Emergency and EU Law: The Case of Covid-19, Climate Change and Migration

Book Title: Emergency and EU Law: The Case of Covid-19, Climate Change and Migration, Volume 21 (Swedish Studies in European Law)

Series: Swedish Studies in European Law

Editors: Sanja Bogojević and Xavier Groussot. Bogojević is Fellow and Professor of Law at Lady Margaret Hall and the Law Faculty, University of Oxford. She was Guest Professor at the Faculty of Law, Lund University for the duration of putting this volume together. Groussot is Professor of EU Law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.

Book Publisher: Hart Publishing

Date of Publication: March 25, 2026 (online)

The a full text of the book can be accessed online here.

Book Summary/Abstract: How should EU law respond to emergencies? More specifically, to what degree can fundamental rights be suspended in order to respond to an unprecedented crises?

These questions are at the core of this open access book, asked initially in response to COVID-19 and its resulting restrictions but then as a more general conceptual examination. It looks at the question over five parts; opening with two general aspects: constitutional law and governance. It then takes a more applied approach, looking at three case studies: migration, climate change, and, of course, the COVID-19 pandemic. Fascinating, insightful and considered, it ensures lessons can be learnt.

The ebook editions of this book are available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence on bloomsburycollections.com. Open access was funded by the Swedish Studies Network.

From the Book Preface: The concept for this edited volume emerged during a time when the world was gradually moving away from the emergency measures implemented in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. One of us spent much of the pandemic in the UK, while the other was in Sweden, each of us witnessing very different governmental responses. Having worked together in Lund during the 2015 European migration crisis that saw more than one million people seek asylum in Europe, this had not been our first encounter with emergency measures. During this period, Sweden imposed border controls and ID checks on the Öresund Bridge that connects Lund to Denmark and the rest of the European continent. Sweden was not alone in enacting emergency measures in the form of restrictions on movement within the Schengen Area – Denmark enforced similar measures at its border with Germany, and Germany did the same on its border with Austria. As EU law scholars, we were curious about the impact that emergencies have on the EU: a jurisdiction built on solidarity, free movement and the rule of law.

More precisely, we got to debating the question in which circumstances, if any, fundamental rights could legitimately be suspended in the face of an emergency. And if there were to be such a suspension, who should take responsibility for safeguarding that this exercise of power did not erode procedural and substantive fundamental rights: the EU or national courts, the EU or national parliaments, the public or a different body altogether? What role might proportionality play in balancing different rights in cases of emergency? Sitting in Sweden, which lacks formal constitutional provisions for declaring a state of emergency (except in the case of war), it quickly became apparent that a definition of what counts as an emergency is crucial: could it be that what is to be labelled an ‘emergency’ in one country is approached as a ‘crisis’ in another? What might be the legal implications of such divergencies? Even if we could rally around a common definition of what constitutes an emergency, should we approach the migration crises, the Covid-19 pandemic, and climate change the same way?

The list of legal dilemmas that we came up with in thinking about emergencies went on. It quickly became clear to us that we couldn’t treat all the questions alone, and so we invited the contributors of this collection to discuss these issues at a conference in Lund. This took place in December 2023.

(W)e would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to all the contributors, whose diverse perspectives and expertise have come together to create a dynamic and thought-provoking volume. The chapters show reasons for concern: the use of emergency measures, and therewith heightened executive power, are on the rise in the EU (and elsewhere) and the need for tight rule of law safeguards ever more in demand. The reading may be sobering, but we hope you’ll enjoy it.

The full list of contributors to this volume is below:

Laurianne Allezard is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.

Chiara Armeni is Professor of Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology, Université de Bruxelles.

Sanja Bogojević is Fellow and Professor of Law at Lady Margaret Hall and the Law Faculty, University of Oxford. She was Guest Professor at the Faculty of Law, Lund University for the duration of putting this volume together.

Tuukka Brunila is Postdoctoral Researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Turku.

Federico Casolari is Professor of European Union Law, and Head of the Department of Legal Studies, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna.

Annika Consiglio is a former LLM student at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.

Mehrnoosh Farzamfar is a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Law, University of Turku.

Nathalie Hervé Fournereau is Director of Research (CNRS) at the University of Rennes.

Katharina Girbinger is a judicial clerk, Oberlandsgericht München.

Xavier Groussot is Professor of EU Law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.

Helle Krunke is Professor of Constitutional Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen. She is also an Honorary Doctor at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.

Alezini Loxa is a postdoctoral researcher in EU law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.

Salvatore Fabio Nicolosi is Assistant Professor at Utrecht University Law School and Researcher at Utrecht Centre for Regulation and Enforcement in Europe (RENFORCE).

Anna Pau is Postdoctoral Research Fellow in European Union Law, Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna.

Lovisa Häckner Posse is Assistant Professor at Södertörn University.

Janne Salminen is Professor of Public Law at the Law Faculty, University of Turku.

Jocelyn Stacey is Associate Professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, University of British Columbia.

Vladislava Stoyanova is Associate Professor of Public International Law at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.

Anna Zemskova is Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law, Lund University.