Fernanda Nicola Professor WCL Faculty
- Degrees
- S.J.D., Harvard Law School 2009 ( S.J.D.)
LL.M., Harvard Law School 2002
Ph.D., Trento University, Italy 2006
Law Degree, University of Turin 2000 ( Laurea in Legge (Law Degree))
B.A., University of Turin 1996 ( Laurea in Scienze Politiche) - Bio
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Fernanda G. Nicola is Professor of Law at the Washington College of Law, American University and she is the Director of the Program on International Organizations Law and Development. Her research and teaching interests are in European Union Law, Constitutional Law, Comparative Law and Local Government Law. She received her PhD from Trento University and her SJD degree from Harvard Law School where she was the recipient of the Mancini Prize in European Law, and the Justice Welfare and Economics fellowship at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs.
Professor Nicola is the author of several articles on transnational legal theory, European law and integration including Family law exceptionalism in Comparative Law (2010); Invisible Cities in EU Law (2012); National Legal Traditions at Work in the Jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (2016); Legal Diplomacy in An Age of Authoritarianism (2020); with Michelle Egan, The Values-Based Trade Agenda (2023). In 2024 Professor Nicola co-authored with Transparency International this Report on Protecting National Sovereignty: What is the Real Threat? Comparing the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act with Hungary’s National Protection of Sovereignty Law as she wrote in Verfassung blog. She also wrote an Amicus Brief for the Georgian Constitutional Court on the unconstitutionality of the Georgian Law on Transparency of Foreign Influence.
She co-authored with Günter Frankenberg, Comparative Law. Introduction to a Critical Practice (2024). She co-edited three volumes on the Court of Justice of the European Union, with Bill Davies entitled EU law Stories: Contextual and Critical Histories in European Jurisprudence(2017); with Mikael-Rask Madsen and Antoine Vauchez,Researching the European Court of Justice: Methodological Shifts and Law's Embeddedness (2020); with Daniele Gallo, Roberto Mastroianni and Lorenzo Cecchetti, The Italian Influence on European Law. Italian Judges and Advocates General at the European Court of Justice (2024).
Professor Nicola is a member of the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) and was the AALS Chair of the EU law and Comparative law Sections. In 2017 she was a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence and a Visiting Professor at LUISS in Rome. She organized the Luxembourg forum at AUWCL that is the official visit of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU) to the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington D.C. and she took part in the movie 70 years of the European Court of Justice.
- See Also
- SSRN AUTHOR PAGE
- Areas of Specialization
- Constitutional Law
- European Union Law
- International/Comparative Law
- Law and Development
- State and Local Government Law
- Transnational and Private Law Theory
- For the Media
- To request an interview for a news story, call AU Communications at 202-885-5950 or submit a request.
Teaching
Spring 2024
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GOVT-485 Topics in Women and Politics: Women As Lawyers and Judges