EUTopia CoLeCo Legal History: The End(s) of War

  Before we begin, we would like to introduce ourselves. We are the UPF team participating in this year’s EUtopia Project: Manel Bautista, Aurora Peggion, Greta Pescosolido, Isabelle Hannam, Eduardo Córdoba, Lauren Ferrie, Annika Cross, Ellie Cullen and Guillem Marcer. This post is dedicated to a global assessment of our Peak Event presentations:  “From Internment to Reparation: The French State and Spanish Exiles” by Aurora Peggion, Manel Bautista and Greta Pescosolido.  “The Repression of Republicans During and After the Spanish Civil War” by Lauren Ferrie, Annika Cross and Guillem Marcer ‘’The Foundations of New Europe after WWII: The Case of the European Coal and Steel Community’’ by Isabelle Hannam, Ellie Cullen, Matilde Gremmo and Eduardo Córdoba Why did you join? Our participation in the EUtopia Project began with an invitation from our professor, who introduced us to the initiative at the beginning of the academic year. The idea of joining a transnational learning...

Our Peak Event report begins a good few days before the actual Peak Event. In fact, it begins on a relatively cloudy, cold and (thankfully) rainless Tuesday morning in front of our Faculty in Ljubljana, where we, each armed with a suitcase and a backpack, filed onto a shuttle van which was to take us to Trieste airport. And thus, at seven in the morning, our great 10-hour odyssey to Barcelona officially began. We made it to our destination with minimal difficulties, which - for the stretch of Slovenian highway leading us there, which is notorious for traffic jams - was an incredible blessing. We got there so early, in fact, that the check-in counters weren’t even open yet, so we used up our wait-time to eat pre-packed sandwiches and chug from our water bottles before we had to go through security. Luckily, Trieste airport is quite small, so once our bags were tagged and taken away we got through the metal detectors and to our gate in no time. We then collectively ...

Donderdag 26/02/2026 Donderdagochtend, de dag waar we al zo lang naar uitkeken, was eindelijk aangebroken. Vol spanning namen we onze koffer in de hand en stapten we de voordeur uit. Niet goed wetende wat we konden verwachten van de komende vier dagen, maar met een rotsvaste overtuiging dat het hoe dan ook de ervaring en de kans van ons leven zou worden. Het voelde een beetje aan als een sprong in het diepe en vele vragen drongen zich op. Hoe zal morgen de presentatie gaan? Ga ik interessante mensen ontmoeten uit verschillende Europese landen? Gaan de andere Belgische meisjes, die ik nog nooit in levende lijven ontmoet heb, aangenaam zijn? Het antwoord op die laatste vraag liet echter niet lang op zich wachten. Vanaf het eerste moment dat we elkaar zagen op de luchthaven, stond het al in de sterren geschreven... dit worden vier fantastische dagen. We besloten instinctief en collectief om de onwennige ontmoetingsfase over te slaan en het voelde meteen alsof we al jaren goede vriendinnen...

The 2026 Peak Event of the EUTOPIA Connected Learning Community in Legal History took place in Barcelona from 26 to 27 February, hosted by Prof. Alfons Aragoneses at Universitat Pompeu Fabra. This year's theme, "The End(s) of War," brought together student delegations from four universities: CY Cergy Paris Université (Prof. Caroula Argyriadis Kervégan), Univerza v Ljubljani (Prof. Katja Škrubej), Vrije Universiteit Brussel (Prof. Frederik Dhondt), and Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Prof. Alfons Aragoneses). Following the previous editions held in Cergy (2022), Ljubljana (2023), Brussels (2024), and Warwick (2025), this year's event in Barcelona continued the tradition of bringing together students and faculty for intensive academic exchange and cultural discovery. Our delegation from CY, composed of the two of us, had the privilege of presenting our research on Paul Touvier, the first French citizen convicted of crimes against humanity. This topic, which we had been workin...