European Administrative Law Dialogues

All administrative law dialogues will take place online.

Next discussion

• 4 June 2025, 10:00-11:30 CET
  The mirage and reality of the “international administrative law”

   

  Speakers: Jakub Handrlica (Charles University) & Henrik Wenander (Lund University)
  
  The 7^th European Administrative Law Dialogue will take place on June 4 and will focus on the broader topic of international administrative law. Join us for an insightful discussion between Prof Jakub Handrlica and Prof Henrik Wenander. 
  Almost 125 years ago, Karl Neumeyer approached the scientific council of the Munich University with his “habilitation” lecture, which included a provocative thesis – “International administrative law represents a newly emerging branch of international private law”. While international private law governs cases where foreign law is to be applied in relations of private law, Neumayer argued that a similar system of foreign law application must also be built up in administrative law. Thus, international administrative law, as understood by Neumeyer, is a purely domestic branch of law. The term “international” refers to a foreign element, which is to be addressed by a particular norm of administrative law. Such a norm either calls for a direct application of foreign law or an indirect application – those are the cases of recognition of foreign acts. 

  
  
  Some decades after, Neumeyer bitterly observed on the first pages of his monumental Internationales Verwaltungsrecht that virtually no member of the scientific council paid any attention to this argument during his lecture. Since then, international administrative law has remained both ambiguous and marginal. While international private law has established itself as an integral part of research and teaching curricula at law schools in Europe and beyond, international administrative law remains in limbo of obscurity. Neumeyer himself developed a basic theoretical scheme for this field of public law, which was, however, strictly connected to German legislation. Some decades later, Giuseppe Biscottini made a similar attempt in Italy. Some German handbooks of administrative law contain a brief chapter on international administrative law. However, lectures in international administrative law are, in principle, absent in the curricula of most law faculties. There are no LL.M. courses in this field of law or summer schools on international administrative law. 
  
  In this dialogue, the following issues will be addressed: 

  
  1. Why has international administrative law never gained the position international private law has in legal research and education? 

  
  2. International administrative law, as developed by Karl Neumeyer, has been understood as a legal system that addresses foreign elements in administrative law. Is this concept still viable, or does it need an upgrade? 

  
  3. Today, one refers to both international private law and the EU's international private law. Can we, in the same vein, speak about EU international administrative law?

  
  

Previous discussions in 2025

• 24 March 2025, 15:30-17:00 CET 

  
  Book Launch: EU Administrative Law by Diana-Urania Galetta and Jacques Ziller
  Speakers: Diana-Urania Galetta (Università degli Studi di Milano), Jacques Ziller (Professor Emeritus), Catherine Haguenau-Moizard (Université de Strasbourg), and Herwig Hofmann (Université du Luxembourg) 
  
  The next REALaw Dialogue is dedicated to the discussion of a fascinating new book: EU Administrative Law by Diana-Urania Galetta and Jacques Ziller. 
  This insightful book analyses the theory and practice of administrative law in the European Union and its member states. Adopting a functional approach, Diana-Urania Galetta and Jacques Ziller provide a detailed overview of the law as it applies to EU institutions, bodies, offices, agencies, and member state authorities.
  Drawing on insights from comparative law, Galetta and Ziller explore key topics including administrative procedure, judicial review, legal instruments and executive function, and investigate how multilingualism mediates the interaction of EU and member state law. The book highlights the importance of change and adaptability in EU administrative law, and examines the role of the policies and institutional systems that govern it. 
  To launch the publication of this book, the authors will engage in conversation with Catherine Haguenau-Moizard and Herwig Hofmann about the present and future of EU administrative law. 
  Click here for the recording.

Discussions in 2024

• 2 December 2024, 16:00-17:30 CET

  
  EU Legal Integration and the Transformation of Local Law
  Speakers: Leticia Díez Sánchez (Maastricht University), Dion Kramer (Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam), Carlo Colombo (Sciences Po and Maastricht University). 
  Cities are on the uprise and taking advantage of the opportunities offered by an integrating Europe. Simultaneously, cities are also facing serious socio-economic challenges related to growing poverty and inequalities, challenges stemming from environmental degradation and challenges to the quality of life in cities by tourism. While these challenges push city governments and other local actors to develop solutions, their regulatory leeway and ability to protect local interests are inevitably constrained by EU law. 

