You are here : Home > About us > Portraits
Pierre-Jean Thil
Pierre-Jean Thil is a graduate of a Franco-Spanish double degree, as well as a Master 2 double degree in European Law with the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB).
Pierre-Jean Thil obtained the ESL Franco-Spanish double degree with the Autonomous University of Barcelona, followed by a Master 2 double degree in European Law with the same university, as well as being called to the Spanish Bar in May 2019. He is currently doing a PhD thesis co-supervised by the University of Toulouse Capitole and the UAB, and was admitted in parallel to the double LL.M. in Transatlantic Affairs between the College of Europe and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston in 2019 for a period of two years.
Photo
After the baccalauréat, I wanted to enter a field where I could learn the principles that would enable me to understand how society works and the rules that govern it.
That's why I thought long and hard about studying law, but I didn't want to lose the language factor, which has always been a fundamental element of my learning. The courses offered by the European School of Law proved to be a perfect compromise that met my expectations.
As a student of the Franco-Spanish double degree in Law between 2012 and 2016, I did my first two years of law at the University of Toulouse Capitole, then my 3rd year and first year of the Master’s programme at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, where I was able to specialise in international, European and comparative law. With my passion for comparative law, I decided to continue my studies at the same two universities, obtaining a double Master 2 - European Jurist degree, specialising in the area of freedom, security and justice.
At the same time, I had the opportunity to take the European School of Law diploma, which allowed me to strengthen my knowledge of European law and my practical skills in managing European projects, writing calls for Erasmus+ youth and sports projects, and solving comparative law cases with companies.
As part of this diploma, after receiving Erasmus+ funding with two fellow students, Mathilde Desurmont and Lauriane Lapize, we were lucky enough to organise a transnational conference between France and Spain, which allowed young people from these two countries to discuss and present ideas to decision-makers to improve the recognition of abortion rights, data protection and the need to take environmental issues into account.
Since 2017, I have been coordinating the supervised projects for the final unit of the ESL diploma, so each year I supervise around ten students working on comparative law cases submitted by companies such as Airbus or Pierre Fabre.
I was also selected by the European Personnel Selection Office (EPSO) to be an EPSO ambassador from 2016 to 2019, which gave me the opportunity to organise a European and International Careers Forum with the ESL in March 2018.
As I wanted to work across borders as a lawyer specialising in European private law, I started preparing for the Spanish Bar in September 2017 by taking the Master de Acceso a la Abogacia at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and qualified as a lawyer in May 2019.
I am currently working on an international joint thesis between the University of Toulouse Capitole and the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona on the impact of the use of personal data in competition law and private international law, under the supervision of Professors Lukas Rass-Masson (former director of the European School of Law) and Carles Goritz López (vicedecano, Facultat de dret, UAB).
In order to deepen my knowledge of transatlantic business, I pursued a double LL.M. between the College of Europe (Bruges) and the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University in Boston from September 2019 to June 2021.
In addition to my studies, I have been particularly involved in student associations. In 2012, I helped to create the European School of Law Toulouse Association, an association for ESL students, and then, with two fellow students, Mathilde Desurmont and Lauriane Lapize, I created the Toulouse Students European Projects Association to provide students with a structure for managing European projects.
As part of my involvement with the European Horizons think tank, I set up a Toulouse delegation in 2017 and held the position of Head of Partnerships on the Executive Committee in 2018-2019.
Finally, as I am passionate about European political life, I have participated as a lobbyist in numerous simulations of the European institutions - Model European Union - in various capitals of the European Union, as well as in the Simulation du Parlement Européen Canada-Québec-Europe (SPECQUE) in Montreal in 2018. I was vice-president and treasurer of the 2019 edition of SPECQUE, which took place between Toulouse and Bordeaux.