Biography

John Cotter BCL, LLB (Hons) (NUI), BL (King's Inns), Barrister (unregistered) (Middle Temple), PhD (Dubl), FHEA joined Keele University as a lecturer in law in 2019. Prior to joining Keele University, John was a lecturer at the Department of International and European Law, Faculty of Law at Maastricht University, the Netherlands and a lecturer at Hasselt University, Belgium (2017-2019). Before that, he was a senior lecturer in law at the University of Wolverhampton. He holds BCL (Law and German) and LLB degrees from University College Cork, Ireland and a PhD in law from Trinity College Dublin, Ireland. He is qualified as a barrister in Ireland and in England & Wales, and practised at the Irish bar for four years (2007-2011).

Research and scholarship

John’s research areas are European Union institutional and procedural law, specifically the functioning of the preliminary reference procedure. He also has an interest in American legal realism, especially the work of Karl Llewellyn. His PhD thesis Extra-Legal Factors in the Article 267 TFEU Preliminary Reference Procedure draws upon the theories of Llewellyn to argue that there are a number of factors built into that procedure, which tend to promote legal certainty. This thesis is the basis for a monograph to be published by Edward Elgar Publishing in 2022.

Teaching

UNDERGRADUATE

• Constitutional Law
• Administrative Law
• European Union Law

Further information

John would welcome the opportunity to supervise PhD theses in the areas of European Union institutional and procedural law.