The Constitutional Value of Sunset Clauses (Routledge, 2017) by Antonios Emmanouil Kouroutakis

The Constitutionalism and Politics Working Group and The International Law Working Group had the pleasure to organize the launching of the book: The Constitutional Value of Sunset Clauses. An historical and normative analysis (Routledge, 2017) by Antonios Emmanouil Kouroutakis

On Friday, 28th of April, 4-6 pm in Sala del Camino, Villa Salviati

About the Book: In recent years, sunset clauses have mostly been associated with emergency legislation introduced in the wake of terrorist attacks. However, as this book demonstrates, they have a long history and a substantial constitutional impact on the separation of powers and the rule of law. In addition, the constitutional value of such clauses is examined from certain neglected normative aspects pertaining to concepts such as deliberative and consensus democracy, parliamentary sovereignty and constitutional dialogue.

The work is an amalgam of three perspectives: the historical, the positive and the normative. All three are intertwined and each subsequent part builds upon the findings of the previous one. The historical perspective investigates the historical development of sunset clauses since the first Parliaments in England. The positive perspective examines the legal effect and the contemporary utility of sunset clauses. Finally, the normative perspective analyses their interaction with several models of separation of powers, and their influence on the dialogue between various institutions as it values their impact on the rule of law, formal and substantive.

The detailed examination of this topical subject will be a valuable resource for academics, researchers and policy makers.

About the author

Antonios Kouroutakis is an Assistant Professor at IE University specialized in Public Law. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Law, from Democritus University of Thrace (Greece), a Master of Laws (LL.M) from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Law School (USA) and a Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the University of Oxford (UK). He has also taught a variety of law courses and conducted research as a postdoctoral fellow at the City University of Hong Kong (China), at the Free University of Berlin (Germany) and at Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece).

Antonios’s research interests lie mainly in the field of constitutional and administrative law. In particular, Antonios is interested in the concept of separation of powers, rule of law, emergency legislation, immigration law and climate change; he has published widely on these topics in international and peer reviewed journals. Antonios practiced law before the European and the Greek courts and authorities.

The book was discussed by: Enrico Albanesi, Lecturer of Constitutional Law (University of Genoa, Italy)

Enrico Albanesi (PhD) is a Lecturer in Constitutional Law and Legislative Drafting at the University of Genoa, Faculty of Law, and Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies-IALS at the University of London. He was Visiting Research Fellow at the IALS in A.Y. 2014/15, Visiting Professor at the University of Akureyri (Iceland) in A.Y. 2014/15 and Visiting Scholar at the College of Europe, European Legal Studies Department, in Bruges (Belgium) in A.Y. 2015/16.

Enrico’s research interests lie mainly in the field of constitutional law, EU constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, legislative drafting and ICT law. He wrote a book on committee reports (E. Albanesi, Pareri parlamentari e limiti della legge, Milano, 2010) and a handbook on legislative drafting (E. Albanesi, Teoria e tecnica legislativa nel sistema costituzionale, Napoli, 2013). He is one of the two co-leaders of the Law Reform Project at the IALS (see: E. Albanesi, The Mechanism Used to Review Existing Legislation in the Civil Law System. Case Study – Italy, in European Journal of Law Reform, 2016, Vol. 18, No. 3, p. 275-295). He is now focusing on a research project on the EU infringement proceedings from a perspective of constitutional law.

The event was chaired by: Stavros Pantazopoulos, EUI researcher and coordinator of the International Working Group and Elena Brodeală, EUI researcher and coordinator of the Constitutionalism and Politics Working Group

Thank you everyone for joining us!