Many congratulations to this years Academic Prize Winners- Melike Sengul who has been awarded the 2020 John Groom Prize and Leonize Kunze who has been awarded the 2020 John Macgregor Prize.
Of Melike’s dissertation, her supervisor Dr Albena Azmanova said: “The dissertation presented a mature and cogent analysis of the birth of the banking union by looking at the impact of crisis management measures. The rigorous application of theory and the competent use of a wide array of data made this an exemplary piece of the excellent scholarship our academic community is able to create.”
“The core puzzle that my dissertation addresses is why the EU, having achieved a significant degree of financial integration, waited so long to establish a European Banking Union until the 2007-08 global financial crisis. The most common explanation to this is the predominant role of the financial crisis in uncovering the need for centralized supervision and resolution at the EU level, acting as a catalyst for institutional change in the EU. In order to better grasp the underlying incentives, my dissertation explores how the global financial crisis has impacted the creation of the European banking union. In this context, it seeks to explain the creation of the banking union through an examination of crisis management measures taken during the emergency phase, which may have impacted the institutional design of the banking union. Eventually, it argues that the two main pillars of the banking union (the SSM and the SRM) have been shaped by two prominent discourses on the bank bailouts: (1) some banks are ‘too-big-to-fail’, implying that some financial institutions are so great that their bankruptcy would be disruptive to the global financial system and must be avoided at any cost, (2) the heavy burden of bank bailouts on taxpayers must be lifted.”
Of her dissertation, Use of Force and Law of State Responsibility: The State of Necessity’s Influence on the Prohibition of the Use of Force, Leone said the following:
“In recent times, a recrudescence of unilateralism could be observed in the international order. This development appears particularly problematic with regard to the general prohibition of the use of force, a cornerstone of the international system established after World War II. While equal sovereignty prevents States from being held criminally accountable for breaching such international rules, the law of State responsibility determines where an international obligation has been violated and which consequences this violation entails. It is thus conceived to protect and strengthen primary rules such as the prohibition of the use of force. However, this same law of State responsibility also provides possible justifications precluding the wrongfulness of what would normally be considered a breach of an international rule. One of these defences is the state of necessity. In my dissertation, I assessed the influence this state of necessity exerts on the interpretation of the law on the use of force. I argued that the state of necessity in its current conception – its legal status, its underlying doctrine, its provision, and its categorisation within the law of State responsibility – dangerously weakens the UN Charter provisions on the use of force by providing States with a larger basis for interpreting and justifying extraterritorial unilateral forcible conduct. Conversely, a narrower codification of the defence would be an important sign against State-centrism, and in favour of strengthening multilateralism and hence the community of States as a whole.”
LLM International Law
Due to the ongoing pandemic, all successful BSIS students will graduate in absentia on Friday 20th November 2020.
On Saturday 21 November, the 2020 graduating class gathered on Zoom for a virtual graduation party. The students were supposed to be in Canterbury on Friday for the in person festivities, but due to lockdown restrictions, students had to find a different way to celebrate. The outgoing students from nearly 30 different countries gathered from all across the world and were joined by some of the BSIS faculty. To the 2020 graduating class, you have demonstrated you resilience well this year. Congratulations to everyone and best of luck with your future endeavors!
