1st Conference on Decolonising EU Law

At a conference in Copenhagen in 2022, organiser Hanna Eklund stated that: 
“Understanding more about colonialism and the EU legal order is not merely, although is importantly also, a historical exercise; it has the potential to constitute a starting point for examinations of the EU law of today.” 

‘Decolonisation of EU law’ constitutes such a starting point for examinations of EU law. This would be a move away from a framework of thinking that is Eurocentric and privileges this way 
of seeing above other experiences and perspectives from parts of the world. It is a potentially exciting new approach, broader than diversifying (diversity is only part of the decolonisation agenda because diversity can still exist within a “western bias”), which can open up the world of European integration and EU law to a new generation of scholars and audiences. 

The purpose of this conference is to consider in more detail what this starting point could look like – what happens when we take colonialism and coloniality as the starting point for our interaction with EU law? How do these ideas amend the purpose, principles and practice that inform our research and teaching in EU law today? What traditions need to change and what remains the same? Is this even possible – can EU law “shake off its commitment to colonial ways of thinking” (Meghji)?

This conference therefore aims to provide an opportunity for informed reflection on the EU law canon: what is seen as worthy of study, as well as the way in which core issues pertaining to Europe are told and who has legitimacy to tell those stories. Reflection on decolonisation in EU law also raises the broader question of what legal education is for and who the legal profession needs to be training to create an accessible and sustainable justice system that 
supports and strengthens social justice in a multi-cultural democracy.

Conference Programme:
 

9:15 – 9:30: Opening remarks and welcome from Iyiola Solanke 

Purpose – Why decolonise EU Law?

9:30 – 10:45   Panel 1: Colonial Legacies in EU Law 

Chair               Iyiola Solanke

Discussant     Patricia Ouma

Speakers

• Hanna Eklund – ‘The Theory and Practice of European Integration’
• Emily Marker – ‘Decolonizing Europe’s “Spiritual Infrastructure”: The Late Colonial Origins of Institutional Europe’s Youth & Education Policy’
• Michel Erpelding – ‘International lawyers, mixed lawyers, Euro-lawyers: the contribution of semi-colonial legal experiences to the emergence of supranational law’ 

10:45 – 11:15: Coffee break 

11:15 – 12:30   Keynote Lecture: Principles of Decolonisation

Chair                    Iyiola Solanke

Speaker

• Folúke Adébísí – ‘What on Earth is Decolonisation?’ 

12:30 – 13:45: Lunch

Practice - How to decolonise EU law

13:45 – 15:00  Panel 2: Internal Market law

Chair               Gildelen Atybiyo

Discussant     Nozizwe Dube

Speakers

• Martijn Hesselink – ‘Prefigurative EU Law ’
• Janine Silga – ‘Decolonising EU Migration Law: A New Direction for European Integration?’
• Joshua Castellino – ‘EU Law and Colonial Crime: Regulation of the Supply Chain’ 

15:00 – 15:30: Coffee break 

15:30 – 16:15  Panel 3: EU external law 

Chair               Amaka Vanni

Discussant     Zakariya Nahoue

Speakers

• Antonio Salvador M Alcazar III – ‘Brussels’s burden: (Un)making the global souths in the European Union’s preferential trade policy’
• Lionel Zevounou – ‘European Union post-colonial heritages’

16.15 – 16.45  Decolonising the Curriculum in Practice

• Rosario Grima Algora - EU Law
• Mihika Poddar - Criminal Law

16:45 – 17:00  Closing remarks/ Next steps - Iyiola Solanke