Dr. Luke Dimitrios Spieker, Maîtrise en droit (Paris), LL.M. (London)
Postdoctoral researcher at DynamInt since May 2024
Research project: Transformations of Belonging: Nationality Law under International Influence
Vita
Dr. Luke Dimitrios Spieker is a post-doctoral researcher at DynamInt since May 2024 where he works on key questions of constitutional, European, and international law. He is also a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. In his Habilitation project, he studies transformations of nationality laws under the influence of international and supranational obligations.
Dimitri Spieker studied law within the framework of the European Law School program. After passing the First State Exam in 2016 (Faculty Prize), he obtained a Maîtrise en droit from Université Panthéon-Assas in Paris in 2017 (Excellence Prize of the German-French University) and an LL.M. from King’s College London in 2018 (David D. Cameron Memorial Prize). From 2018 to 2021, he completed his PhD under the supervision of Armin von Bogdandy at the Max Planck Institute for Foreign and International Public Law in Heidelberg, focusing on the judicial mobilisation of EU values. His dissertation was awarded several prizes, including the Wilhelm Bender Dissertation Prize, the Otto Hahn Medal, and the UACES Best Book Prize in 2024. During his studies and PhD, he was supported by the German National Academic Foundation. From 2021 to 2023, Dimitri Spieker completed his legal traineeship at the Berlin Higher Regional Court with assignments to the Federal Ministry of Justice, Redeker Sellner Dahs and the Commission’s legal service. He passed his second state examination in November 2023.
Dimitri Spieker’s research concentrates on the constitutional foundations of EU law, particularly its orientation to common values such as democracy, the rule of law, and fundamental rights (see his 2023 OUP monograph EU Values Before the Court of Justice). Against this backdrop, he addresses various current questions, including the restoration of democratic rule of law in Member States (Columbia Journal of European Law), the development of Union citizenship (Yearbook of European Law), the emergence of new fundamental rights, such as those of LGBTIQ* persons (Common Market Law Review), the mitigation of conflicts between European and national courts (Common Market Law Review), and the reform of the EU treaties (ZaöRV). In addition, he critically engages with fundamental assumptions of EU legal scholarship, such as the over-constitutionalization of EU law (German Law Journal), its primacy (Common Market Law Review), or the readiness of German judges to submit preliminary references (European Law Open).
His research has been awarded many prizes, such as the Heinz Maier-Leibnitz Prize, the Best Article Prize of the Arbeitskreis Europäische Integration, or the Common Market Law Review Prize for Young Academics.
His expertise is also sought beyond academia by national and European institutions. Additionally, Dimitri Spieker advises various NGOs, such as RECLAIM and the Helsinki Committee.
A full CV can be found here.
Fields of research
Public law (esp. constitutional law) | EU law (esp. EU constitutional law) | EU values | Interaction of national and EU law | Federal systems | LGBTIQ* rights | Union citizenship | Citizenship and nationality law
Representative publications
Complete list of publications, talks and presentations (May 2026)
Monographs
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, EU Values Before the Court of Justice. Foundations, Potential, Risks Oxford University Press, 2023 (available here)
Articles
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Competence Confusions: Why the Vertical Division of Competences Cannot Constrain the Court’s Interpretation of EU Law, European Constitutional Law Review (2025), 641 - 864 (available open access here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Pushing for trans rights: How the Court of Justice can turn the EU into a ‘Freedom Zone’ for trans citizens, Common Market Law Review 62 (2025), 1337 - 1372 (available here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Was Grimm wrong? Putting the Over-constitutionalization of EU Law to the Test, German Law Journal 26 (2025), 416 - 448 (available open access here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Debunking the reference champion: on uses, non-uses, and misuses of preliminary references by German courts, European Law Open 4 (2025), 254 - 285 (available open access here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios: Band ohne Verbundenheit? Der genuine link im Völker‑, Unions- und Staatsangehörigkeitsrecht, Archiv des öffentlichen Rechts 150 (2025), 242 - 329 (with Ferdinand Weber) (available here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Bonds without Belonging? The genuine link in international, union, and nationality law, Yearbook of European Law 43 (2024) 56 - 94 (mit Ferdinand Weber) (available open access here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Die Verfassungsprinzipien, in Jürgen Bast und Armin von Bogdandy (eds.), Unionsverfassungsrecht. Eine Neubestimmung anhand der Grundlagen im EU-Vertrag (Baden-Baden: Nomos, 2024), pp. 123 - 178 (with Armin von Bogdandy) (available open access here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Rethinking primacy’s effects: On creating, avoiding and filling legal vacuums in the national legal system, Common Market Law Review 61 (2024), 913 - 958 (with Mathieu Leloup) (available here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Transformative Constitutionalism in Luxembourg? How the Court can Support Democratic Transitions, Columbia Journal of European Law 29 (2023), 65 - 92 (with Armin von Bogdandy) (available open access here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, The conflict over the Polish disciplinary regime for judges – an acid test for judicial independence, Union values and the primacy of EU law, Common Market Law Review 59 (2022), 777 - 812 (available here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Werte, Vorrang, Identität: Der Dreiklang europäischer Justizkonflikte vor dem EuGH, Europäische Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht 33 (2022), 305 - 313 (available here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Framing and managing constitutional identity conflicts: On how to stabilize the modus vivendi between the Court of Justice and national constitutional courts, Common Market Law Review 57 (2020), 361 - 398 (available here)
- Spieker, Luke Dimitrios, Breathing Life into the Union’s Common Values: On the Judicial Application of Article 2 TEU in the EU Value Crisis, German Law Journal 20 (2019), 1182 - 1213 (available open access here)