Nikos Skoutaris

I am Professor of European Constitutional Law at the University of East Anglia, working at the intersection of EU law, comparative constitutional law and conflict resolution.

My research asks a single question across three levels of the European order: how far can a composite legal order accommodate the demands of units that want to loosen, disapply or leave the common framework — and where does accommodation stop?

My first monograph, The Cyprus Issue: The Four Freedoms in a (Member-)State under Siege (Hart, 2011), was the first legal treatise on how the Union engages with an unrecognised entity inside its own borders. My second, Federalism in the EU Constitutional Order of States: An Uncommon Principle (Hart, forthcoming 2027), examines how the European constitutional landscape accommodates regions with legislative autonomy.

Recent articles have argued that the Union's legal order can accommodate legitimate exercises of self-determination provided the Article 2 TEU values are respected (Virginia Journal of International Law, 2024); traced the limits of issue-based defection from the federal bargain (North Carolina Journal of International Law, 2025, with Giuseppe Martinico); and set out the legal architecture through which contested borders are governed after withdrawal (Journal of Common Market Studies, forthcoming).

I have advised the GUE/NGL group of the European Parliament, and have held visiting positions at the European University Institute, Eurac Research and the Institut d'Estudis de l'Autogovern in Barcelona. My work has been discussed by the BBC, Bloomberg, The Guardian and Der Spiegel.

Awards

Winner, Federal Scholar in Residence Program, 2023
Finalist, UEA Award for Outstanding Impact in Policy and Practice, 2018
Winner, UEA Engagement Award, 2017