Yasmine Bouzoraa is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law. Below is a short interview, inquiring about her PhD research and teaching role in our International and European Law and Rechtsgeleerdheid programmes.

What is your specific academic background, and what are your research interests? Do you currently work on any specific research projects?

After finishing a BMus in Professional Music Performance, I started studying law. My background is specifically in Dutch Law (LLB), European Economic Law (LLM) and Legal Research (LLM). Ever since the first year of my LLB, I have been interested in the role of courts in democratic systems. More specifically, I am interested in the way in which courts make law, rather than just interpreted what is already the law. Currently, I am pursuing a PhD, focusing on exactly that in the European context. As such, I am trying to find out whether there are any limits to the law-making authority of the Court of Justice of the European Union. Besides my PhD research, I am also interested in competition law. My competition law research focuses mainly on Article 102 TFEU (on abuse of a dominant position).

What courses do you teach within the Faculty? 

Over the past few years, I have taught many different courses within the broader area of EU law. For example, I have been involved in Introduction to International & European Law (LLB), Law of the European Union (LLB) and competition law (LLM), Studentenrechtbank (Dutch language LLB) and Recht van de Europese Unie (Dutch language LLB). Moreover, I supervise some theses every year, mostly on the topics of constitutional law and competition law. This year, my teaching is somewhat limited, allowing for more research time. This means that I am currently effectively only teaching Recht van de Europese Unie.

What do you enjoy teaching about these courses?

Students often say that they regard EU law as one of the more challenging courses in our LLB programmes. When I teach EU law, I try to create structure in a field of law that may feel unstructured at first. The best moments in teaching for me happen when students that question their abilities in this field of study defy their own expectations (and that happens a lot!). Apart from this, I also generally like teaching a lot. Especially in working groups, students come up with incredibly creative solutions to their assignments and are really up for a discussion.

How are the (degree) programmes you teach in unique compared to similar programmes elsewhere? 

I read recently in UKrant that our LLB programme in International and European law is the most international programme in The Netherlands. There are great benefits to having an international classroom, as this allows students to learn a lot from each other. Apart from that, our LLB is incredibly comprehensive, introducing students not only to international and European law, but also to Dutch law to some extent. This allows students to place what they learnt about international law in a national context.

Our LLM in European Law in a Global Context is special because it does not only offer students thorough insight in EU internal market law (such as competition law and environmental law), but also in EU external relations law. EU external links are becoming more and more relevant.

What career prospects do you think there could be for students who pursue careers in your specific legal field of expertise?

A degree in EU law allows students to pursue many different career paths. Graduates can go into academia (like I did), into public administration (at EU or national level), into legal practice (if they meet the prerequisites of a specific jurisdiction), into consulting or work as a legal advisor in a legal department of a business.

Do you have any advice for students interested in pursuing your same field of legal expertise?

When I was studying, many of my decisions were based on whether or not I believed I could find a well-paying job after graduation. For example, I studied Dutch law in undergrad, because I thought that I would not be able to find a job if I had studied international and European law instead. After I eventually accepted that I was mostly interested in EU law, and as a result chose to do an LLM in EU law, it turned out that my assumption had been flawed. EU law offered as many, if not even more, career prospects. For example, I would still have been able to go into legal practice, something I feared would be impossible. As such, I encourage students not to be led by such (often false) presumptions, and to choose to study what they are truly interested in.

- Interview by: Dr. Chris Brennan, Marketing Advisor, Faculty of Law

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