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All Outputs (11)

Democracy Manifest? Ensuring the EU Legislature’s Democratic Legitimacy in the Face of National-Level Autocratisation (2025)
Journal Article
Cotter, J. (in press). Democracy Manifest? Ensuring the EU Legislature’s Democratic Legitimacy in the Face of National-Level Autocratisation. European Papers - A Journal on Law and Integration, 10(2),

There are numerous means through which EU institutions can seek to enforce the value of democracy under Article 2 TEU. However, each of these mechanisms may contain weaknesses in the face of determined national-level autocrats. The possibility that a... Read More about Democracy Manifest? Ensuring the EU Legislature’s Democratic Legitimacy in the Face of National-Level Autocratisation.

Impeachment as an EU Law Concept (2025)
Journal Article
Cotter, J. (2025). Impeachment as an EU Law Concept. Cambridge Yearbook of European Legal Studies, 25, 1-19. https://doi.org/10.1017/cel.2025.2

This article is the first panoramic survey of the various, idiosyncratic procedures relating to the removal for cause of EU institutional officeholders scattered throughout the Union’s primary and secondary law. After describing these provisions, the... Read More about Impeachment as an EU Law Concept.

The President of the European Commission and the Power to Request a Commissioner's Resignation (2024)
Journal Article
Cotter, J., & Butler, G. (2024). The President of the European Commission and the Power to Request a Commissioner's Resignation. Common Market Law Review, 61(3), 593 – 622. https://doi.org/10.54648/cola2024044

Article 17(6) TEU provides that a Commissioner "shall resign if the [Commission] President so requests". This terminology appears absolute and suggests that the President's power to (essentially) dismiss a Commissioner summarily is one related to con... Read More about The President of the European Commission and the Power to Request a Commissioner's Resignation.

To Everything There is a Season: Instrumentalising Article 10 TEU to Exclude Undemocratic Member State Representatives from the European Council and the Council (2022)
Journal Article
Cotter, J. (2022). To Everything There is a Season: Instrumentalising Article 10 TEU to Exclude Undemocratic Member State Representatives from the European Council and the Council. European Law Review, 47(1), 69-84. https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4032080

This paper presents the argument that art. 10 TEU could be utilised to confront the problem of undemocratic Member State representatives in the European Council and the Council. First, it is contended that art. 10(2) TEU, read with the principle of r... Read More about To Everything There is a Season: Instrumentalising Article 10 TEU to Exclude Undemocratic Member State Representatives from the European Council and the Council.

Just Say No! Appeals Against Orders for a Preliminary Reference (2020)
Journal Article
Cotter, J. (2020). Just Say No! Appeals Against Orders for a Preliminary Reference. European Public Law, 26(3), 615-642. https://doi.org/10.54648/euro2020058

Can an order for a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union (the Court), made by a lower instance national court, be subject to an appeal to a higher instance national court? To date, the Court has not been sufficiently cle... Read More about Just Say No! Appeals Against Orders for a Preliminary Reference.

Lessons from Roman law: EU law in England and Wales after Brexit (2019)
Journal Article
Cotter, J., & Dewhurst, E. (2019). Lessons from Roman law: EU law in England and Wales after Brexit. The Law Teacher, 53(2), 173 - 188. https://doi.org/10.1080/03069400.2019.1585074

The experience of Roman law in legal education in England and Wales may serve as a cautionary tale for EU law post-Brexit. Similarly, past debates as to the position of Roman law in the curriculum may also be instructive in the EU law context. After... Read More about Lessons from Roman law: EU law in England and Wales after Brexit.

"Keep Calm and Carry on': EU Legal Developments in 2016 (2017)
Journal Article
Cotter, J. (2017). "Keep Calm and Carry on': EU Legal Developments in 2016. Journal of Common Market Studies, 88 - 101. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcms.12580

For reasons not requiring much exposition, 2016 was an annus horribilis for the EU. A review of the EU judiciary’s 2016 activity reveals that the constituent courts of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), the Court of Justice and the General Court,... Read More about "Keep Calm and Carry on': EU Legal Developments in 2016.