Background

Joseph Halevi Horowitz Weiler was born on 2 September 1951, in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Education

Weiler received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Sussex, in 1976. In 1977, he received a Bachelor of Laws from Cambridge University and a Master of Laws in 1982. In 1978, Weiler obtained a Diploma in International Law at Hague Academy and a Ph.D. at European University in 1982.

Career

From 1978 to 1985, Weiler was a member of the Department of Law at the European University Institute, Florence, and co-founded its Academy of European Law in 1989. He later served as Professor of Law at the University of Michigan Law School (1985-1992) and as Manley Hudson Professor and Jean Monnet Chair at Harvard Law School (1992-2001). From 1991 to 1992, he was a visiting professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, and then, he became a professor there from 1992 to 1994.

Weiler served as a member of the Committee of Jurists of the Institutional Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, co-drafting the European Parliament's Declaration of Human Rights and Freedoms and Parliament's input to the Maastricht Inter-intergovernmental Conference. He is a WTO and NAFTA Panelist, and a founding editor of the European Journal of International Law, the European Law Journal, and the World Trade Review.

Weiler is author of articles and books in the fields of international, comparative, and European law. His publications include: Un’Europa Cristiana (Rizzoli, 2003 - translations into German, Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, Slovenian, French, Hungarian, Dutch); European Constitutionalism Beyond the State. Edited with Marlene Wind, (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2003); Integration in an Expanding European Union: Reassessing the Fundamentals. Edited with Ian Begg and John Peterson, (Blackwell Publishing, 2003); Constitution of Europe - do the New Clothes have an Emperor? (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1998 - translations into Spanish, Italian, German, Slovenian, Japanese, Chinese, Greek, Serbian, Portuguese, Romanian in print or in preparation); The EU, the WTO, and the NAFTA: Towards a Common Law of International Trade?

Achievements

• Weiler is an honorary Professor at University College, London; Honorary Professor at the Department of Political Science, University of Copenhagen; and Co-Director of the Academy of International Trade Law in Macao, China. He is recipient of Doctorates Honoris Causa from London University, from Sussex University, from the University of Macerata, Italy and from the University of Edinburgh and is Honorary Member of the Senate of the University of Ljubljana.
  
  He is a founding Editor of the European Journal of International Law, of the European Law Journal and of the World Trade Review.

Works

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  • The European Courts and National Courts: Doctrine and Jurisprudence

    (The essays comprising this volume are the outcome of a ma...)

    1998
  • The Constitution of Europe: 'Do the New Clothes Have an Emperor?' and Other Essays on European Integration

    (In a series of highly accessible discussions concerning t...)

    1998
  • The Worlds of European Constitutionalism

    (The idea of the EU as a constitutional order has recently...)

    2011
  • The EU, the WTO, and the NAFTA: Towards a Common Law of International Trade?

    (Based on a recent series of courses at the Academy of Eur...)

    2001
  • The European Court of Justice

    (This collection of essays examines an institution that co...)

    2002
  • Israel and the Creation of a Palestine State 1985
  • Change and Stability in International Law-Making 1988
  • Una Europa Cristiana/ A Christian Europe: Prologo De Francisco Rubio Llorente 2003
  • West European Politics 1995

Views

Weiler's research focus is on issues of European integration, globalization and democracy.

Membership

Weiler is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts.

Personality

Weiler was a defendant in a criminal libel action brought in the French courts by Dr Karin Calvo-Goller of the Academic Center of Law and Business concerning a review of her book, The Trial Proceedings of the International Criminal Court. ICTY and ICTR Precedents (Martinus Nijhoff, 2006) that appeared on the Global Law Books website that Weiler edits. The review was written by Professor Thomas Weigend of the University of Cologne, and Calvo-Goller contended that it was libelous. Upon complaint by Calvo-Goller, Weiler declined to remove the review from the website and Calvo-Goller subsequently filed suit.

The suit was notable for the issues that it raised concerning the balance between academic freedom and the rights of those who consider themselves to have been libeled. The case was heard by Tribunal de Grand Instance de Paris on January 20, 2011, with the verdict handed down in Paris on March 3, 2011, dismissing the lawsuit.

In its verdict, the Paris Tribunal said it had no jurisdiction in the case since Calvo-Goller did not bring proof by a court-appointed clerk that the book review website was visible in French territory the day or before the day she brought the case to the dean of the investigating judges in Paris. The Paris Tribunal also declared that the words used by Weigend did not constitute libel and were within the limits of free critical book review speech. The court said his words in the review were measured, and the court therefore dismissed the case. An appeal might be pending. The court stated that Calvo-Goller's bad faith in bringing the action was clearly established, and on that basis she was ordered to pay 8,000 euros (around US$10.000 ) in damages to Dr Weiler.