  
  In academic and public discourse, this vertical relationship between the EU and cities tends to be approached from two opposing narratives. One narrative portrays the EU as a disruptive force to local governance: the economic agenda at the heart of European integration produces negative socio-economic, cultural and ecological consequences to communities, reshaping the places where we live, destabilizing our societies and complicating local government. The alternative narrative focusses instead on the EU’s ability to accommodate local interests and to provide innovative solutions. The use of new regulatory techniques and the disbursement of structural funds have gained prominence as tools that tackle societal problems from a local perspective.
  This Dialogue engages with these opposing narratives through three particularly pressing local challenges: platform-driven short-term renting, the rural-urban divide, and social tensions in urban mobility. Exploring the unfolding of the vertical relationship in these areas, the Dialogue assesses the evolution of local regulation in the context of EU legal integration.  
  Click here for the recording.
  
   

• 14 October 2024, 14.00-15.30 CET

  
  Against Administrative Law: Reasons, Arguments and Implications of a US Debate
  Speaker: Edoardo Chiti (Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies)
  Discussants: Susan Rose-Ackerman, (Yale Law School) and Thomas Perroud (l’Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas).
  In the last decade, different strands of anti-administrative approaches have emerged, oriented to disable the administrative state and pointing to the dangers accompanying the expansion and renewal of administrative law. They argue that administrative law is unconstitutional and illiberal. This Dialogue aims to reflect on the reasons explaining the emergence of such legal scholarship, its basic assumptions, ideology and possible impact on traditional administrative law thinking. It also asks whether anti-administrative thinking may indirectly help to clarify the normative foundations of administrative law and the multiple functions that it serves in contemporary polities.
  Click here for the recording.
   

• 30 May 2024, 14.00 - 15.30 CET 
  Administrative Remedies: Lessons from European and Comparative Administrative Law 
  Invited: Prof. Rob Widdershoven (Utrecht University), Prof. Jacopo Alberti (Università degli Studi di Ferrara), Prof. Andrea Biondi (King’s College London) and Prof. Robert Thomas (University of Manchester).
  Join us for the 4th. REALaw European Administrative Law Dialogue on May 30 at 14:00 to delve into the topic of administrative remedies with insights from experts and practitioners. For this edition of our Dialogues, we are joined by Prof. Jacopo Alberti (Universita degli Studi di Ferrara) and Prof. Rob Widdershoven (Utrecht University) along with Prof. Andrea Biondi (King’s College London) and Prof. Robert Thomas (University of Manchester). 
  As overshadowed as administrative remedies may be by the spotlight on courts, national legal orders provide for systems of pretrial administrative remedies that come in various shapes and forms, whereby individuals complain about unlawful administrative action before administrative or quasi-judicial  authorities. These remedies may be used before the authorities which issued the contested decision, before hierarchically higher authorities or before a quasi-judicial entity; they may concern only the legality or also the merits of the administrative action; they may be obligatory or compulsory before complainants gain access to court; they may sometimes lead to a reformatio in peius for the applicant. The composition of the bodies carrying out this form of pretrial administrative review is also varied and may often comprise non-legal expertise. All in all, the landscape of administrative remedies in Europe is varied and under researched. 
  In parallel, a system of administrative remedies at the EU level has emerged through the mushrooming of Boards of Appeals of EU agencies. Progressively, these bodies have become fully part of the EU judiciary machinery since their decisions can now also escape the scrutiny of the Court of Justice. However, their powers, composition, internal and external guarantees have not been amended accordingly. Several questions emerge in this context: to what extent Boards of Appeal can participate in a system devoted to the principle of effective judicial protection, without being themselves bound by the latter? Could they better enhance the protection of individual rights by remaining administrative, quasi-judicial, bodies or should they better evolve into fully fledged judicial entities?
  This new European Administrative Law Dialogue is devoted to examining the systems of administrative remedies from a European and comparative administrative law perspective. Should this system be enhanced and be made obligatory where it is not, so as to lighten the workload of the courts? Should it conversely be made optional, because it is not able to sufficiently respect guarantees of independence and impartiality? How effective is it in protecting individuals’ legal sphere? Can the EU system of administrative remedies learn from the practice at national level or vice versa?
  Click here to watch the recording.

