This conference took a comparative look at international and European Union law as instruments through which state sovereignty has been shaped, restricted, and in some cases even abolished within existing legal and political systems.
In light of advancing globalization and deepening legal integration, the event examined the growing tension between the autonomy of national constitutional systems and the impact of supranational legal norms. International and EU law have traditionally been created to promote peace, cooperation, human rights, and the rule of law. At the same time, their overwhelming influence has raised questions about the impact of external actors, democratic legitimacy, and the erosion of constitutionally defined self-determination. Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
The conference presented law as a tool of governance and intervention – a tool that enabled both coordination and compliance monitoring. This ambivalence placed legal norms at the center of a broader debate on control, legitimacy, and consent within the state system.
The aim was to examine the structural and normative consequences of legal integration by framing supranational law as a collaboration between power and obligation. A comparative constitutional law perspective was applied in the debates. Particular attention was paid to experiences in Central and Eastern Europe, as these constitutional and political trends posed new challenges to sovereignist approaches in their interpretation of revolutionary developments in national and supranational law. Specific cases focusing on Hungary, Poland, and Serbia reflected how constitutional systems responded differently to international and EU legal pressure, how sovereignty was transformed, and where the limits of legal integration were contested or reinforced.
The overall aim of the conference was to create an interdisciplinary forum to examine whether international and EU law actually functioned primarily as frameworks for cooperation, as restrictive instruments, or as instruments of intervention, and what this meant for the future of the European state-centered legal order and the world.
*The event is private and by invitation only.
