ITEM’s Alexander Hoogenboom wins Ius Commune Prize

ITEM congratulates Alexander Hoogenboom for winning the Ius Commune Prize of 2016. Alexander Hoogenboom, scientific coordinator at the Institute for Transnational and Euregional cross border cooperation and mobility / ITEM, won the 2016 Ius Commune Prize for his paper ‘In Search of a Rationale for the EU Citizenship Jurisprudence’. The Ius Commune prize, existing since 2001, is awarded annually to a PhD student or starting researcher who wrote an article of outstanding quality which falls within the material scope encompassed by the objectives of the Research School Ius Commune. The prize was awarded at the 15th Ius Commune Conference on 24 November 2016.

The jury concluded: "The winning paper of 2016 – the 15th year of the Ius Commune prize – is a paper which contributes to an issue of fundamental importance in our society. It is a theme in a world moving, striving for peace in many places, keeping peace in many places more, and reaching for a prosperity, more equally shared. These are goals for all ages – but difficult to attain. Our winner builds further on Kant’s 'Zum ewigen Frieden' and his cosmopolitan right of hospitality. By thus exploring this concept further, that no one be denied right or justice, the winning paper provides a framework for European Union’s citizenship’s jurisprudence."

About the paper:

It is well known that the dominant paradigm underlying the free movement jurisprudence of the Court of Justice has progressively shifted from the ‘market citizen’ to the EU citizen: in order to invoke free movement and equal treatment rights an economic nexus is no longer needed, allowing, for example, students to claim equal treatment with host Member State nationals as regards access to education and the receipt of study grants. Normatively, however, this raises important questions. The classic logic whereby these free movement and equal treatment rights were provided to Member State nationals as a quid pro quo for their contribution to and participation in a project of European integration—the establishment of the common market—is undermined. A new ‘aim’ or ‘rationale’ is thus needed, capable of explaining and informing the citizenship jurisprudence of the Court. The purpose of this article is to construct a conceptual framework for the Court’s EU citizenship jurisprudence by relying on a cosmopolitan vision of citizenship as set out by Immanuel Kant in his seminal work Zum ewigen Frieden. It is submitted in this article that Kant’s cosmopolitan right of hospitality, meant to guarantee interaction between the peoples of the world with a view to developing a shared universal conscience characterised by a desire for peace and prosperity, in essence informs the EU citizenship jurisprudence of the Court

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