Skip to main content

Staff Profile

Dr Francesco De Cecco

Senior Lecturer

Background

Qualifications

Laurea in Giurisprudenza University of Florence
MJur University of Oxford
MPhil University of Oxford
DPhil University of Sussex


 

 

 

Research

My research examines how European Union law enables the pursuit of policy choices shaped by local conceptions of shared values, and addresses the tension between this pluralist aspiration and the need to create and maintain a shared European normative space.

My work on EU State aid law and, in particular, my 2012 monograph considered the extent to which the European Commission and the European Court of Justice have shaped key areas of national economic policy, and whether these interventions are compatible with a pluralist understanding of European integration, or whether they amount to the imposition of a specific view of how States should run their economies.

My (past and recent) work on fundamental human rights in EU law seeks to identify interpretive parameters that enable pluralism to flourish without undermining either integration or the foundational values of the EU. In this work, I try to elucidate some puzzling features of the law in this connection. I have examined, in particular: the role of EU fundamental rights review where Member States pursue higher regulatory standards than those set by EU ‘minimum harmonisation’; the significance and implications of the claim that free movement rights are ‘fundamental’; and, more recently, the meaning and purpose of the doctrine of the ‘essence’ of fundamental rights. Drawing on, and expanding, the latter theme, my current research explores the constitutional implications of an illiberal-nativist turn in European mainstream politics.


Postgraduate Supervision

I welcome applications in any area of EU constitutional and administrative law.

If you would like further information on reading for a research degree at Newcastle Law School please see www.ncl.ac.uk/nuls/postgraduate/research/index.htm

Teaching

Administrative Law & Human Rights (module convenor, lectures and seminars)

Constitutional Law (seminars)

EU law (seminars)

Publications