  
   

• 23 January 2024, 15.00-16.30 CET
  Procedural Principles in Contemporary Administrative Law: Between Growing Uncertainties and Practical Challenges
  Invited: Professor Takis Tridimas (King’s College London), Professor Giacinto della Cananea (Bocconi University), Brendan van Alsenoy (EDPS),  Yves Van Gerven (Belgian Competition Authority).
  The third European Administrative Law Dialogue will explore the role and function of procedural principles in contemporary administrative law. The increasing complexity of decision-making procedures, the role of artificial intelligence, the growing uncertainty and polycentrism of administrative law are all factors which arguably reshape and challenge the role of procedural principles, such as the right to be heard, or the duty of care or to give reasons. We will explore the evolving role of principles of administrative decision-making with two academics and two practitioners. Prof. Takis Tridimas and Prof. Giacinto della Cananea will set the scene respectively from a European and a comparative perspective for mapping the conceptual stakes of these procedural principles for the protection of individuals in their relation to the administration. Brendan Van Alsenoy and Yves Van Gerven will discuss the practical challenges for implementing European procedural principles in day-to-day administrative decision-making.
  Click here to watch the recording.

Discussions in 2023

• 3 March 2023, 14.00-15.45h (CET)
  The role of comparative administrative law in shaping European administrative law
  Invited: Professor Joana Mendes (University of Luxembourg), Dr. Filipe Brito Bastos (NOVA University of Lisbon), Tanja Enhert (European Ombudsman, Inquiries Coordinator) and Sacha Prechal (European Court of Justice). 
  It has been noted that comparative administrative law was experiencing a recent renaissance. There is a practical or intellectual curiosity for other administrative systems and solutions, for understanding them, learning from them, coordinating them and/or transcending their differences, subsuming them into a new entity – sometimes European, sometimes global, sometimes transnational. So what do comparative and European administrative lawyers expect? What are their objectives and how do they think that they might be able to achieve them? 
  Click here to watch the recording
   

• 27 November 2023, 15.00-16.30h (CET)
  Our Parochial Administrative Law: the value of comparative law for the development of U.S. administrative law. 
  I​​​​nvited: Professor Dr. Oren Tamir. 

  Join us for a discussion with Oren Tamir on his upcoming publication “Our Parochial Administrative Law”. This online event will zoom in on U.S. administrative law and the value of meaningful and productive comparative research.  
  Professor Liz Fisher, University of Oxford, and Professor Mariolina Eliantonio, Maastricht University, will accompany Dr Oren Tamir in a dialogue on the value of comparative legal research, the development of U.S. administrative law, and on the exchange of lessons between European and U.S. administrative law. 
  Going back to the birth of modern administrative law in America reveals something striking. The “pioneers” of the field and many who followed in their footsteps weren’t trying to fashion a body of law for a rapidly expanding administrative state by being exclusively self-referential—that is, focusing only on our own idiosyncratic experiences and needs. Rather, they were consistently looking at what the U.S. might learn from other jurisdictions as well. In short, modern administrative law began in our system very much as an exercise in comparative law. Fast forward to today, and this intense comparative engagement has almost vanished from the administrative law scene. It lives only on the margins of the scholarly debate without any real purchase or impact. But even when administrative comparison does rarely appear in prominent places, its employment seems highly problematic, giving the entire enterprise a bad rap. For instance, in his dissent from a denial of cert in Buffington v. McDonough from this past term Justice Gorsuch chastised his colleagues for refusing to reevaluate Chevron deference among other things by noting that other countries “declined to adopt” something similar. To be sure, Justice Gorsuch’s statement is superficially true. But it suffers from many of the familiar failures of irresponsible comparison—including by being shallow, acontextual, and selective. In fact, Justice Gorsuch’s comparativism in Buffington may not only be flawed but also what comparativists might call “abusive”—i.e., done in the service of undermining what our constitutionally legitimate administrative state presently seems to require. 
  Click here for more information.