The Jean Monnet Module on EU Insurance Law: Challenges in the SDG Era (EUInsLSDG)
The need for advanced academic training in insurance was widely felt and identified both by academics and representatives of the industry across Europe and the world.
The Jean Monnet Module on EU Insurance Law: Challenges in the SDG Era (EUInsLSDG) aims at filling a double gap: by providing advanced training that prepares the next generation of top-qualified legal professionals in insurance, ready to enter the market equipped with the instruments to face the challenges of our time, as well as preparing early-stage researchers, by encouraging state-of-the-art academic research in this field in those areas where both the regulators and the regulated require research outputs that will help them substantiate future decisions.
This module also tries to foster awareness of the insurance sector’s potential to contribute decisively towards the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.
Coordinators
Margarida Lima Rego
María del Val Bolívar Oñoro
Members
Claire Bright
Soraya Nour Sckell
Fabrizio Esposito
Joana Campos Carvalho
Martinho Lucas Pires
Maria Elisabete Ramos
Vítor Boaventura Xavier
Results and Objectives of the Module
1. Master’s Course on EU Insurance Law within the Master's in Law and Financial Markets of NOVA School of Law, entirely taught in English, between September and February of 2022/23, 2023/24 and 2024/25.
Students successfully completing EU Insurance Law will be able to understand:
- the basics of insurance: what it is for and how it works;
- the origins of insurance;
- the socio-economic relevance of insurance;
- how to draft and interpret an insurance contract;
- the EU’s role in the regulation of the insurance business and in shaping insurance contract law;
- how to identify red flags and incorporate best practices on insurance’s role in furthering Human Rights and meeting the Sustainable Development Goals in the framework of the EU’s aims and values, as laid out in article 3 of the Lisbon Treaty.
Students will also be able to identify insurance needs and they will know how to go to market and satisfy such needs. Students will understand the main public policy concerns behind the regulation of insurance in the European Union. When given the facts of a hypothetical legal problem relating to insurance, students will be able to solve it, from the perspective of EU Insurance Law.
In that process, students will acquire essential knowledge in EU Insurance Law: the specific grounds sustaining EU legislation on insurance law matters; EU regulation of the business of insurance and reinsurance; EU regulation of insurance distribution; EU regulation of specific classes of insurance; non-insurance-specific EU legislation relevant to insurance; and main insurance-specific ECJ case law.
This short course, held every year, will:
- Encourage reflection on the EU values on Human Rights.
- Focus on the EU approach and contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Look into how Human Rights works in the field of EU Law: The Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU and the ECJ case law.
- Shed light on the relationship between the Sustainable Development Goals and the Human Rights in the EU context.
- Provide an in-depth analysis of the links between human rights and insurance.
- Provide an in-depth analysis of the insurance sector’s current and potential contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals.
- Foster dialogue between students/legal professionals coming from different backgrounds and countries.
- Foster dialogue between students and third parties (NGOs, insurance and reinsurance companies and intermediaries, regulators, other relevant stakeholders).
- Promote critical thinking on the Sustainable Development Goals and the EU as a Human Rights Global Actor.
This e-course will include teaching staff from NOVA and other partner higher education institutions from different parts of Europe as well as one or more sessions with professional guest speakers designed for the students to have an opportunity to hear first-hand experiences from a wide range of stakeholders.
3. Annual Conferences in July of 2023, 2024 and 2025
Finally, this Module will include a series of Annual Conferences on the overarching topic of EU Insurance Law: Challenges in the SDG Era in July of each year. The organizational support of AIDA Portugal, and AIDA Europe, as well as the Module’s Erasmus+ funding, will allow us to bring keynote speakers from all over the world to discuss various topics with a view to taking an active role in the preparation, discussion and open access dissemination of data-based public policy recommendations which contribute to furthering the SDG.
A call for abstracts will be published every December, in preparation for the following year’s July Conference. Authors of the best student discussion papers to be produced within the EU Insurance Law course will also be invited to present their papers at these Annual Conferences.
Courses
E-Course: Insurance and Sustainable Development Goals – The intersection between the ESG and the SDGs | 2024 Edition
In this e-course, participants will gain an understanding of the differences and similarities between the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) factors as well as their interplay in the specific context of the insurance market. How those concerns dialogue with EU Insurance and Human Rights Law will constitute the core of this e-course.
Participants will be able to identify potential threats and opportunities for the SDG and ESG in the insurance market. They will be also prepared to provide a quick response to the former using a EU Insurance and Human Rights Law-based approach. When given the facts of a legal problem relating to insurance, SDG, ESG, EU Insurance and Human Rights Law students will also be able to transfer the solution to the wider public, including a wide range of stakeholders, understanding and construing corporate narratives incorporating ESG and SDG concepts and concerns in compliance with EU Insurance and Human Rights Law.
MOOC Insurance and SDG | Until 04 July 2024
Learn about how the insurance sector can contribute to the sustainable development goals through a series of lectures delivered by top professionals on different SDGs.
E-Course: Insurance and Sustainable Development Goals | 2023 Edition
This e-course explores the relationship between EU insurance law, the SDGs and human rights through a series of talks delivered by experts. The course enables you to identify potential threats and opportunities for the SDGs and human rights in the insurance markets and prepares you to provide a quick response when exposed to these scenarios. It also provides an understanding of how the very nature of an organisation defines the interaction between these three spheres (EU Insurance Law, SDGs and Human Rights), and offers the integrative vision that is needed to address these issues from a human rights perspective.
Events
International Conference of the Jean Monnet Module on EU Insurance Law: Challenges in the SDG Era
The main objective of this annual conference is to create a forum where scholars, practitioners, non-governmental organizations, cooperative and social sector, and state agencies with an interest in insurance will meet and discuss topics that are of interest to all, with a focus on public policy recommendations on the role of insurance in fostering sustainable development goals.
We aim to contribute to the generation of knowledge and raise awareness as to the role of insurance for the equal enjoyment of human rights and the achievement of SDGs, in line with the core values of the European Union.
Media partner:
