About

Gráinne de Búrca is the Florence Ellinwood Allen Professor of Law at NYU School of Law, where she also serves as the Faculty Director of the Hauser Global Law School and the Director of the Jean Monnet Center for International and Regional Economic Law & Justice, both on leave. Her areas of research include European and International Human Rights Law, European Union Law, International Organizations, and Transnational Law. Before joining NYU, she held tenured positions at Harvard Law School, Fordham Law School, and the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, and was a fellow of Somerville College and a lecturer in law at Oxford University. She has also served as deputy director of the Center for European and Comparative Law at Oxford and co-director of the Academy of European Law at the EUI. Her academic background includes studying law at University College Dublin and the University of Michigan Law School, and she is admitted to the bar at King’s Inns, Dublin. De Búrca is a co-editor of the Oxford Studies in European Law series, co-author of the textbook EU Law, and serves as co-editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Constitutional Law, with editorial roles in other prominent law journals. Her scholarship focuses on European Union law, international and transnational governance, human rights law, and international organizations, with notable contributions to understanding the future of human rights in a turbulent era, the functioning of the European Court of Human Rights, and the evolution of EU law amidst rising nationalist illiberalism.

Research topics

• Political Science
• Law
• Sociology
• Economics
• Development economics
• Political economy
• International trade

Selected publications

• 28. Competition Law: Article 101

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. EU competition law covers anti-competitive agreements between firms, abuse of a dominant position, and mergers. Article 101 TFEU is the principal vehicle for the control of anti-competitive agreements. This chapter examines its key features. These include: the meaning given to the terms agreement and concerted practice; the relationship between Article 101(1) and (3); the extent to which economic analysis does and should take place within Article 101(1); and the interpretation accorded to Article 101(3), including whether non-economic factors can be considered. The discussion then shifts to more detailed examination of vertical agreements, followed by an outline of the reform of the enforcement regime for Articles 101 and 102. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning EU competition law and the UK post-Brexit.

  PublisherDOI

• 5. Instruments and the Hierarchy of Norms

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter examines two related issues: the EU’s legal and non-legal instruments; and the hierarchy of norms. The EU has a number of legal and non-legal instruments that are used to attain Union objectives. The principal legal instruments are regulations, directives, and decisions. The hierarchy of norms refers to the idea that in a legal system there will be a vertical ordering of legal acts, with those in the lower rungs of the hierarchy being subject to legal acts of a higher status. There are currently five principal tiers to the hierarchy of norms in EU law, which are, in descending order: the constituent Treaties and Charter of Rights; general principles of law; legislative acts; delegated acts; and implementing acts. The chapter discusses the meaning of these different tiers. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning the hierarchy of norms in relation to the UK post-Brexit.

  PublisherDOI

• 15. Review of Legality: Access

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The EU develops policy through regulations, directives, and decisions. Any developed legal system must have a mechanism for testing the legality of such measures. This chapter focuses on access to justice and review of legality by the EU Courts. There are a number of ways in which EU norms can be challenged, but the principal Treaty provision is Article 263 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (ex Article 230 EC). Five conditions must be satisfied before an act can successfully be challenged: (i) the relevant body must be amenable to judicial review; (ii) the act has to be of a kind that is open to challenge; (iii) the institution or person making the challenge must have standing to do so; (iv) there must be illegality of a type mentioned in Article 263(2); and (v) the challenge must be brought within the time limit indicated in Article 263(6). The UK version contains a further section analysing the relevance of legal challenge to EU norms in relation to the UK post-Brexit.

  PublisherDOI

• Gender and the legal academy: A rejoinder to the afterwords

  International Journal of Constitutional Law · 2024-10-01

  article1st authorCorresponding

  Published: 06 February 2025

  PublisherDOI

• 18. The Single Market

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The single market is central to the EU and is still its principal economic rationale. This chapter discusses the forms and techniques of economic integration, the limits of integration prior to 1986, and the subsequent steps taken to complete the single market. There is both a substantive and an institutional dimension to this story. In substantive terms, it is important to understand the economic dimension to the single market. In institutional terms, a subtle mix of legislative, administrative, and judicial initiatives has furthered evolution of the single market. The UK version contains a further section analysing the general structure of the discourse concerning future trade relations between the EU and the UK post-Brexit.

