Staff profile

Päivi Neuvonen is Assistant Professor in European Law and Co-director of the Durham European Law Institute (DELI) at Durham Law School. She researches in the areas of European Union law, European human rights law, and legal and political theory and teaches undergraduate and postgraduate modules on European Union law. In addition to EU law, she has teaching experience in public law, equality law, jurisprudence, and ‘law and society’.

Her research primarily focuses on European law, broadly defined, from theoretical, socio-legal, and comparative perspectives. She is also interested in the transnationalisation of law outside the European context.

Before joining Durham Law School, she held postdoctoral positions as Academy of Finland Postdoctoral Fellow at the Faculty of Law at the University of Helsinki; Lecturer in Law at the University of Turku; Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Policy Research Centre on Equality Policies and the Institute for Constitutional Law at KU Leuven; and Visiting Scholar at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Harvard University, the University of Edinburgh, Oxford University, and the University of Leicester.

In 2017-2021, she was co-leading the ‘Constructing Legal Orders in Europe: The General Principles of EU Law’ research project, funded by the Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union and the British Academy, at the University of Leicester. For the results, see Research Handbook on General Principles in EU Law (Elgar 2022). 

She studied law at Oxford University (D.Phil. in Law), University College London (LL.M. in Public Law and Human Rights Law) and the University of Turku (Master of Laws Degree) and was awarded the Title of Docent in European Law by the University of Helsinki in 2020.

Teaching Areas

EU Constitutional Law (LAW1061)

Introduction to EU Law (LAW40215)

Legal Philosophy (LAW2311)

• European Union Law
• European Human Rights Law
• Legal Theory
• Political Theory
• Socio-legal Studies

• Durham Centre for Law and Philosophy

Authored book

• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2016). Equal Citizenship and Its Limits in EU Law: We the Burden?. (Hart Publishing).

Book review

• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2018). Jeremy B. Bierbach, Frontiers of Equality in the Development of EU and US Citizenship, T.M.C. Asser Press/Springer 2017’. European Law Review 43(4): 610-613.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2016). ‘Hanneke van Eijken, EU Citizenship & the Constitutionalisation of the European Union, Europa Law Publishing 2015’. Common Market Law Review 55(3): 844-845.

Chapter in book

• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2023). Free Movement Rights in Finland. In Free Movement of Persons in the Nordic States: EU Law, EEA Law, and Regional Cooperation. Hyltén-Cavallius, Katarina & Paju, Jaan (Hart Publishing).
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2022). Systemic Discrimination. In Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law. Grote, Rainer, Lachenmann, Frauke & Wolfrum, Rüdiger Oxford University Press.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2022). The General Principle of Equality as a Value Commitment in EU Law: Scope, Limits, and Challenges. In Research Handbook on General Principles in EU Law. Ziegler, Katja S., Neuvonen, Päivi J. & Moreno-Lax, Violeta (Edward Elgar).
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. & Ziegler, Katja S. (2022). General Principles in the EU Legal Order: Past, Present, and Future Directions. In Research Handbook on General Principles in EU Law. Ziegler, Katja S., Neuvonen, Päivi J. & Moreno-Lax, Violeta (Edward Elgar).
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2018). Free Movement as a Means of Subject-Formation: Defending a More Relational Approach to EU Citizenship. In Debating European Citizenship. Bauböck, Rainer (Springer).
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2016). From a Relative to a Relational Equality: Rethinking Comparability in the Light of Relational Accounts of Social Justice. In Equal Is Not Enough: Exploring Novel Theoretical and Empirical Approaches to the Shaping of (In)Equalities. Cuypers, Daniel & Vrielink, Jogchum (Intersentia).
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2016). EU Citizens’ Whimsical Status: Persons or Actors on Their Way to Full Agency? In The Human Face of the European Union: Are EU Law and Policy Humane Enough?. Ferreira, Nuno & Kostakopoulou, Dora (Cambridge University Press).

Edited book

• Ziegler, Katja S., Neuvonen, Päivi J. & Moreno-Lax, Violeta (2022). Research Handbook on General Principles in EU Law: Constructing Legal Orders in Europe. (Edward Elgar).

Journal Article

• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2022). A way of critique: What can EU law scholars learn from critical theory? European Law Open 1(1): 60-88.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2020). A Revised Democratic Critique of EU (Citizenship) Law: From Relative Homogeneity to Political Judgment. German Law Journal 21(5): 867.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2020). The COVID‐19 policymaking under the auspices of parliamentary constitutional review: The case of Finland and its implications. European Policy Analysis 6(2): 226.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2019). Retrieving the ‘subject’ of European integration. European Law Journal 25(1): 6.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2019). Transforming Membership? Citizenship, Identity and the Problem of Belonging in Regional Integration Organizations. European Journal of International Law 30(1): 229.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2017). EU citizenship and its “very specific” essence: Rendón Marin and CS. Common Market Law Review 54(4): 1201-1220.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2015). ‘Inequality in equality’ in the European Union equality directives. International Journal of Discrimination and the Law 15(4): 222.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2014). In Search of (Even) More Substance for the “Real Link” Test: Comment on Prinz and Seeberger. European Law Review 39: 125-136.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2008). Prohibition of Discrimination on the Grounds of Nationality in EU Law. Oikeustiede-Jurisprudentia Yearbook XLI:2008

Other (Print)

• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2018). Inclusion or Conflicts of Loyalty? 15 Years of Dual Citizenship in Finland.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2016). Britain’s departure from the EU would lead to uncertainty.
• Neuvonen, Päivi J. (2016). Free-movement as a means of subject-formation: defending a more relational approach to EU citizenship.

Report

• Neuvonen, Päivi J. & Vrielink, Jogchum (2014). Toegankelijkheidsregelgeving. Een overzichtsanalyse van regelgeving inzake fysieke toegankelijkheid van gebouwen en woningen in Engeland, Finland, Nederland en de Verenigde Staten. Policy Research Centre on Equality Policies.
• (2011). ‘Country Report: Finland’ in ‘Reconciling Superior Courts with the ECHR and the ECtHR: A Comparative Perspective’.