Event summary by our intern Blake Atherton:
On Wednesday evening, November 2, Dr Joris Larik, Assistant Professor of Comparative, EU, and International Law at Leiden University and Senior Researcher at the Hague Institute for Global Justice, presented a lecture for the Centre for Global Constitutionalism. Dr Larik began by contextualising the aggregate power, level of interconnectedness, and core legal principles of the European Union. Dr Larik elucidated how, legally, power is shared among disparate member states and how this arrangement may constrain or benefit members depending on context. Dr Larik then presented two case studies, trade and security, to juxtapose the relative success the EU has enjoyed in the realm of trade (in terms of solidarity) and the relative difficulty it has encountered in the realm of collective defence. In view of these case studies, Dr Larik turned his attention to the future of the EU in the wake of Brexit and prospects for continued improvement in coordination among member states, emphasising that a more synchronised and systematic approach to security objectives in the EU is or paramount importance.