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Open Borders and Fundamental Rights in Europe

Vak
2024-2025

Admission requirements

Admission to the MA International Relations, track European Union Studies, or the European Politics and Society Joint Master Programme.

Description

This course studies the challenges and contradictory imperatives that result from the EU’s decision to do away with internal border controls. Borderless movement is perhaps the most liberal achievement of the EU, but it has brought with it an emphasis on external border security and joint efforts at crime prevention and law enforcement that create frictions with the liberal paradigm. More than ever, the EU itself – including agents directly employed by the EU – is activley involved in operations that affect the fundamental rights of EU citizens and third country nationals. The course focuses on origins and consequences of the EU’s attempts to square the circle between ‘Freedom, Security, and Justice’, to which it aspires. To do so, it covers the law and politics of the EU’s system of fundamental rights protection, its border regime, and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters. The course has been designed to provide students with the necessary tools to take informed positions in legal and political debates about the EU’s policy choices on such fundamental concerns.

Course objectives

Upon successful completion of the course, participants can

  • Explain the origins and consequences of the EU’s decision to abolish internal border controls

  • identify and interpret basic aspects of EU law in the areas of migration and asylum, and police and judicial cooperation in criminal matters

  • identify and interpret the system of fundamental rights protection the EU

  • identify and interpret basic aspects of procedural law relating to how EU rights can be enforced

  • research sources of law and their judicial interpretation

  • solve a legal problem, in cooperation with others

  • present the solution and argue for its validity in a Moot Court setting

Timetable

The timetables are available through My Timetable.

Mode of instruction

Seminar

Assessment method

Assessment

The achievement of the learning objectives will be assessed in the following way:

  • Students (in groups) write a legal brief for a Moot Court case, representing one of the parties to the case (3000 words)

  • Students present this brief in a Moot Court proceeding

  • Students write a final exam: a written examination with short and long open questions

Weighing

The final mark for the course is established by determining the weighted average of the individual components:

  • Legal brief: 40%

  • Presentation in Moot Court: 20%

  • Final exam: 40%

To pass the course, participation in the Moot Court is mandatory, and the weighted average of the partial grades must be 5.5 or higher.

Resit

Any course participant who did not pass the course is eligible for a resit.

  • where participation in the Moot Court was impossible due to imperative personal reasons, the student will write a new legal brief and present it to the instructor

  • where the student has participated in the Moot Court but the weighted average of the partial grades was lower than 5.5, the student will take a resit exam: a written examination with short and long open questions

Inspection and feedback

How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.

Reading list

A syllabus will be provided before the start of the course. Reading will partially be based on EU law textbooks that may require a purchase or electronic loan for about 40€.

Registration

Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.

General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.

Contact

  • For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.

  • For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Huizinga

Remarks

Not applicable.