UCD legal scholars speak on the effects of the global economic and Eurozone crises
In recent months, two members of the UCD School of Law, Mr John O’Dowd and Dr Gavin Barrett, have been invited to share with international peers their expertise on the impact on Irish law of the global financial crisis and the problems of the Eurozone in particular.
Dr Gavin Barrett, senior lecturer in the School of Law, was invited to speak at the Greek Public Policy Forum, a gathering of thinkers from the worlds of law, political science and economics experts on the financial crisis, which was held this year in Chania in Crete from 21-22 September on the topic of ‘Unfolding the Layers of the Crisis: the Nation-State, Europe, and the World’.
The Chania Forum built upon the foundations laid by the two previous Fora at Oxford (June 2011) and Nottingham (March 2012), which had focused respectively on Greece’s multifaceted crisis (economic, political, and social) and on the European context of the Greek crisis.
Its aim was threefold: first, to introduce a comparative dimension by looking at the crisis narratives in various EU countries (both from the European ‘South’ and ‘North’); second, to establish bridges between the parallel narratives/discourses that take place at the national and European level; third, to examine the on-going challenges of EU integration in a global context; and lastly, to synthesise a critical framework of understanding the main challenges to the road ahead.
Dr. Barrett featured both on Greek television and in newspaper reportage during the conference. A video of him giving some of the conclusions which he has drawn from the conference is available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrPOSydw0Fw and further details of the Forum itself are available at
http://www.greekpublicpolicyforum.org/2012/10/gppf-chania-forum-2012-executive-summary/
http://www.ucd.ie/law/staff/faculty/gavinbarrett/
Mr John O’Dowd delivered a paper ‘Ireland, Fiscal Union in Slow Motion? Challenges for Irish Constitutional Law’ at the European Public Law Organization’s conference ‘The New Economic Governance of Europe’ (Valletta, Malta – 20-21 July 2012), the second annual conference on this theme hosted by the Parliament of Malta.
He examined politicians’ search for ways to complete an adequate investigation of policy, regulatory and business failures, in banking and other fields, particularly the defeat of a proposed constitutional amendment that would have facilitated a parliamentary inquiry into these matters. He also examined the demand for institutional changes to address those features of the Constitution and the political system that may have contributed to the failures in policy and regulation and the proposed Constitutional Convention, which was to consider, most notably, changes in the electoral system and in relation to women’s participation in public life. He examined and assessed the constitutional amendment which allows the State to ratify the Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union. The amendment does not give the rules contained in the Treaty constitutional status, but merely immunises the ratification and implementation of the Treaty from constitutional challenge, should the Government of the day choose to adhere to it. The Government proposed the enactment of legislation giving it very wide powers to impose by order the budgetary corrections required by the Treaty. The incremental nature of this amendment underlines a dilemma that may confront the Irish government in relation to how further progress towards a banking union might be reflected in a series amendments of this kind.
John O’Dowd also participated in the annual meeting of the European Group of Public Law, thus year devoted to ‘Public Law and the Economic Crisis / Le droit public et la crise économique’ (Spetses, Greece, 14-15 September 2012).
http://www.ucd.ie/law/staff/faculty/johnodowd/
