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"

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

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) is rarely a focal point for discussion in matters of distributive justice within the European Union (EU) borders, let alone outside of them. Whether that is due to the lack of its perception as a political organ of the Union or the reluctance with which people accept that institutions lacking democratic legitimacy could be involved with questions of goods’ redistribution, is unclear. Yet, the ECJ does play a role in framing the greater redistributive justice discourse of the EU and the gap in academic scholarship examining this involvement proves fertile ground for research. Bringing together legal, political, and philosophical works, this study aims to rationally reconstruct the implicit theory of distributive justice the asylum jurisprudence of the Court appears closest to. In pursuit of its goal, it engages with the judgments of the ECJ and their wider political context, both before and after their delivery. It also presents existing theories of justice in order to trace the greatest alignment with the one supported by the Court.

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 (LLM)
University of Copenhagen, Denmark 2016
Bachelor’s degree in English and European Union Law (LLB)
Queen Mary, University of London, England 2015

WORK EXPERIENCE

September 2018: Clerkship at Court of Justice of the European Union, Luxembourg city, Luxembourg

January – July 2018: Internship at Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome, Italy

September – December 2017: Tutor in the EUPADRA Erasmus Mundus Joint Master’s Degree in Parliamentary Procedures and Legislative Drafting, LUISS, Rome, Italy

2015 – 2016: Legal Research Assistant at iCourts, Centre of Excellence for International Courts, Copenhagen, Denmark

2015 – 2016: Volunteer Legal Counsilor at Refugees Welcome, Denmark

June 2015: Legal Intern at Nabas International Lawyers LLP, London, England

2014-2015: Student Legal Adviser at 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 (full working proficiency); Bulgarian (native); Turkish (bilingual); Danish (full working proficiency); French (intermediate); Italian (intermediate), Spanish (beginner).

Research Interests

International Courts
Global Justice
Human Rights
Refugee Rights
Legal Rhetoric

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.

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 [forthcoming].

Küçüksu, Aysel. Bias: A Much Needed Subjectivity? in Moran, J-F., Christian Olsson and E. Atikcan (eds). Key Concepts in Research Methods. Routledge Publishing [forthcoming].

Küçüksu, Aysel. The Budgetary Future of Migration and Development Policy in the European Union. Istituto Affari Internazionali [forthcoming].