Dr. Afroditi-Ioanna Marketou wins Mauro Cappelletti Thesis Prize
Congratulations to EUI alumna in Law Dr. Afroditi-Ioanna Marketou, who has been awarded the Mauro Cappelletti Prize for the best doctoral thesis in the field of comparative Law for her EUI doctoral dissertation, Local meanings of proportionality : judicial review in France, England and Greece.
Dr. Marketou, along with other EUI graduates, will receive her Ph.D. degree at the Conferring Ceremony on the 14th of June at the Badia Fiesolana. The prize committee said that her thesis “makes an original contribution to the debate about the notion of proportionality and the cultural study of law more broadly”, and that it “it fills a gap in the writing about proportionality as a universalizing discourse”.
EUI Life spoke with Dr. Marketou about her achievement.
Can you tell us about your thesis?
My thesis is about a principle that increasingly dominates legal imagination, the principle of proportionality. Its aim is to nuance the mainstream narrative, which sees in the spread of proportionality a successful legal transplant. I argue that in the contexts where proportionality spreads, it acquires a local meaning. The study and comparison of the local meanings of proportionality unravels important features of the legal cultures in which proportionality operates. It reveals local legal actors’ expectations of law and legal change, and local criteria for the evaluation of legal arguments. Though cultures are subject to external influence in the context of European or other supranational integration, proportionality remains a case of systematic misunderstanding between domestic and European legal discourses.
How does it feel to win the Mauro Cappelletti Prize?
It is a great honour for me. It is a compensation of many years of hard work and it shows that the EUI values critical research.
Do you have any thoughts on your experience at EUI?
The EUI is a great and stimulating environment, where I was formed as a researcher and I made many friends. I am particularly grateful to my supervisor, Bruno De Witte, for his precious support, advice, and comments, as well as for giving me the freedom to develop the points that I found the most interesting in my research topic.
What are you up to now post-EUI?
I live in Marseille, where I work as teaching assistant at Aix-Marseille Université.