Building on the flagship series #uniquelyEUI, this new video series looks at how the European University Institute teaches, and at how the same appetite for experimentation that shapes research at the Institute also shapes work in the classroom. The first episode features Sarah Nouwen, Fmr Full-Time Professor of International Law at the EUI Department of Law, and Antoine De Spiegeleir, an alumnus of the EUI Department of Law.
Law, Nouwen argues, is usually taught to one part of the body: the brain. In her sessions, participants stand up and speak lines once spoken in real trials, working from a script she built with Wouter Werner, former EUI Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow, out of thousands of pages of transcripts from the International Criminal Court. De Spiegeleir describes the first minutes as awkward and confronting, and explains why that discomfort is doing something useful.
The method was developed at the EUI, where Nouwen was a Professor in the Department of Law, until recently. She and Werner built it for the 2024 Academy of European Law summer school, during Werner’s Fellowship, and it has since been used with groups elsewhere in the world. Nouwen links that to the conditions she found at the EUI, pointing to the ‘go-for-it’ attitude and absence of an exam-driven culture as enabling this kind of teaching.
De Spiegeleir has now seen the method from both sides of the classroom. In the episode, he explains what changed in his understanding of it between taking part and teaching it, and why the students who excel in this format are not necessarily those one might expect.
This is the first episode in a series on teaching and learning innovation at the EUI. Follow the series under #uniquelyEUI.
Watch the full episode on YouTube.