advocate General Sir Francis Jacobs at the European Court of Justice (1992-1995). He has acted as advisor or counsel to many public and private organizations, including the European Central Bank, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the EU Court of Auditors. He practises as a barrister from Matrix Chambers. Among his recent books are: The General Principles of EU Law,2nd ed (Oxford, 2007) and Schütze and Tridimas (eds.), Oxford Principles of European Union Law: Volume I (Oxford, 2018). 

Professor Stephen Weatherill is the Jacques Delors Professor of European Law at the University of Oxford. He is also Deputy Director for European Law in the Institute of European and Comparative Law and a Fellow of Somerville College. Some of his recent books are Cases and Materials on EU Law, 12th ed. (Oxford, 2016), Law and Values in the European Union (Oxford, 2016), Principles and Practice in EU Sports Law (Oxford, 2017), Contract Law of the Internal Market (Intersentia, 2017) and The Internal Market as a Legal Concept (Oxford, 2017).

Kate O’ Regan is the inaugural Director of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and a former judge of the South African Constitutional Court (1994 – 2009). Since her fifteen-year term at the South African Constitutional Court ended in 2009,  she has amongst other things served as an ad hoc judge of the Supreme Court of Namibia (from 2010 - 2016), Chairperson of the Khayelitsha Commission of Inquiry into allegations of police inefficiency and a breakdown in trust between the police and the community of Khayelitsha (2012 – 2014), and as a member of the boards or advisory bodies of many NGOs working in the fields of democracy, the rule of law, human rights and equality.