Armin Cuyvers speaks in Riga on national sovereignty, the EU and Brexit
On 20 June, Armin Cuyvers was invited to speak at the Riga Graduate School of law during the concluding conference of their Jean Monnet project on fundamental rights at the frontiers of the European Union – looking for a new balance.
In his contribution, Armin discussed if the recent Wightman judgment by the CJEU, which recognized a unilateral right for the UK to withdraw its Brexit notification and remain in the EU, contained the first ever example of an absolute sovereign right that cannot be limited by EU law. If so, this raises important questions on how to fit such an absolute sovereign right into the structure and nature of EU law and the constitutional nature of the EU legal order more generally.
Armin was invited back to speak after his initial presentation for an earlier conference of the same project in Riga where he presented a paper entitled ‘Once the sovereign giant is awake: can and should the EU put sovereignty back to bed in the post-Brexit era?’
Armin Cuyvers is an associate professor of EU law at the Europa Instituut of Leiden Law School. His research focuses on the constitutional nature of the EU, often approached in comparative perspective and through the lens of current challenges such as Brexit or the euro crisis.