About CEDU

European Union (EU), as Union of law, makes rules/standards that bind EU Member-States and their citizens. The European legal order has 1) its own institutions, 2) processes to create and interpret European rules, and 3) mechanisms to ensure (and eventually to sanction) the rules’ violation. More than half of the rules that are currently being enforced upon the EU Member-States derive from the European legal order and must be interpreted and applied in its defined terms.

The Centre of Studies in European Union Law (CEDU) is an organic sub-unit of the School of Law of the University of Minho that focuses on European legal order questions and has the following objectives:
1) to promote and coordinate the scientific research in the domain of the European Union Law;
2) to take part in teaching projects;
3) to create links and develop projects with the civil society;
4) to disseminate knowledge through information networks, publishing and the conduction of scientific meetings.

The added value of this Centre  is to sensitize the scientific community, legal operators and people in general (as well as in other countries) towards the transversality and growing expansions of Union Law (mainly since the enforcement of the Treaty of Lisbon) and of the necessity of recognizing it;  specifically, and taking into account the reduced scientific production in that domain in Portugal,  in order to consolidate the specialty area of European Union Law at the University of Minho, so as to convert it into a national and international reference.

Consequently, the impact of the CEDU will be to: 1) establish a network of academic contacts in order to develop joint research projects; 2) impulse academic production and creation of knowledge through the incentive of producing Masters and Doctorate thesis’s on Union Law; 3) stimulate excellence in teaching, research and reflection concerning European integration studies within and outside the European Union.

Contact
Centro de Estudos em Direito da União Europeia (CEDU)
Escola de Direito da Universidade do Minho
Campus de Gualtar
4710-057 – Braga/Portugal
Telefone: +351 253 601 841 / 96 990 47 81     
Fax: + 351 253 601 809
cedu@direito.uminho.pt