Law scholars blog on the EU's response to the war in Ukraine

Utrecht University law scholars are sharing their thoughts on Europe and the Ukraine conflict on the blog of of the Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe (RENFORCE).

Dr Salvatore Nicolosi blogs about the EU’s response to the migratory flow from Ukraine. He writes: A genuine expression of solidarity or an exercise of ephemeral humanitarianism? In cooperation with Francesca Bertin I write about the 'resurrection' of the Temporary Protection Directive, suggesting a more cautious approach to provisional regimes that in the long-term can downgrade important standards of legal protection for refugees.

Nathan Meershoek blogs about the EU defence policy and military procurement. In the blog, I argue that the EU's recent military actions build on existing structures of military interdependence rather than being a new direction towards something like a common army. When accepting that military power should not be a goal in itself, but a means for peace, security and the sustainment of EU values, this is not such a bad thing.

Dr Alexandra Hofer writes: "In the aftermath of the war in Ukraine, there is a call to impose costs on Russia through the form of sanctions.
But what is their objective? If the goal is to change behaviour, one should know that designing effective coercive sanctions is incredibly difficult to master, even for the most sophisticated sanctions senders such as the EU.

I touch upon these issues in my latest blog post, published by UU RENFORCE:"