Position & Expertise.
Bart Van Vooren is Assistant Professor of European Law and Integration at the Law Faculty of the University of Copenhagen, where he is Co-Director of the Centre for European Constitutional Law. In Belgium, he is Associate Fellow at the Leuven Centre for Global Governance Studies.
He has been trained in EU law and international public law, and teaches graduate-level courses within these fields. The area in which he specializes is "EU external relations law", a discipline which studies legal issues relating to the European Union as an international actor. In this context, he is specializing in aspects of pure EU law, as well as aspects which combine EU with international law and politics. His main areas of specialization within this field are:
- EU institutional law: interaction between the European External Action Service, Commission, Member States... and other actors in shaping "EU" international relations.
- EU constitutional law: relationship between member states and the EU in their respective foreign policies.
- The neighbourhood policy: with focus on this policy as a coherent EU foreign security policy, both in its Southern and Eastern dimension.
- EU external energy policy: with focus on legal issues relating to external dimension of the internal market, the energy community, and the development of a true "EU" external energy policy.
- The EU and international finance: EU at the G-20 and the proposed global financial transaction tax.
- EU and Global Governance: EU representation at the United Nations; European External Action Service and EU diplomacy, future capacity of the EU to shape the global legal order in the 21st century.
Short Bio.
Prior to this appointment as assistant professor in August 2010, he succesfully defended his PhD at the law department of the European University Institute, written under the excellent guidance of Prof. Marise Cremona. His doctoral thesis took a legal perspective of the EU's enigmatic 'single voice' in international relations, employing the European Neighbourhood Policy as a case-study. The external examiners on the jury were Professors Panos Koutrakos and Ramses Wessel.
Prior to completing his PhD, he received his first law degree with great distinction from Ghent University (Belgium) in 2005, where he specialized in international public law and EU Law. His two MA theses at Ghent University concerned respectively constitutional questions related to the 2000 Bush v. Gore judgment, and free movement of persons under the EU-Turkey association agreement. That year he also participated in the P. C. Jessup international law moot court competition, with his team winning the Belgian national round to go on to the international rounds in Washington D.C. Finally, during his five years of legal studies in Ghent he held various positions as student representative - most notably the Social Council of Ghent University (2003-2004).
Having completed his studies in Belgium, Bart moved to New York where he received an LL.M. in International Legal Studies from NYU School of Law, supported by a scholarship from the Belgian American Educational Foundation. At NYU, he worked as a research assistant for Prof. Mattias Kumm in the field of EU law, and a teaching assistant for legal theory.
He subsequently commenced his PhD in September 2006 at the European University Institute. At the institute he was active as a representative of the researchers and served as member of the editorial board of the European Journal of Legal Studies for two years, serving as its Editor-in-Chief for much of 2007.
His hobbies are photography, tasting wine, cooking and staring at a computer screen.