Dr Pablo Castillo-Ortiz
School of Law
Senior Lecturer
+44 114 222 6854
Full contact details
School of Law
Bartolomé House
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
- Profile
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I joined the School of Law of the University of Sheffield in 2013 as a Lecturer, and in 2022 I was promoted to Senior Lecturer.
My research focuses on the role of judicial institutions in democratic systems and processes of regional integration (particularly the European Union). My work has been published in journals such as, inter alia, European Constitutional Law Review, European Political Science Review, and Comparative European Politics. I also have been cited in Amicus Curiae briefs submitted to the European Court of Human Rights, and featured or published in international media such as France 24, El País and EUObserver.
I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (now Advance HE). I enjoy teaching and helping students grow academically through an interdisciplinary legal education. In my classes I value the diversity of viewpoints of students and I try to create a respectful and friendly learning environment for all.
- Qualifications
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- PhD in Law and Politics Science, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
- MA in Democracy and Government, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
- LLB Law, Universidad de Almería (Spain)
- Research interests
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- Constitutional Review
- Judicial Politics
- Regional Integration
- Comparative constitutional institutions
- Empirical legal studies
Member of the Sheffield Institute of Corporate and Commercial Law and the Sheffield Centre for International and European Law research clusters.
- Publications
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Books
- Judicial Governance and Democracy in Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland.
- Análisis Cualitativo Comparado (QCA). Madrid: Centro De Investigaciones Sociológicas.
- EU Treaties and the Judicial Politics of National Courts: A Law and Politics Approach. Routledge.
Journal articles
- Right‐wing Eurosceptic parties and the strategic use of law. JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies.
- Constitutionalism and the radical right: The case of the Spanish party Vox. International Journal of Constitutional Law. View this article in WRRO
- The dilemmas of constitutional courts and the case for a new design of Kelsenian institutions. Law and Philosophy. View this article in WRRO
- Constitutional review in the member states of the EU-28 : a political analysis of institutional choices. Journal of Law and Society. View this article in WRRO
- The politics of implementation of the judicial council model in Europe. European Political Science Review. View this article in WRRO
- Gender, Intersectionality and Religious Manifestation Before the European Court of Human Rights. Journal of Human Rights, 18(1), 76-91. View this article in WRRO
- The Illiberal Abuse of Constitutional Courts in Europe. European Constitutional Law Review, 15(1), 48-72. View this article in WRRO
- Constitutional courts and citizens' perceptions of judicial systems in Europe. Comparative European Politics. View this article in WRRO
- National Higher Courts and European Integration: A Survey of Six Decades of Academic Inquiry. German Law Journal, 18(4), 799-822.
- Councils of the Judiciary and Judges’ Perceptions of Respect to Their Independence in Europe. The Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 9(2), 315-336. View this article in WRRO
- The Political De-determination of Legal Rules and the Contested Meaning of the ‘No Bailout’ Clause. Social and Legal Studies, 26(2), 249-272. View this article in WRRO
- National Higher Courts and European Integration: A Survey of Six Decades of Academic Inquiry. German Law Journal, 18(4), 800-822. View this article in WRRO
- El asociacionismo de las profesiones jurídicas en España: análisis de la lógica asociativa de jueces, fiscales y abogados. Revista Española de Derecho Constitucional. View this article in WRRO
- Paths to the recognition of homo-parental adoptive rights in the EU-27: a QCA analysis. Contemporary Politics, 22(1), 40-56. View this article in WRRO
- Framing the Court: Political Reactions to the Ruling on the Declaration of Sovereignty of the Catalan Parliament. The Hague Journal on the Rule of Law, 7(1), 27-47.
