Course Description
Building on the successful 2017 and 2018 programmes, in 2019 the summer school will focus EU legislation and policy whose inherent rationale is to counteract structural inequalities. It will discuss various EU measures aimed to combat discrimination, prejudice and stigmatisation, as well as social disadvantage and material deprivation experienced by certain groups of persons, such as people belonging to minorities, Roma and Travellers, migrants, people with disabilities, LGBTI people.
Building on the current academic debate on the concept of vulnerability itself, the 3rd edition of the Erasmus+ sponsored summer school will reflect on those measures that most effectively can remove structures that sustain or create vulnerability, allowing everybody to enjoy all their human rights to the full.
On the whole, this unique, credit-bearing summer school, invites participants to engage with and learn from European academics and professionals about different strand of EU legislation and various policy measures related to context-based vulnerabilities. Students will foster the skills to critique, analyse and problem-solve through class discussions and debates. A Maynooth University PhD candidate will provide support as class tutor.
The programme allows students to earn 5 ECTS in a supportive, structured and open academic environment.
Lectures take place from 9am until late afternoon, with a break for lunch. Evening activities include round tables and networking events.
We especially welcome students with learning needs, disabilities and non-native English speakers.
Guest Speakers for 2019
In 2019 we are welcoming an impressive calibre and array of guest speakers from across Europe and working within academic, policy making, NGOs and international practice:
Justice John MacMenamin
A member of the Supreme Court of Ireland since 2012, previously serving as a Judge of the High Court from 2004-2012.
Mr Justice John MacMenamin is a judge of the Supreme Court of Ireland. He was educated at University College Dublin and the King's Inns. He was called to the Bar in 1975 and became a Senior Counsel in 1991. He was Chairman of the Bar Council from 1997 to 1999. He had a mixed practice, with an emphasis on commerce, insurance and defamation. He represented the Sunday Independent in the Proinsias De Rossa libel trial and was legal adviser to the Irish Medical Council and on the VHI board. Mr Justice MacMenamin was appointed a Judge of the High Court in 2004. He was appointed to the Supreme Court in February 2012.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_MacMenamin
Professor Michael O’Flaherty
The current Director of the European Union Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). From 2004 to 2012 a member of the United National Human Rights Committee (HRC) and from 2011-2013 served as the third Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC).
Prof. Michael O’Flaherty is currently the Director of the Fundamental Rights Agency of the European Union, and an adjunct professor at the Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology. Prof O’Flaherty was formerly the Director of the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway and of the Human Rights Law Centre at the University of Nottingham. He was Chief Commissioner of the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission until November 2013. From 2004-2012, he was a member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee, latterly as a Vice-Chairperson. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts and sits on the advisory boards of numerous human rights groups and journals internationally.
http://fra.europa.eu/en/about-fra/structure/director
Professor Colm O'Cinneide
A Reader in Law at UCL, specialising in human rights, comparative constitutional and anti-discrimination law. Also Vice-President of the European Committee of Social Rights and a member of the Blackstone Chambers Academic Panel with past experience as a specialist legal adviser to the UK Joint Committee on Human Rights.
Prof. Colm O’Cinneide is Professor of Constitutional and Human Rights Law at University College London (UCL). A graduate of University College Cork, the University of Edinburgh and King’s Inns in Dublin, he was called to the Irish Bar and went on to work as a legal adviser in the UK House of Lords before joining UCL in 2001. He has published extensively in the field of comparative constitutional, human rights and anti-discrimination law. He has also acted as specialist legal adviser to the Joint Committee on Human Rights and the Women & Equalities Committee of the UK Parliament, and advised a range of international organisations including the UN, ILO and the European Commission. He also was from 2006-16 a member of the European Committee on Social Rights of the Council of Europe, and since 2008 has been a member of the academic advisory board of Blackstone Chambers in London.
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/people/prof-colm-ocinneide
Professor Niamh Nic Shuibhne
Prof. Niamh Nic Shuibhne is Professor of European Union Law at the University of Edinburgh. She is one of the Joint Editors of the Common Market Law Review. Her current research, funded by a Leverhulme Trust Major Research Fellowship (2016-2019), examines whether the concepts applied in EU free movement and citizenship law deal effectively with the diverse problems that those who exercise free movement rights face in reality. The project also explores connections between these concepts and the constitutional system of the European Union more broadly.
