CoE in Foundations of European Law and Polity Research

The CoE’s research focus is to study and interpret the changes ongoing in Europe in the field of law. Where are these changes leading? Will European law move towards becoming a single integrated system, or by contrast towards a decentralisation of rulemaking powers and greater fragmentation of legal orders?

The changes have generated new kinds of problems, which can no longer be adequately addressed by traditional concepts of legal thinking that are anchored to the nation state.

Research aims
The CoE’s aim is to develop theoretical and conceptual tools that allow for an examination of an increasingly multilayered and multicentred system of European law. The research is grounded in the tension between coherence and fragmentation. Each of the CoE’s three research teams will address this basic tension from their own perspectives. The first team is interested to explore the need for reform in legal terminology and thinking; the second focuses on Europe as a polity; and the third takes the perspective of Europe as a single market.

CoE organisation
The CoE is headed by Professor of Jurisprudence Kaarlo Tuori from the University of Helsinki. It is based at the University’s Faculty of Law, and includes researchers from Åbo Akademi University and the universities of Bamberg and Strasbourg. The CoE has a research staff of 27, including doctoral students. The CoE includes a Graduate School that was established in 2006.

Contact information
Professor Kaarlo Tuori, University of Helsinki, Department of General Jurisprudential Studies, tel. +358 9 191 23142, firstname.lastname@helsinki.fi
http://www.helsinki.fi/katti/foundations/