Projects

As far as the CJEU and the review of EU security policies is concerned, Dr. Carolyn Moser continued her work on the matter (e.g. Accountability in EU Security and Defence, OUP, 2020) and co-authored a journal article with Prof. Berthold Rittberger (LMU Munich) which was published in ICON in 2022. It deals with the (de-) constitutionalisation of the EU’s internal and external security policies – namely Justice and Home Affairs, on the one hand, and the Common Foreign and Security Policy, on the other – via jurisprudence from Luxembourg. This joint publication project originated under the Minerva Fast Track Fellowship scheme (2019–2022, paused in 2021–2022 due to parental leave), under which she received funding by the Max Planck Society to explore the increasing law and policy overlap of security and migration issues in the EU.

Dr. Sofia Vandenbosch, a specialist of constitutional law and the law of external relations in a comparative perspective, examines the role of national parliaments. Building on her PhD thesis (forthcoming as a book), which dealt with national parliaments’ control on foreign affairs and questioned the longstanding “foreign affairs exceptionalism”, she analysed with Prof. Marc Verdussen (UCLouvain) how Belgian constitutional law deals with matters of war and defence from a parliamentary perspective, with a special emphasis on controlling military missions abroad. This analysis will be published in the Annuaire international de justice constitutionnelle (2024) together with country reports from more than 25 legal orders.

With her expertise in EU law and governance, Dr. Carolyn Moser studied in detail the role of the European Parliament (EP) in relation to security and defence dossiers. In an in-depth study commissioned by the EP, she collaborated with her colleague Prof. Steven Blockmans (CEPS) to assess the institution’s formal and informal prerogatives regarding defence matters. In their 2022 study, they demonstrated that the EP inherently holds an ex ante and ex post scrutiny role in the EU’s security and defence policy that goes beyond what is generally assumed in the literature and in practice. A substantially revised, enlarged and updated article version of the study was accepted for publication in the ZaöRV.

In his work, Dr. Christian Schultheiss identifies innovative institutional solutions that stakeholders in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Indo-Pacific develop to share, govern, and rule the ocean. In particular, he looks at the EU’s normative and diplomatic clout in shaping these solutions. While the limitations of the EU’s geopolitical footprint are frequently in the spotlight, much less is known about how the Union contributes to building security architectures through technical assistance, capacity training, and the provision of new technologies. Hence, in his post-doctoral project, he has explored since November 2022 how seemingly unassuming technical assistance (such as affordable satellite pictures, Artificial Intelligence, and information-sharing tools) affects the design and configuration of regional security organisations, coalition choices and, ultimately, the security architecture in the Indian Ocean Region.
This project, which is at the intersection of diplomacy and capability, builds on Christian’s previous research on the creative normative capabilities and diplomatic powers of the maritime community. For instance, in his forthcoming monograph entitled Ocean Governance and Conflict in the East and South China Sea: Negotiating Natural Resources, Institutions and Power, he presents the first comprehensive and theoretically rigorous account of three decades of bilateral and regional negotiations and dispute settlement efforts in the South China Sea (Amsterdam University Press, 2024).

At the cross-roads of law and politics, Lukas Märtin (member of ENSURE in 2023) analysed EU sanctions and, more specifically, whether and how contested actors can be put on the EU Terror List. His research has led to a journal article, published in the HJIL/ZaöRV, on the potential terror listing of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and the intricate role of law in that context.

As part of her post-doctoral project, Dr. Kerttuli Lingenfelter scrutinises how different European actors create and use transnational and international procedures, partnerships, and institutions for prosecution and adjudication. Next to its accountability facet, this research also carries an important capability dimension: the enlargement of the mandates of law enforcement agencies or the establishment of transnational databases for collecting evidence are important vectors for stimulating capacity-building (regardless of the governance credentials of these novelties).

Dr. Christian Schultheiss explores how EU capacity-building efforts in the Indo-Pacific regarding maritime security (re-) shape the existing security architecture. In particular, he continues his work on the CRIMARIO project of the EU – a project which he was asked to evaluate for the European Commission (2024).

An important part of Dr. Carolyn Moser’s research circles around capability issues in a broad sense. How does the geopolitical awakening of the EU affect European security and defence? How are the existing mandates of different national and European actors adjusted and multi-level competence arrangements revisited to allow for swift and effective action?

The profound changes to Europe’s security and defence landscape in the aftermath of the Russian invasion in Ukraine offers a perfect terrain for studying these questions. So far, she has produced several publications (journal articles, blogposts, contributions to edited volumes) on the law and governance repercussions of the Russian aggression against Ukraine, studying inter alia developments at the European and EU level (strategies, innovations in sanctions, deployments, financing streams and defence industrial projects) as well as at the national level (with a focus on the German Zeitenwende and its potential implications for Franco-German relations and German constitutional law).