Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine
Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance
Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust
Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine
Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History
Luxembourg Centre for European Law
Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems
The Luxembourg Centre for European Law warmly congratulates Walter Bruno, who successfully defended his PhD thesis titled “Strategic Litigation before the CJEU: A Procedural Law Approach”, on 22 January 2026.
By bridging socio-legal and procedural law literatures, the thesis builds a theoretical framework to understand what strategic litigation is before the CJEU: the phenomenon through which legal mobilisation uses EU judicial remedies to pursue broader societal and systemic change. It offers a multiple-step test to find and study CJEU strategic cases.
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Prof. Herwig Hofmann, Prof. Sarmiento, Prof. Ćapeta, Dr Bruno, Prof. Mendes, Prof. Hess, Prof. Tridimas (f.l.t.r.)
Through a mixed-methods analysis of CJEU jurisprudence (with a particular focus on data protection and digital litigation), the research unveils how the current procedural framework constrains the Court’s reasoning and reveals a critical deficit in tools for addressing collective interests. To mitigate these limitations, the thesis proposes how to adapt procedural law to collective actors. It advances incremental jurisprudential ‘reforms’ focusing on civil society organisations and concerning standing, third-party interventions, the integration of non-legal expertise, and forms of order to reconcile openness and institutional balance. These reforms aim to recalibrate the legal opportunity structure for strategic litigation while reinforcing the EU rule of law.
Congratulations, Dr Bruno!
‟ After 4 and a half years, I have been honoured to discuss my research and defend my thesis before some of the leading scholars in my field. My gratitude goes to my supervisor, the professors, the researchers, and the practitioners who have guided and supported me throughout these years. Procedure is often viewed as a technicality, but it is, in fact, the backbone of an effective judicial protection. Ensuring that collective interests have a clear procedural path before the CJEU in 2026, with increasingly systemic challenges, is a rule of law matter.”
Legal Administrator at the Court of Justice of the European Union