On 13 October 2023, our team had the pleasure to welcome Professor Tonia Novitz (University of Bristol) in Strasbourg. On top of her own outstanding qualities as a researcher, Professor Novitz is part of the Advisory Board of European Birds of Passage. Her visit provided a great opportunity to discuss the results of the first year of E-BoP in person, as well as to meet the early career researchers of the project (Audrey, Catharina, and Justyna) for the first time.
Jumping on this opportunity, we changed the format of our monthly Journal Club, to make it a “Meet the Author” session. Therefore, we discussed two of professor Novitz publications which are directly related to the topic of European Birds of Passage, notably “Evolutionary Trajectories for Transnational Labour Law: Trade in Goods to Trade in Services?” (2014) and “Reform of the Posting of Workers Regime – An Assessment of the Practical Impact on Unfree Labour Relations” (2020). These publications exemplified different ways to approach the legal phenomenon. On the one hand, a doctrinal perspective to discuss the emergent narratives on the evolution of international markets and their legal regulation. On the other, an empirical one, to study the working conditions of workers posted from Serbia via Hungary to Slovakia, in order to verify the impact of the 2018 Amending Directive.
After the Journal Club, professor Novitz also gave a presentation on “Exploring a human rights approach to ‘decent’ digital work: What happens when freedom of association and expression are combined?”. She presented her ongoing research on the topic in conversation with Marco Rocca, our principal investigator, as well as the other members of the labour law team at the University of Strasbourg.