Thematic Clusters
Thematic Clusters
These working sessions explore the challenges posed by democratic backsliding within Europe and examine how such developments threaten the rule of law and institutional integrity including legislative deterioration, institutional capture, autocratization. Through legal analysis, political critique, and methodological innovation, they assess strategies for resilience, enforcement and restoration across national and supranational contexts.
Working Sessions:
Legislative Backsliding and the Rule of Law in Europe
Restoring the Rule of Law? Between Legal Principles and Political Realities
If states undermine the ICC’s rule of law: is there a judge beyond The Hague?
Rule of Money - Rule of Law: The future of conditionality in the EU budget
Identifying Risk Scenarios for an Authoritarian Turn of the EU
These sessions evolve around the questions of how the rule of law interacts with and is challenged by structural transformations due to digitalization, transnational environmental governance and authoritarian economic strategies. They highlight the need for interdisciplinary legal responses transcend traditional institutional and national boundaries.
Working Sessions:
Digital transformation in the labour market, human mobility and rule of law: what gives?
Laws for Forests: A Cross-Border Dialogue
The “Authoritarian Market Playbook”: how do autocrats rule markets and entrench political power?
These interactive sessions examine how civil society actors, legal professionals and scholar-activists mobilize to defend fundamental rights and the rule of law amid democratic decline. They explore the tools, dilemmas and strategies of advocacy, legal intervention, scholarship and legal resistance when institutions falter, highlighting both the possibilities and perils in the face of authoritarian pressures in Europe and beyond.
Working Sessions:
Scholactivism: Between Duty and Overreach
Taking a stand in times of democratic decline
Lawfare and the Battle for Rights: Understanding, Mapping, Resisting
Defending Rights Through Weakened Institutions
Instrumentalisation, pushbacks and securitisation: EU migration law at the abyss?
