As Riga Graduate School of Law (RGSL) celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, we invite you to the 2nd Anniversary lecture on 17 May at 16.00 online with Professor Stefan Auer from the University of Hong Kong who will speak on the Russian invasion on Ukraine and the limits of EU Europe.
Please register for the online event here:
Abstract: “The Russian Invasion of Ukraine and the Limits of EU Europe”.
Europe’s future is being decided in the east. The full-blown invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 presents the most serious challenge to the European project. From the outset, the European Union has been based on an ideal of peaceful co-operation — a guiding ideology that proved spectacularly successful within the EU borders, but far less so in relation to Russia. Like the cold war before 1989, the war in Ukraine is bound to determine the ultimate limits of European integration for decades to come. A clearly defined presence of an external enemy — Vladimir Putin’s Russia — might spur the nations of Europe to redouble their efforts towards an ‘ever-closer union’. Yet, as the war follows on the heels of a long decade of crises, it is equally possible that it will end up reinforcing tendencies towards fragmentation. In the first few months after the outbreak of the war, the past sources of internal EU divisions — the crises of eurozone, migration and the rule of law — appeared to be overshadowed by the conflict. Yet, not only did Russia’s invasion of Ukraine do little to remove these challenges, it will likely make them even more intractable.
Dr. Stefan Auer is Jean Monnet Chair and Associate Professor at the University of Hong Kong. Prior to this, he worked at La Trobe University in Melbourne (2006-2013, as a Jean Monnet Chair in 2010-2013) and University College Dublin (2001-2006). He is the author of Liberal Nationalism in Central Europe (Routledge, 2004, pbk 2006), which was awarded the prize for Best Book in European Studies (2005) by the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES). He has published in leading politics journals, including Government and Opposition, International Affairs, The Journal of Common Market Studies and West European Politics; high impact sociology journals, such as Telos and Thesis Eleven, and area studies journals, such as Europe-Asia Studies and Osteuropa.
His research interests include political philosophy, spanning thinkers as diverse as Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt, Václav Havel and Slavoj Žižek; the comparative study of nationalism and the various aspects of the crisis of the European project.
The RGSL 25th Anniversary lecture series will cover areas of law and business, international law, European Law, European Union, rule of law and constitutionalism, says RGSL Rector Dr. Adam Czarnota.
The next speakers include Adam Liberman from University New South Wales in Sydney who will discuss the intellectual property, and professor Martin Krygier from University New South Wales in Sydney who will speak on the rule of law. The 1st speaker of the RGSL 25th Anniversary lecture series was the President of Latvia and the former Judge at the European Court of Justice Egils Levits.
RGSL was established in 1998 by agreement between the Latvian and Swedish Governments and the Soros Foundation Latvia. RGSL is a specialised law school offering Masters programmes in international public and private law subjects including European law, human rights, international commercial law, EU policy, finance and technology. It also offers two interdisciplinary Bachelor programmes in which law is studied in combination with business and diplomacy. RGSL faculty and students come from over 30 countries, and our graduates work in governmental agencies, legal profession, businesses and international organisations all over the world.
“We worked hard to transform the legal education in Latvia, we have worked very hard to actually transform the legal profession in our region and we have also put Riga on an international map of legal education,” says Jānis Ikstens, Chairman of the RGSL Board. “I believe there are three core values that have helped us to achieve what we are proud of today – namely, ambition, agility and innovation. And I very much hope that, as we grow older, we will not lose these critically important values in the temporary world and we will further strive for excellence for the next 250 years.”