- The Contested 'Constitution' of the EU and the quest for ever-democratic constitutionalism. Panoptica. View this article in WRRO
- “Does Law Matter?”. Judicial Politics, Legal Realism, and the Problem of Indeterminacy of Law as a Methodological Problem [“¿Importa el derecho?”. Política judicial, realismo jurídico y el problema de la indeterminación del derecho en tanto que problema metodológico]. Isegoria, 51, 575-596. View this article in WRRO
- ‘Playing the Judicial Card’: Litigation Strategies during the Process of Ratification of the Lisbon Treaty. European Law Journal, 20(5), 630-648. View this article in WRRO
- La crisis y las transformaciones del derecho público estatal y europeo vistas por la academia española [the crisis and the transformations of Spanish and European public law from the perspective of the Spanish academy]. Revista de Estudios Políticos, 165. View this article in WRRO
- The judicial policy of the Spanish Constitutional Court in the process of ratifying European Union treaties: Approximation based on a new juridical realism. Revista de Estudios Politicos(159), 107-138.
- La política judicial del tribunal constitucional en los procesos de ratificación de tratados de la Unión Europea: aproximación desde un nuevo realismo jurídico [The Judicial Politics of the Constitutional Court in the Processes of Ratification of European Union Treaties: approach from a new legal realism]. Revista de Estudios Políticos, 159.
- Taking rights ironically: ¿qué nos enseñan sobre el educado liberalismo los groseros populistas de extrema derecha? [Taking rights ironically: what do the rude extreme-right populists teach us about the educated liberalism?]. Astrolabio. Revista Internacional de Filosofía, 14.
- La inserción jurídica de las autonomías en la Unión Europea : "instucionalización" y "democratización" como rasgos centrales de un proceso inacabado” [The participation of Spanish autonomic communities in the European Union: democratization and institutionalization as core characteristics of an unfinished process]. RDUNED. Revista de Derecho UNED, 4.
- The Democratic Self-Defence of Constitutional Courts. ICL Journal.
- The types of legitimacy of judicial umpires in European multilevel democracies. Legal Studies.
Chapters
- Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) as an empirical method for international law1, Research Methods in International Law: A Handbook (pp. 326-343).
- National Courts and Ratification of the EU Treaties: Assessing the Impact of Political Contexts in Judicial Decisions In Evas T, Lord C & Liebert E (Ed.), Multilayered Representation in the European Union (pp. 129-155).
Reports
- Regional Organisations and Mechanisms for Democracy Protection in Latin America, the Caribbean and the European Union View this article in WRRO
Other
- Partnering for Democracy: Protecting the Democratic Order in Post-Brexit Europe. View this article in WRRO
- Judicial Governance and Democracy in Europe. Springer Nature Switzerland.
- Research group
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Areas of Research Supervision
I am happy to supervise students in my areas of research specialisation.
- Grants
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Title/Description: The Protection of Democracy in Integration Organizations in Europe and Latin-America and the Caribbean
- Awarding Body: EU-LAC Foundation
- People involved: Carlos Juan Closa Montero (PI), Pablo José Castillo Ortiz, José Antonio Sanahuja, Diana Tussie, Cintia Quiliconi
- Years funded for: 2014-2015
- Amount: €30,000
- Teaching interests
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I know how important a high-quality teaching is for my students. I try to combine the teaching of core and basic contents of each subject with the explanation of latest developments in the field, so that students are aware of which are the main current social and academic debates.
In the Spanish law modules that I teach I reproduce the main patterns of Spanish academia so that students can get familiar with it, I stimulate debate in Spanish language and encourage participation.
My aim is to get the best from my students, and for that reason I take into account what their starting point is and what their personal and social constraints are.
Topics I am interested in teaching:
- Constitutional Law
- Spanish Law
- EU Law
- Law and Politics
- Teaching activities
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Undergraduate
- Spanish Legal Language (Convenor)
- Legal and Political Culture and the Spanish-Speaking World (Convenor)
- Principles of Comparative Law (Convenor)
- Spanish Law and Legal System (Convenor)
- Law, Accountability and Government
- Introduction to Comparative Law (convenor)
- Professional activities and memberships
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- Member of the Advisory Board of Compasss, an international network for the development and dissemination of configurational methods of empirical research
- Reviewer for Revista de Estudios Políticos
- Member of the International Association for Public Law (ICON-S)
- Member of the Spanish Political Science Association (AECPA)
- Author of contributions for the newspaper El País and for ‘Contrapoder’ in Eldiario.es