Dora Kostakopoulou is to speak at the Durham European Law Institute's lunchtime seminar series. Dora's seminar, titled 'When Tomorrow is Yesterday: the Manufacturing of an EU Referendum', will take place on Tuesday 8 December at the University of Durham.

Tom Flynn has recently featured on TV and radio discussing the constitutional issues raised by the vote in the House of Lords.

Please see below for the links to see Tom's interviews:

BBC News channel

BBC Coventry and Warwickshire

Ben Farrand, Giuliano Castellano, Andi Hoxhaj and Dora Kostakopoulou have been awarded funding by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES) to organise a workshop in Spring 2016. The workshop, titled ‘Crisis and Innovation in the European Union: Beyond Populism and Managerialism’, will be held on 8 April 2016 at the University of Warwick.

The aim of this interdisciplinary workshop is to explore the impact of 'crises', in their material and ideational forms, upon EU institutional and policy-making dynamics. Emphasis will also be put on identifying policy responses focusing upon 'innovation' as a strategy. By bringing together experts working on institutional corruption, financial regulation, intellectual property law and policy and EU free movement, migration and human rights we will explore the EU's identification of the causes and impacts of 'crises', as well as actual and possible responses. In seeking to transcend both populist and managerial discourses and responses, the workshop participants will reflect on the EU's response to increasing numbers of people seeking sanctuary in Europe and the Member States' recalcitrance to a unified response, the EU's actions in financial regulation as well as the Europe 2020 and Justice and Home Affairs 2020 agendas.

Social scientists from the University of Warwick are carrying out an urgent research project on the current migratory situation in Europe, using emergency funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC).

Led by Dr Vicki Squire from the Department of Politics and International Studies, the team are speaking to refugees and migrants in an attempt to understand better the journeys they have made across the Mediterranean Sea.

The Warwick European Law Society this week hosted the third annual Warwick German Law Moot, with teams from UCL, Birmingham and Warwick competing.

All teams performed extremely well and did a good job in making their case – in German - with the team from UCL coming first place overall.

Congratulations to all the teams.

In the UK Research Excellence Framework results (announced 18 December 2014), Warwick Law School was assessed as coming 6th out of 67 Law Departments in terms of its Research Environment, 7th in terms of the Quality of its Research and 10th overall.

Full details can be found on the REF website.

This book maps out, from a variety of theoretical standpoints, the challenges generated by European integration and EU citizenship for community membership, belonging and polity-making beyond the state. It does so by focusing on three main issues of relevance for how EU citizenship has developed and its capacity to challenge state sovereignty and authority as the main loci of creating and delivering rights and protection. First, it looks at the relationship between citizenship of the Union and European identity and assesses how immigration and access to nationality in the Member States impact on the development of a common European identity. Secondly, it discusses how the idea of solidarity interacts with the boundaries of EU citizenship as constructed by the entitlement and capacity of mobile citizens to enjoy equality and social rights as EU citizens. Thirdly, the book engages with issues of EU citizenship and equality as the building blocks of the EU project. By engaging with these themes, this volume provides a topical and comprehensive account of the present and future development of Union citizenship and studies the collisions between the realisation of its constructive potential and Member State autonomy.

Reflexive Labour Law in the World Society investigates trends in labour and employment law from the perspective of modern social systems theory.

It uses Niklas Luhmann’s theory of the world society and Gunther Teubner’s reflexive law concept for an analysis of modern employment law and industrial relations. Areas investigated include: reflexive employment protection; the reflexive regulation and deregulation of labour market policies and labour law; reflexivity in labour and employment conflict resolution; reflexive coordination and implementation of EU social and employment law; and reflexive global labour law.

Since the mid 1990s, the focus of European employment and social policy has shifted from protection to promotion. This book provides a timely analysis of this new form of governance, and the new forms of policy delivery and audit which accompany it.

Public Benefit in Charity Law examines the legal principles and practical applications of the public benefit test in charity law in the UK, Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the Republic of Ireland. In order to obtain charitable status, an organization must not only have exclusively charitable purpose but also demonstrate that it provides a benefit to the public.

The book sets out a critical analysis of the general principles of public benefit that have developed since the emergence of the doctrine in England in the nineteenth century, and its export to the other jurisdictions. These principles are evaluated in the light of the traditional justifications for the public benefit requirement. The book also considers the practical implications of these principles in relation to specific areas of charitable activity in each jurisdictions. The analysis includes issues affecting education, health care provision, religious charities, human rights charities, political campaigning, and environmental action. Reference to other jurisdictions including the Republic of Ireland and the USA is made where such comparison is helpful.

Sixty years on from the signing of the Refugee Convention, forced migration and refugee movements continue to raise global concerns for hosting states and regions, for countries of origin, for humanitarian organisations on the ground, and, of course, for the refugee. This edited volume is framed around two themes which go to the core of contemporary ‘refugeehood’: protection and identity. It analyses how the issue of refugee identity is shaped by and responds to the legal regime of refugee protection in contemporary times.

Conflict of Laws provides a straight-forward and accessible introduction to English private international law. It examines the jurisdiction of English courts (and whether their judgments are enforced and recognized overseas) and the effect of foreign judgments in England. Recent years have seen an increased ‘Europeanization’ of English Law which has transformed the subject and this fifth edition takes into account key recent developments and regulations including proposed changes to Brussels I, Rome II, The Maintenance Regulation, Rome III, the proposed Rome IV and the proposed Succession Regulation.