Clara van Dam is affiliated to the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of Leiden Law School as a guest staff member.

More information about Clara van Dam

General

Clara van Dam is affiliated to the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of Leiden Law School as a guest staff member. Clara’s research interests circle around the processes by which legislative, judicial and administrative processes and practices are influenced by European Union law as well as the legitimacy and effectiveness of informal administrative governance. Clara has experience in conducting classical legal research as well as in conducting qualitative empirical research.

Clara obtained her doctorate from Leiden University in 2020 on her dissertation titled Guidance Documents of the European Commission in the Dutch legal order (see more on her research below). In 2018, Clara was appointed lecturer and after obtaining her doctorate Clara worked as an Assistant Professor at the department of Constitutional and Administrative Law of Leiden University. As PhD-fellow, lecturer and Assistant Professor Clara has acquired broad experience in teaching, coordinating and organising master and bachelor courses in (European) administrative law.

Clara worked as a legal advisor at the Judicial Divisions of the Dutch Council of State from 2021 until November 2023,. Her main role was to advice on questions on administrative law and European Union law that arise in cases that are brought before the Judicial Division of the Dutch Council of State.

Clara is a member of the editorial board of the Dutch Journal for European Law (NtEr). She currently resides in the United Arab Emirates with her family.

Academic background

Clara has a bachelor and master degree in Law as well as in Political Sciences. She graduated cum laude from the master degree in Constitutional and Administrative Law from Leiden University. She has a master degree (mention très bien) in European Political and Administrative Studies from the College of Europe in (Bruges, Belgium). During her studies, Clara studied at l’Institut d'études politiques (Sciences Po) where she completed courses in political science and European Union law.

Publications

Clara has published in Dutch and European law journals. She published, amongst others, in the Review of European Administrative Law (REALaw), the Dutch Journal for European Law (Nter), the Dutch Journal for Administrative Law (NTB), Netherlands Administrative Law Library (NALL) and the Common Market Law Review (for which she wrote a book review). Clara also authored and co-authored book chapters to edited books and publications. Clara’s latest publication discusses the role of the Aarhus Treaty in shaping the right to access to justice of environmental organisations under national procedural administrative law. A full list of publications can be found under ‘publications’ at this website.

Doctoral research

In her doctoral research Clara explored the role of guidance documents of the European Commission in the Dutch legal order. Her thesis studies the issuing process and the effects of these quasi-informal documents, in light of both a European and a national context. Her research finds that guidance documents can have a far-reaching yet often invisible influence on national administrative law and practice. These findings are based on numerous interviews with judges, officials and experts in the field, she conducted an extensive case law analysis and studied various government documents.

The results of the empirical research show that the effects of guidance documents can both enhance and jeopardise the legitimacy and effectiveness of EU and national governance process. In order to counteract the negative effects these documents risk to have, whilst optimising their legitimacy-enhancing effects, governance through guidance would have to be regulated to a larger extent. Yet, when redesigning ‘governance through guidance’ account must be taken of the benefits that informality may have. The book eventually outlines different pathways that could be taken to regulate the issuing and use of guidance whilst leaving sufficient room for informality.

The doctoral thesis is online accessible.

During her doctoral research, in 2015-2016, Clara worked as a Blue Book trainee at the Directorate General for Agriculture and Rural Development of the European Commission. During this traineeship she developed a ‘guidelines for guidance’, which outlines general rules and principles to be taken into account by Commission officials when drafting, issuing and using guidance documents that seek to assist Member States in the implementation of EU law.

As a PhD-fellow Clara attended the Academy of European Law Summer School at the European University Institute (Florence). She also completed the Summer School in Methods and Techniques; Process Tracing Methodology; European Consortium of Political Research (Ljubljana) as well as several courses in conducting qualitative interviews.

Teaching

For several years Clara coordinated and lectured in the master course on the Europeanisation of Administrative Law. She lectured in and coordinated bachelor courses on (general) Administrative law and supervised the writing of both master and bachelor theses. Clara regularly gave courses on legal methodology (mainly on how to use qualitative empirical research methods in law).

Clara was the academic coordinator of the first edition of Summer Course ‘Europeanisation of administrative law in the EU Member States’ which took place in The Hague in July 2017. As a guest member of staff Clara gave guest lectures in the master course on the Europeanisation of Administrative Law. She currently supervises students in the writing of their bachelor thesis.

Other roles and positions

For almost ten years, Clara (2014-2023) was a member of the board of the Dutch Association for European Law (NVER). In that capacity, Clara has was a board member of the Dutch Association for Young European Lawyers (STER). Clara has also been actively involved (for one year as a member of the board) in the organisation of the 20^th  edition of the Congress of the Fédération Internationale pour le Droit Européen (FIDE) that took place in The Hague in May 2021. Clara was a co-organiser and of the initiators of the Young FIDE Seminar that took place on the first day of the FIDE Congress.

Activities