European Solidarity

What is solidarity and what makes us think it is something important? Is it just an abstract idea or something more like a prosocial practice that can grow to inform legal regulations and political decisions? How is it that solidarity is so widespread in everyday language while this rarely corresponds to concrete applications of this principle? And what kind of application does solidarity find in the European context, historically and in the present?

European Solidarity gathers insight into all these questions, from scholars in fields including philosophy, political science, international law, sociology, and intellectual history. By focusing on its conceptual genesis, the thinkers and contexts that contributed to its evolution, and the practices that aim at implementing it, this book provides an interdisciplinary picture of European solidarity, highlighting its main features, limits, and potentialities.

Francesco Tava is Associate Professor of Philosophy in the School of Social Sciences at University of the West of England, Bristol. His main research interests are in political philosophy, phenomenology, and applied ethics. He is particularly interested in problems surrounding the meaning and function of political solidarity in the European context.

Noëlle Quénivet is Professor in International Law at the Bristol Law School of the University of West of England (UK). She previously worked as Researcher at the Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict (Germany). She has published and edited books as well as written journal articles in the field of international humanitarian law, international criminal law and human rights law, mainly on issues relating to children and women in armed conflict. Her current works focuses on migration in Europe and EU citizenship. She holds a LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Nottingham (UK) and a PhD in Law from the University of Essex (UK).