A legal expert from Ireland has won the Netherlands' leading academic prize in recognition of her "outstanding contribution" to the development and promotion of international and European law and her enormous influence on her research field.
Prof Deirdre Curtin (47) from Dublin, who studied law at UCD and Trinity College, was honoured for vision on the governance of the European Union, and how it suffers from shortcomings in accountability. The Spinoza prize, named after the 17th-century philosopher Baruch de Spinoza, is sponsored by the Dutch Royal Academy of Sciences.
Prof Curtin's achievements - her list of publications was described by the jury as of "exceptional quality" - are all the more remarkable as she works only part-time at the University of Utrecht, due to caring for her children, the jury noted.
The mother of four whose children are aged from 7 to 17 told The Irish Times that "combining motherhood and a career is a juggling exercise. I work constantly from home, but being part-time gave me the flexibility to manage everything . . . but now that they are older I am getting back to full-time work."
Married to a Dutch lawyer, Onno Brouwer, Prof Curtin was the youngest law professor in the Netherlands and became head of the Law of International Organizations and director of the Europa Institute at the college at the age of 32. She earlier worked as legal secretary (referendaire) to Judge Tom O'Higgins at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg.
In 2003, she was the first woman appointed a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in the law section. She has been a visiting professor at the Europe College in Bruges, and is currently associated with the Centre for European Law at Cambridge University.
She was in Dublin visiting her parents when news reached her that she had won the internationally acclaimed prize in advance of it being made public this week.
She is author of Through the Looking Glass, a book which exploded myths of transparency in the EU.
She will use the prize for fundamental research and long-term studies into specific areas of decision-making at European level, she said.