Hubert Smekal

Hubert Smekal is an Associate Professor and Lecturer in the Department of Law at Maynooth University, having previously served as an Assistant Professor and Senior Researcher at Masaryk University, Brno, Czechia. He holds degrees in Law and European Studies from Brno and Bologna. His research focuses on the interplay between law and politics, particularly in the context of the EU, judicial behavior, and human rights.

Smekal has authored/co-authored ten books, including *Domestic Judicial Treatment of European Court of Human Rights Case Law: Beyond Compliance* (2020). He has participated in ERC projects, H2020 grants, and Czech Science Foundation initiatives. Internationally, he has lectured at institutions such as Shandong University (China), University of Toronto, and Bilgi University (Turkey), specializing in EU Law and competition/state aid law.

He co-founded the Czech Center for Human Rights and Democracy and served on the Czech Human Rights Council. His advisory work includes drafting reports for the Czech Government Office and the European Network against Racism. Smekal is a member of the Berkeley Center on Comparative Equality and Anti-Discrimination Law and a former Fulbright Ambassador managing Masaryk University’s participation in the Global Campus of Human Rights.

Smekal’s research interests span EU Law, human rights, judicial decision-making, and methodological approaches to legal studies. His work emphasizes the role of courts in political systems, particularly in post-communist contexts. Awards include the Fulbright Post-Doc Fellowship (2010–2011), which enabled research at UC Berkeley.

In teaching, he leads courses on EU Law and competition law at Maynooth. Beyond academia, he enjoys beach volleyball, jazz-rock music, and learning Irish. His current research includes studies on differentiated integration in the EU and judicial resilience in populist eras.