Maria Esther Jordana Santiago

Maria Esther Jordana Santiago is a Lecturer in Public Law at the University of Girona, with a robust specialization in Public International Law and European Union Law. After earning her law degree and a Master’s in European Integration from the Autonomous University of Barcelona, she completed her PhD in International Relations and European Integration at the same institution. 

Her academic research sheds light on the mechanisms of international judicial cooperation in criminal matters. In particular, she explores the institutionalisation of EU agencies such as Eurojust and their role in promoting cross-border judicial collaboration within Europe. Her 2018 monograph on Eurojust critically examines the agency’s contribution to shaping a new model of EU criminal justice cooperation.  

Her work has also focused on the development of the European Union’s Area of Freedom, Security and Justice (AFSJ), with particular emphasis on its implications for fundamental rights. In recent years, she has increasingly examined the intersection of criminal justice, migration control, and security policies—especially the emerging phenomenon of the criminalisation and instrumentalisation of migration at the EU’s external borders. Nowadays she is a member of the research Project entitled A contested European Union in a fragmenting international order (COURAGE) funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities of Spain (PID2023-147735NB-I00). 

She has taught both undergraduate and postgraduate courses in Public International Law and EU Law at the University of Girona, the Autonomous University of Barcelona, and in Human Rights at the Institut Barcelona d’Estudis Internacionals (IBEI). Her professional background includes tenure with the Spanish delegation to the European Union Agency for Criminal Justice Cooperation (Eurojust), where she worked for over eighteen months. 

Her scholarly excellence was recognized with the 2017 ‘Adolfo Miaja de la Muela’ Award of the Spanish Association of Professors of International Law and International Relations, honouring her doctoral dissertation as the best in Public International Law.