  PublisherDOI

• 4. Competence

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. The existence and scope of EU competence are outlined in the Lisbon Treaty: the EU may have exclusive competence, shared competence, or competence only to take supporting, coordinating, or supplementary action. This chapter examines these three principal categories of EU competence, and their implications for the divide between EU and Member State power. It also considers certain areas of EU competence that do not fall within these categories, and the extent to which the new regime clarifies the scope of EU competence and contains EU power. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues of EU competence in relation to the UK post-Brexit.

  PublisherDOI

• 2. Membership: Entry, Obligations, and Exit

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter considers membership of the EU. There are three dimensions to the discussion. The first concerns the legal and political considerations relating to accession to the EU. The second concerns obligations of Member States while in the EU, with the focus on the rule of law crisis. There is discussion of the Treaty framework and membership obligations that flow therefrom, the problem posed by ‘rule of law backsliding’ by some Member States, and the different ways in which the EU has responded to this ‘backsliding’. The third deals with exit from the EU, as exemplified by Brexit, including analysis of Article 50 TEU, and what the Brexit negotiations tell us more broadly about the EU, and describes the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration.

  PublisherDOI

• 20. Free Movement of Goods: Quantitative Restrictions

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter considers Articles 34–37 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Article 34 is the central provision and states that: ‘quantitative restrictions on imports and all measures having equivalent effect shall be prohibited between Member States’. Article 35 contains similar provisions relating to exports, while Article 36 provides an exception for certain cases in which a state is allowed to place restrictions on the movement of goods. The European Court of Justice’s interpretation of Articles 34–37 has been important in achieving single market integration. It has given a broad interpretation to the phrase ‘measures having equivalent effect’ to a quantitative restriction (MEQR), and has construed the idea of discrimination broadly to capture both direct and indirect discrimination. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning free movement of goods between the EU and the UK post-Brexit.

  PublisherDOI

• 24. Citizenship of the European Union

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter reviews EU citizenship law. It considers the rights of free movement and residence of EU citizens, political rights of citizenship, and Directive 2004/38 on the rights of free movement and residence for EU citizens and their families. The status of EU citizenship created by EU law has been criticized on various grounds, including the thinness of the rights created and their economic focus, the conditions to which they are subject, the reinforcement of the distinction between third-country nationals and EU nationals, the limited impact of the new electoral rights, and the reluctant pace of implementation. On the other hand, the legal rights of citizenship have been expanded by the European Court of Justice, even in the face of vocal Member State opposition. The case law in this area continues to develop and the chapter provides a considered evaluation of this difficult body of law. The UK version contains a further section analysing issues concerning EU conceptions of citizenship and the UK post-Brexit.

  PublisherDOI

• 14. Preliminary Rulings

  Oxford University Press eBooks · 2024-08-01

  book-chapterSenior author

  All books in this flagship series contain carefully selected substantial extracts from key cases, legislation, and academic debate, providing students with a stand-alone resource. This chapter focuses on Article 267 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which contains the preliminary ruling procedure. Article 267 has been of seminal importance for the development of EU law. It is through preliminary rulings that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has developed concepts such as direct effect and supremacy. Individuals assert in national courts that the Member State has broken a Union provision, which gives them rights that they can enforce in their national courts. The national court seeks a ruling from the ECJ whether the particular EU provision has direct effect, and the ECJ is thereby able to develop the concept. Article 267 has been the mechanism through which national courts and the ECJ have engaged in a discourse on the appropriate reach of EU law when it has come into conflict with national legal norms. The UK version contains a further section analysing the extent to which the preliminary reference system is relevant in relation to the UK post-Brexit.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Paul Craig

  72 shared

• P. Craig

  Rochester Institute of Technology

  45 shared

• Paul Craig

  43 shared

• Robert O. Keohane

  University of Oxford

  38 shared

• Charles F. Sabel

  University of Oxford

  32 shared

• Paul Craig

  31 shared

• Dimitry Kochenov

  11 shared

• Joseph H. H. Weiler

  8 shared

Education

• B.A.

  University College Dublin

• M.A.

  Oxford University

• Ph.D.

  University of Michigan Law School

Awards & honors

• Honorary Doctorate in Law (LLD), University College Dublin,…
• Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy, Royal Irish Acad…
• Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, British Academy…
• Podell Distinguished Teaching Award 2017, New York Universit…
• Straus Inaugural Fellow, New York University Law School, 201…