Aysel Küçüksu
GEM-STONES Doctoral Fellow
PhD POSITION IN EU LAW AND THE PHILOSOPHY OF LAW ON "THE ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE IN FRAMING THE PRINCIPLES OF DISTRIBUTIVE GLOBAL JUSTICE"
Aysel Küçüksu is currently employed as a Postdoctoral Researcher at iCourts, University of Copenhagen. Her research examines non-legal ways of improving compliance with ECtHR decisions as part of the 'Human Rights Nudge' Project.
Host Institutions
Supervisors
Thesis Title
THE ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE IN FRAMING THE PRINCIPLES OF GLOBAL JUSTICE THROUGH THE AREA OF ASYLUM
Research Abstract
More often than not, political philosophers that espouse theories of global justice engage with the big question of what duties we owe to each other from a very abstract, ideal, point of view. They try to delineate our responsibilities to one another and treat the parameters of these obligations in different scales, ranging from the nation state to the global order, and in different domains, ranging from climate change to migration. Simultaneously, judicial actors occupy themselves with questions of justice from the much more practical, non-ideal, position, where they aim to perform as justly as possible in the imperfect scenario of applying non-ideal laws to non-ideal circumstances. In an effort to trace whether there is cross-pollination between global justice discussions on migration and the asylum practice of the European Court of Justice, this work offers a thoroughqualitative empirical study of the Court’s asylum jurisprudence enriched byinsight from a dozen interviews conducted with officials working there. It reveals that on the surface, the common ground between the two academictraditions seems to prematurely end where it started, with the modest terminological overlap in ‘justice’. Yet, deeper engagement with both domains shows that albeit immediately bridging the gap between the two disciplines might seem like an impasse, narrowing it is a genuine possibility.To that purpose, this work utilises Martha Fineman’s ‘vulnerability theory’ as a brokering agent between the two and as an original way of taxonomizing the case-law of the European Court of Justice. In the process, this thesis becomes a solid interdisciplinary work which is an important contributiontowards our understanding of the European Court of Justice, both from a legal and from a philosophical point of view.
Case-studies
The asylum jurisprudence of the European Court of Justice.
Findings
In progress.
Societal Relevance
Both the academic and societal relevance of this endeavor are difficult to argue against. Whilst at the academic level, this research will be filling out a void in scholarship examining the interaction of the ECJ with the concept of justice in EU asylum policies, at the societal level, this research will show how, if at all, the ECJ can be seen as a vehicle to allow for the evolution of instruments of the EU, which, due to their temporal location or the political compromise they resulted from, might not be up to the spirit of the time. In that vein, the independence of the ECJ might even act as a cure to concerns that policy might, in certain cases, be too much of a hostage to the political process.
MOBILITY SCHEDULE
Oct 2017 – Aug 2019 LUISS-Guido Carli, Rome, Italy
Sep 2017 – Feb 2018 Istituto di Affari Internazionali (www.iai.it), Rome, Italy
Nov 2016 – Sep 2017 University of Geneva, Switzerland
DEGREES AND TITLES
Master’s Degree in Law (LL.M.)
University of Copenhagen, Denmark 2016
Bachelor’s degree in English and European Union Law (LL.B.)
Queen Mary, University of London, England 2015
WORK EXPERIENCE
09/2018: Clerkship at Court of Justice of the European Union, Luxembourg city, Luxembourg
01-07/2018: Research Internship at Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, Italy
09-12/2017: Teaching Assistant, in the EUPADRA Joint Master’s Degree, LUISS, Rome, Italy
2015-2016: Legal Research Assistant at iCourts, iCourts, Copenhagen, Denmark
2015-2016: Volunteer Legal Adviser, Refugees Welcome, Denmark
06/2015: Legal Intern, Nabas International Lawyers LLP, London, England
2014-2015: Student Legal Adviser, Queen Mary Legal Advice Centre, London, England
Awards And Scholarships
- Languages Undergaduate of the Year Winner, EU Careers and TargetJobs 2015
- Client Interviewing Competition Winner, Queen Mary University Law Society 2015
- Expeditions Fund Awardee, Queen Mary Expeditions Fund 2014
- Raise and Give Honours Award, Queen Mary Students Union 2012 and 2013
- Silver Volunteering Award, Queen Mary Students Union 2012
- Margaret R. Sanders Award for Student Life, American College of Sofia 2011
- Merit-Based Scholarship Awardee: Yale IVY Scholars Program, Yale University 2010; and Oxford Tradition Summer School, Oxford University 2009
LanguageS
English; Bulgarian; Turkish; Danish.
French (intermediate); Italian (intermediate), Spanish (beginner).
Research Interests
- International Courts
- Data science applied to legal reseach
- Vulnerability Theory
- Human Rights
- Refugee Law
- Global Justice
1. Küçüksu, Aysel, ‘Frequent Recourse to the Principle of Effectiveness is ECJ Asylum Jurisprudence: A Leitmotif Overtaking Human Rights Considerations’, Verfassungsblog: On Matters Constitutional, Oct 1, 2020.
2. Küçüksu, Aysel, ‘The Principle of Effectiveness at the European Court of Justice: Enhancing or Eclipsing Fundamental Rights’ in Dr. Narin Idriz, Dr. Eva Kassoti (eds.) Global Europe: Legal and Policy Issues of the EU’s External Action, Springer and Asser Press, 2020 [forthcoming].
3. Küçüksu, Aysel. ‘When the pursuit of effectiveness eclipses human rights considerations in judicial proceedings’. GEM-STONES Executive Briefs. March 2020.
4. Küçüksu, Aysel and Stephanie Shelton. ‘Bias: A Much Needed Subjectivity?’ in Moran, J-F., Christian Olsson and E. Atikcan (eds). Key Concepts in Research Methods. Oxford University Press, 2020 [forthcoming].
5. Küçüksu, Aysel and Pola Cebulak. ‘Principles and Values in EU Democracy and Human Rights’ in Levrat, Nicolas and Raffaele Marchetti (eds.), Framing Power Europe? EU External Action on Democracy and Human Rights in a Competitive World. Routledge Publishing, 2020 [forthcoming].
6. Ünüvar, Güneş and Aysel Küçüksu, ‘From Protection to Governance of Foreign Investment: Vulnerability Theory as a Paradigm Shift in International Investment Law’, on EJIL: Talk! - Blog of the European Journal of International Law, December 27, 2019.
7. Küçüksu, Aysel. ‘The Budgetary Future of Migration and Development Policy in the European Union’. Istituto Affari Internazionali Policy Paper Series. August 2019.
8. Olsen, Henrik Palmer and Aysel Küçüksu. ‘Finding Hidden Patterns in ECtHR’s Case Law: On How Citation Network Analysis Can Improve Our Knowledge of ECtHR’s Article 14 Practice’. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law, Vol. 17, No. 1, 2017, pp. 4-22.
