Clemens Ladenburger’s talk will be on current legal challenges related to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. After a short general introduction on the role of the European Commission’s Legal Service, he’ll focus on selected topics that the Legal Service has been working on in relation to Russia’s war against Ukraine. Some of the legal challenges will be unique to the European context, others may be familiar to the US debate and yet look slightly different in the light of the EU’s specific legal set-up. Topics will include, inter alia, the EU’s sanctions regime and freedom of speech, avenues for freezing and seizing Russian oligarchs’ assets, and how the EU has been catering for the arrival of more than five million people fleeing the war.    

Professor Dr Clemens Ladenburger (LL.M. ’93) is the Deputy Director-General of the European Commission’s Legal Service. He joined the Legal Service in 1999. In 2000 he participated in the Convention which drafted the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights. In 2002/03 he was part of the second European Convention which drew up a draft Constitution for Europe.

After a period of work on institutional law, from 2008 to 2017 he served as Assistant to the Director-General of the Legal Service, where he focused on economic and monetary policy, external relations and international trade, migration, Brexit issues, and fight against terrorism vs. privacy.

From 2017 to 2022 he was Director for Justice and Home Affairs in the Legal Service, leading a team in charge of migration, police and criminal law, EU citizenship rights and private international law.

In his current job, he oversees the Commission’s litigation activity and the enforcement of EU law vis-à-vis the Member States, and he helps the Director-General to manage and represent the Legal Service.        

He teaches as Honorary Professor at the Europa Institute of the Saarland University.

Clemens Ladenburger studied law at the Universities of Freiburg and Geneva. He holds an LL.M. from the University of Chicago Law School and a PhD from Heidelberg University.  

This event is sponsored by the Law School's International Programs and International Law Society.

Lunch will be provided.