Professor Tobias Lock
Prof. Tobias Lock joined the School of Law and Criminology in January 2019. Tobias' previous places of work include Edinburgh Law School, where he was a Senior Lecturer in EU Law and co-director of the Europa Institute, University College London, the University of Surrey and the University of Erlangen (Germany), where he received most of his legal education. Tobias’ research and teaching interests are in European law and human rights law. In 2018 he was awarded a British Academy Rising Star Engagement Award. During 2018 he also served as a member of the Scottish First Minister's Advisory Group on Human Rights Leadership. He is a member of the advisory board of the Scottish Centre on European Relations. He is admitted to the German bar as a Rechtsanwalt.
Dr. Andrea Broderick
Dr. Andrea Broderick is an Assistant Professor at the Department of International and European Law, Maastricht University. She completed her Marie Curie fellowship in international and comparative disability equality law in the DREAM network. Her doctoral thesis was nominated for the Max van der Stoel Human Rights Award 2016, and she received the Edmond Hustinx Prize for Science in 2018. Andrea has published widely in academic journals and books. She has also written major thematic reports for, among others, the European Commission and the Council of Europe. Andrea is also a qualified Solicitor at the Law Society of Ireland.
Professor Francesca Ippolito
Prof. Francesca Ippolito is currently Associate Professor of International Law and European Union Law at the University of Cagliari, Italy. She is principal investigator and member of funded national, international and European projects; Visiting Professor/Scholar in several Universities among which Glasgow, Bordeaux, Seville, and selected member of the prestigious Research Center of The Hague Academy of International Law (session 2010 on International Migration with Prof. G. Goodwing Gill and P. Weckel). She is member of the scientific board of the journal European Papers and of the editorial (redazione) board of the Journal Diritto Pubblico Comparato ed europeo. Dr. Ippolito’s most recent publications include F. Ippolito, S. Trevisanut (eds), Migration in the Mediterranean: Mechanisms of International Cooperation, Cambridge, (Cambridge University Press) 2015; F. Ippolito, S. Iglesias Sanchez (eds) The protection of vulnerable groups. The European Human Rights Framework, Oxford (Hart Publishing – Modern Studies in European Law Series), 2015.
Dr Liam Thornton
Dr Liam Thornton is an assistant professor in law in UCD School of Law. Liam has a strong interest in social justice and law, and researches in areas relating to immigration law, social security law, European law and human rights law. Liam has published two books, as well as contributing numerous articles to leading law and social science academic journals. You can get a flavour of Liam’s areas of academic expertise at his website www.liamthornton.ie
Dr Cliodhna Murphy
Dr Clíodhna Murphy is a Lecturer in Law at Maynooth University. She has also held positions as a lecturer in Dublin City University and as a post-doctoral fellow at University College in Cork. She completed her thesis on legal aspects of migrant integration at Trinity College Dublin. She researches mainly in the areas of migration and human rights, and has a particular interest in the interaction between migration law and labour law. She has published widely on these topics in national and international journals, including in International and Comparative Law Quarterly, Human Rights Quarterly and the American Journal of Comparative Law. Clíodhna is a member of the editorial board of the Irish Journal of European Law and is on the list of external experts for Eurofound.
Ms. Aideen Elliott
Ms. Aideen Elliott is a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology, Maynooth. Her PhD research 'Beyond the Borders: EU Migration Policy Making' uses extensive fieldwork in Brussels to examine EU migration policy from the perspectives of the policy makers and influencers, exploring the ways in which migration policy is perceived, conceived and lived by those charged with policy making and professionally implementing it and is funded by the Irish Research Council. Aideen received her MA in Social Anthropology of Development from SOAS, University of London, where she conducted research on anti sex-trafficking policy.
Dr. Charles O' Sullivan
Dr. Charles O’Sullivan is a Teaching Fellow at the School of Law & Government at Dublin City University. He holds a doctoral degree from the Department of Law at Maynooth University. His research focuses primarily on the intersection between migration and welfare law at both a European Union and national level.
Mr. Michele Aiello
Mr. Michele Aiello is a documentary director, freelance journalist and participatory video trainer. He is partner of ZaLab, an Italian independent production company, and he collaborates with the public radio station Radio3 RAI, the Theatre of Rome's permanent workshop for disabilities and many other NGOs. He holds a Master’s degree in International Relations and he is specialized in armed conflict and marginalization of minorities in the Sudan.
