The International Chair on Sovereign Europe (CILES), headed by Professor S. Braum (University of Luxembourg), is attached to the Centre de documentation et de recherches européennes (CDRE, Université de Pau et des pays de l’Adour-UPPA).

Located at the UPPA’s Campus de la Nive (Bayonne), the CDRE is a recognised laboratory based in the Basque Country, with cross-border, national and European roots. With its specific scientific identity (the CDRE is the only UPPA laboratory specialised in European and cross-border law), it contributes to the collective scientific identity of the UPPA by seeking to respond to current social challenges, questioning borders and contributing to the representation and construction of the territories of the future. The research themes of the CDRE (Area of Freedom, Security and Justice ; European Integration ; Law(s) and Security ; Borders, Territories and Cooperation) are perfectly in line with the missions of the UPPA.

With the CILES Chair, and in line with the strategy of the university to which it is attached, the CDRE wishes to support a scientific project with a European dimension, with the aim of creating a transnational team dedicated to the specific research objectives of this project, strengthening relations with European and cross-border partners, and giving greater visibility to the research unit by promoting the dissemination of future results and strengthening the international network. The academic ecosystem will be enriched by the contribution of new skills and new partnerships to the UPPA, as well as by the export of the CDRE’s expertise and networks. CILES is part of this approach.

Starting from the observation that the management of the covid-19 pandemic has posed an unprecedented challenge to human rights and the rule of law, the Chair’s aim is to show that the pandemic context has in fact only accentuated the objective crisis factors that have long affected the conditions in which European democracies develop, and that the crises in the area of freedom, security and justice, geopolitics and technological problems only serve to reveal them with particular sharpness.

From a scientific point of view, the most promising aspect of CILES is its global approach from the perspective of European sovereignty, which requires the study of the responses that (European) law can provide in this area. The aim of the Chair is then to examine the impact of these responses on European society, even if these responses are slow in coming.

Ultimately, it is the development of a new model or paradigm of European rule of law policy that lies at the heart of the International Chair’s project.