The  Involvement  of  EU Law in  Private Law Relationships

28th-29th September 2011, St Anne’s College, Oxford

Organisers: Prof. Stephen Weatherill and Dr Dorota Leczykiewicz

The purpose of the conference is to inquire into the nature and purpose of the involvement of European Union law in private law relationships. Together with our speakers and conference participants we would like to examine how individuals become affected by the operation of EU law and its doctrines.  This inquiry will be conducted at two levels: the substantive and the constitutional. At the substantive level we would like to establish where EU law intervenes in private law relationships and which instruments of EU law apply directly in national proceedings. At the constitutional level we would like to investigate the question of the appropriateness of EU law’s involvement in private law relationships and how this involvement could be normatively justified. Conference papers will address this issue by looking, on the one hand, at individual sectors of private law and, on the other, at more general concepts of EU law, such as the Internal Market freedoms and general principles of law, and at different modes of ensuring the effective application of EU secondary law. From these investigations we hope to draw broader descriptive and normative conclusions about the place of private autonomy in EU law and address directly the scope of policy objectives which are apt to legitimise the European Union’s as yet unsystematic tendency to serve as a source of its restriction.

The conference is partially funded by a conference support grant from the British Academy.

Confirmed speakers

Prof. Daniela Caruso (Boston University)
Prof. Monica Claes (Maastricht University)
Prof. Hugh Collins (London School of Economics and Political Science)
Prof. Gareth Davies (VU University Amsterdam)
Prof. Michael Dougan (University of Liverpool)
Prof. Mark Freedland (University of Oxford)
Prof. Martijn Hesselink (University of Amsterdam)
Mr. Angus Johnston (University of Oxford)
Dr Dorota Leczykiewicz (University of Oxford)
Dr Vanessa Mak (Tilburg University)
Dr Okeoghene Odudu (University of Cambridge)
Prof. Norbert Reich (University of Bremen)
Prof. Peter Rott (University of Copenhagen)
Prof. Stephen Weatherill (University of Oxford)
Prof. Simon Whittaker (University of Oxford)

Standard registration fee: academics - £ 140, research students - £ 70
Conference dinner on 28th September - £ 60