Mr. Ángel Bello Cortés
Mr. Ángel Bello Cortés is a Senior Manager in Fragomen’s Dublin office. He has over 13 years of professional experience in Irish immigration and citizenship matters. Ángel oversees our Irish team based in Dublin, which assists a diverse client base comprised of multinational corporations, SMEs, start-ups and private clients. Prior to joining Fragomen, Ángel was a practising solicitor in Ireland and established and headed the immigration practice of a leading Irish law firm. He held a varied caseload of immigration, international protection and citizenship matters and conducted litigation at all levels of the Irish Courts. Ángel has also mentored trainee solicitors and paralegals on Irish immigration law, policies and procedures.
Dr Aoife McMahon
Dr. Aoife McMahon, B.L. is a practising barrister at the Bar of Ireland, who has been involved in several preliminary references to the Court of Justice of the European Union. Her professional experience includes working for a time at the Paris Bar and in the Irish Judge’s chambers of the Court of Justice of the European Union. She also worked in the legal support section of Médecins du Monde and the section of the Fight against Racism, Discrimination and Xenophobia of Unesco. She has lectured, published articles and presented conference papers in the areas of immigration and asylum law, administrative law, human rights law and EU law. Her book, ‘The Role of the State in Migration Control: The Legitimacy Gap and Moves towards a Regional Model’, was published by Brill Nijhoff Publishers in December 2016.
Dr Noelle Higgins
Dr Noelle Higgins is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law and Criminology at Maynooth University, Ireland. She undertook her PhD in international law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, on the topic of wars of national liberation. She currently teaches and researches in a variety of fields of public international law, particularly human rights law, including the rights of minorities, and international criminal law. Her recent publications focus mainly on the field of cultural rights. She previously undertook a BA and MA in Irish language and literature, and has a particular interest in language rights. She is currently an Academic Friend of the UN's Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
Professor Kristin Henrard
Prof. Kristin Henrard is Professor of Fundamental Rights in particular of persons belonging to Vulnerable Groups, including Minorities at the Erasmus University of Rotterdam (EUR). She is one of the coordinators of the Erasmus Migration and Diversity Institute (EUR). From February 2005 to May 2010 she worked on her VIDI- project which was granted by the Dutch Council for Scientific Research regarding the implications for minority protection of the Race Equality Directive. She has more than 160 publications, a substantial part of which concerns fundamental rights and minorities. She continuously expands her range into multi-disciplinary papers pertaining to integration, and more recently she is also working on ‘vulnerability’ as marker in human rights monitoring, and on ‘nationality’/’legal’ citizenship.
Dr Fergus Ryan
Dr Fergus Ryan is a senior lecturer in law at Maynooth University, specialising in family law and gender, sexuality, and the law. He was formerly Head of the Department of Law at DIT (now TU Dublin), and previously taught family law at TCD. Fergus has written and spoken widely at national and international level on issues of family law, constitutional law, contract law, LGBTI rights, gender recognition, and civil partnership. Twice a President of the Irish Association of Law Teachers, he has advised several state bodies and members of the Oireachtas on matters of law reform.
Accommodation
Accommodation for the duration of the programme is Maynooth University on-campus apartments.
Students will have a private room within a 5 bedroom apartment and share 2 washrooms with housemates. Each apartment has a furnished kitchen and a living room/dining room area. Kitchens come stocked with some key cooking equipment and utensils. Housekeeping is on a daily basis with linen and towels included and changed weekly. WiFi is available in each apartment.
Food
Lunch is provided in our on-campus restaurant (Phoenix Cafe) from Monday to Saturday (most dietary requirements can be catered for with advanced notice). There are also supermarkets within easy walking distance of the campus.
Computer access and Wifi
Computer facilities are widely available throughout campus. Free, open-access WiFi is available throughout most of the campus.
Library
The library contains over 450,000 books and eBooks as well as 42,000 ejournals. There are computers, self service photocopying and also laptops and kindles, which can be found at the main desk.
Sports
On-campus sports facilities include a fully equipped gymnasium and an indoor sports hall.
Getting Around
The train journey to Dublin city takes less than 40 minutes and cost about €8 round trip.
On our first Sunday we'll travel into Dublin for an orientation of Ireland's vibrant capital city. Enjoy exploring Dublin with us and orientating yourself to life in Ireland before class begins!
A staff member will be on hand to guide and support students throughout the programme.
