Laurence W. GORMLEY

Prof. Dr. Laurence W. GORMLEY has taught in the Law Department at the College in Bruges since 2004 (having previously taught in Bruges and then at Natolin 1993—1999 on the PECO programme).

After graduating from Oxford and the London School of Economics, he was called to the Bar of England and Wales by the Middle Temple, and was its first Hon. Sir Peter Bristow Scholar in 1978, and held a Rotary Foundation Fellowship at the Europa Institute at Utrecht University, where he took his doctorate in 1985, with a dissertation on Prohibiting Restrictions on Trade within the EEC (Amsterdam, North Holland, 1985).

After having been a Lecturer in Law at Liverpool, and then an official of the European Commission, he was appointed to the Chair of European Law at the University of Groningen in 1990;  in 1995 Laurence was also awarded a Jean Monnet Chair, and from 1999 headed the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence at Groningen. He became Emeritus in November 2019, and is a Bencher of the Middle Temple.

His principal publications are in the field of EU Law, with the main emphasis being on the areas of the free movement of goods; customs law; public procurement; taxation, and the internal market. He edited and revised the 2nd (1989) and 3rd (1998) editions of Kapteyn & VerLoren van Themaat's Introduction to the Law of the European Communities, and wrote the contributions on Customs Union and the Free Movement of Goods, and on Taxation in Vol. 52 of Halsbury’s Laws of England (4th. edition, 1986). His EU Taxation Law (2005, 2nd edn. In preparation) and EU Law of Free Movement of Goods and Customs Union (2009) are published by Oxford University Press.

His more recent publications include:

• ‘After the use cases: This sorry state of things entire’ (2012) European Journal of Consumer Law 269—282;
• ‘Third-Country Goods in the Internal Market: Some Issues’, in I Govaere & D Hanf (eds.) Scrutinizing Internal and External Dimensions of European Law (Liber Amicorum Paul Demaret, 2013) 313—323;
• ‘Private Parties and the Free Movement of Goods: Responsible, Irresponsible, or a Lack of Principles?’ (2015) 38 Fordham Int’l. LJ 993—1016;
• ‘Inconsistencies and Misconceptions in the Free Movement of Goods’ (2015) 40 ELRev. 925—939;
• ‘What Keck and Mithouard Should Have Said: ‘Steady as She Goes, Left Hand down a Bit?’ (2023) 8 (1) European Papers 393-403
• ‘Free Movement of Goods and Double Standards in Public Morality: Opinion of Advocate General Slynn in Conegate’,, in G Butler & A Łazowski (eds.), Shaping EU Law the British Way: UK Advocates General at the Court of Justice of the European Union (Hart, 2022) 229—237
• ‘Sheep May Safely Graze’, in J Adams-Prassl, A Ezrachi, S Bogojević, & D Leczykiewicz (eds.), The Internal Market Ideal: Essays in Honour of Stephen Weatherill (Oxford University Press, 2024) 101—125
• ‘Reforms of Public Procurement Law: A long road to Heaven?’ in A La Chimia & M Trybus (eds), Reforming Public Procurement Law: Liber Amicorum in Honour of Sue Arrowsmith (Hart, 2024) 123—138 (Hart, 2024)
• ‘What the European Court should have said: Reflections on re-writing Keck’, in C Barnard, A Łazowski & D Sarmiento (eds.), Pursuit of Legal Harmony in a Turbulent Europe: Essays in Honour of Eleanor Sharpston (Hart, 2024) 445—456 (October 2024).

Laurence is on the Editorial or Advisory Boards of various journals, including the European Law Review; the European Business Law Review; the European Jounal of Legal Education; The Irish Jurist, and the Public Procurement Law Review. He is Joint General Editor (with Jo Shaw and Mark Dawson) of Cambridge Studies in European Law and Policy, and, with Sacha Garben), is Joint General Editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of EU Law. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute of European Law at the University of Birmingham, and an Emeritus Member of the Society of Legal Scholars.

Over the years he has been Visiting Professor at University College London; Bremen; Leuven; Bonn, and Bucerius Law School. He has been a Visiting Fellow of Sidney Sussex College and the Centre for European Legal Studies, University of Cambridge.

From 1995—2005 he was Chairman of the Dutch Association for Procurement Law, and in 2015—2016 he was President of the European Law Faculties Association (ELFA). He has considerable experience in the assessment of research programmes and in accrediting academic programmes. He has written reports for the Dutch Parliament, and for national and local government, and has been an expert witness on EU law in ICC arbitration proceedings.

In 2017 he was appointed Officier in de Orde van Oranje-Nassau, and in April 2019 he was honoured to be presented with a Festschrift: F. Amtenbrink et al (eds), The Internal Market and the Future of European Integration Essays in Honour of Laurence W. Gormley (Cambridge University Press, 2019, 854 pp.).