About
Samuel Shannon is a Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of Oslo and is currently an Academic Visitor at the University of Oxford (Faculty of Law).
His research interests include EU constitutional law, judicial remedies, and the rule of law. Shannon’s work focuses particularly on the enforcement discretion of executive bodies, remedies to effectuate the right to a fair trial, and judicial backsliding. He has been a Visiting Researcher at the University of Luxembourg (Centre for European Law) and at Harvard Law School.
Before joining the Faculty and the University's ENROL project, Shannon worked in private practice and for the Court Watch Poland Foundation, where his work focused on excessive pre-trial detention and improving the Foundation’s courtwatching infrastructure. During law school, he clerked at the District Court of Appeals in Warsaw, and wrote for the socio-political magazine Kultura Liberalna.
Shannon holds his law degree from the University of Warsaw (magister, 2022). While a law student, he won the Hugo Sinzheimer Moot Court Competition, where he was also awarded the Best Speaker award, and was a finalist in the EEA Law Moot Court.
Dissertation
Shannon's article-based doctoral dissertation, supervised by Prof. Christophe Hillion and Prof. Mads Andenæs, deals with judicial enforcement of European Union law in the Union's Member States.
The dissertation focuses in large part on the enforcement of Article 19(1) TEU which grants an individual right to an independent and impartial court and imposes an obligation on EU Member States to ensure that right when regulating their remedial system and national courts with jurisdiction over EU law claims.
Making up the dissertation are four articles devoted to, among other things:
(1) the capacity of national courts to provide a "meta-remedy", that is, to ensure that parties are able to obtain an effective remedy from an impartial and independent tribunal;
(2) the extent of the European Commission's discretion to initiate Article 258 TFEU infringement proceedings and seek penalties and/or fines under Article 260 TFEU;
(3) suspension of mutual trust in the European Arrest Warrant context.
Academic interests
- EU constitutional law
- EU procedural law, particularly law of remedies
- U.S. law, particularly equitable remedies
- Criminal procedure and self-incrimination protections
- EU competition law