Prof. dr. Elise Muir is Head of the Department for International and European Law, Head of the Institute for European Law of the KU Leuven and Visiting Professor at the College of Europe (LLM in European Legal Studies, Bruges).
She is also the principal investigator of RESHUFFLE, a project funded by a Starting Grant of the European Research Council. It reflects on the constitutional implications of the increasingly powerful role played by the European Union in the field of European fundamental rights law.
Before starting at the KU Leuven, Elise was a tenured Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University and Associate Director of the Maastricht Centre for European law. She has also been a Visiting Lecturer at Sciences Po Lille, at the Kosovar Civil Society Foundation as well as at EDHEC-Espème in Lille.
While in Maastricht, Elise completed a research project entitled “Taking European values more seriously: collective enforcement of EU non-economic law” in the context of the Veni programme (Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research or NWO, 2013-2017) as well as a study of the horizontal effects of the EU principle of non-discrimination with the support of a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (European Commission, 2011-2013). Elise’s research programme has been awarded the 2012 Edmond Hustinx prize for science.
She studied law both in France and in the UK (Maîtrise, LLB & LLM) before commencing her postgraduate studies in European law at the College of Europe in Belgium (LLM, top law student). Elise has subsequently become an academic assistant in this programme. She has been a visiting researcher at Columbia Law School (Fulbright grantee), the European University Institute, and the Fondation pour l’innovation politique before completing her PhD at the University of London in 2010 under the supervision of Professor Takis Tridimas.
Elise Muir sits on the University research council as well as on the doctoral committee of the Faculty of Law of the KU Leuven. She is regularly called in to review research and publication projects. She is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law as well as European Council Studies.
Selected publications
- Muir, E., Molinari C., 'Targeted Impact Assessment of the Commission proposal for a Return Directive (recast) – legal aspects', European Parliament, LIBE Committee (2019)
- E. Muir, EU Equality Law as the ‘First’ Fundamental Rights Policy of the EU (OUP: Oxford Studies in European law, November 2018)
- E. Muir, ‘Drawing positive lessons from the presence of ‘the social’ outside of social policy stricto sensu’ (European Constitutional Law Review, 2018, 1-21)
- E. Muir, C. Kilpatrick, J. Miller & B. de Witte (Eds.), How EU Law Shapes Opportunities for Preliminary References on Fundamental Rights: Discrimination, Data Protection and Asylum (EUI Working Paper, 2017/7, 139 pp)
- E. Muir, 'Pursuing equality in the EU' in A. Arnull & D. Chalmers, The Oxford Handbook of EU Law (OUP, 2015, 919-942)
- E. Muir, 'The Fundamental Rights Implications of EU Legislation: some constitutional challenges' (Common Market Law Review, 2014, 219-245)
- M. Dawson, E. Muir & B. de Witte (Eds.), Judicial Activism at the European Court of Justice (Edward Elgar, 2013, 76-101)
- M. Dawson & E. Muir, 'Individual, institutional and collective vigilance in protecting fundamental rights in the EU: Lessons from the Roma' (Common Market Law Review, 2011, 48/3, 751-775)
- E. Muir, ‘Of ages in - and edges of - EU Law’ (Common Market Law Review, 2011, 39-62)