Search

Administrative law is a legal field usually famous for its close links with specific historic features of domestic legal systems. However, states increasingly cooperate on a range of pressing issues (e.g. immigration, cybercrime, international corruption, etc.) relying heavily on administrative cooperation. Equally, lawyers are increasingly mobile, changing jobs and countries over the course of their career. These combined evolutions should encourage to revisit how legal education provides young lawyers with tools to facilitate their critical skills. This paper shows that comparative administrative law remains very much an untapped resource to provide these skills. It offers a survey (using a questionnaire) of French and Belgian private/public universities and administrative courts. This empirical methodology is supported by historical and theoretical analysis of the past, present and future of comparative administrative law. Belgian and French legal education includes modules entitled "comparative administrative law" in the academic curriculum. They also develop other tools such as double degrees ("bi-licence" and "bi-maîtrise") for their students to gain a better understanding of another administrative law system. Beyond these similarities, France and Belgian legal education have their specificities. For instance, Belgian administrative law is often taught from a comparative law perspective which is not necessary the case in France. Whereas Belgian administrative judges develop strategies to learn from the Netherlands, their neighbor, in their daily work a comparative approach, it was rarely the case for the French Conseil d'Etat until the recent set up of an expert unit in comparative law (Cellule de droit comparé). All in all, and although such tools are still few, this paper highlights the diversity of ways in which students are encouraged to become more familiar with foreign legal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article we seek to unveil the intricacies of Roma migration in the north of France and the shift in the public discourse calling for the protection of human rights. In the first part of the article, we will establish the general framework for the migration of the Roma population in the region of Lille, France and Romanians' perception regarding this matter. In this paper, we attempt to present, in a concrete manner, how the faults in the management of immigration and politics have influenced the alleged relationship between ethnicity and crime, taking into account concepts such as Roma population exclusion, poverty and marginalisation at home and abroad. Moreover, we will show the important changes presented by the public opinion, taking into consideration several highly publicized events that cast a shadow upon the situation of the Roma population in the region. After the Romanian integration in the European Union, the issue of the Roma people has been discussed by the media from all parts of the continent, sliding from a tone of disapproval to proclaiming the need to take political measures. The migration of Roma Romanians in the north of France is a result of an influx of immigrants that grew in the last five years. The dramatic changes happened, especially after 2007, and were followed by a stabilization of migration flows after Romania joined the European Union. As expected, the latest statistics on Romanian immigrants into the French community continue to indicate their important presence in the region. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]