Solidarity and Conflict: European Social Law in Crisis

Speakers:

• Diamond Ashiagbor (IALS, Professor of Law)
• John Hendy QC (Barrister, OSC; Honorary Professor at UCL Laws)
• Mark Freedland (Emeritus Professor of Employment Law, University of Oxford; Honorary Professor at UCL Laws)
• Silvana Sciarra (Judge of the Italian Constitutional Court; Emeritus Professor of Labour Law at the University of Florence)

Chair

Colm O'Cinneide (Professor of Human Rights Law, UCL Laws)

About the roundtable

The recent monograph by Professor Sciarra, Solidarity and Conflict: European Social Law in Crisis (CUP, 2018) offers a timely reminder of what was lost, in terms of acquired and long established social and labour rights during the, now decade-long, EU ‘Austerity’ phase, officially launched with the first bailout packages of 2008, but in reality stretching back a few more years. A decade of Austerity that has brought to the fore a deeper crisis and the ongoing and unresolved conflict between labour rights (whether of national or supranational origin) and EU macroeconomic and market based imperatives.
 
But her work also identifies what has been preserved through the crisis. How both national and supranational institutions and collective movements mobilised to defend established rights, and the residual potential and viability of the enduring project that Social Europe is, and is destined to remain.
 
This event is an opportunity to explore further the important analytical and critical work by Professor Sciarra, with the author herself, and come to grips with both the past and the future of the European social project.