Editors

Giorgio Buono – Editor (Italy)

Giorgio obtained his law degree from the Faculty of Law, LUISS-Guido Carli University (Rome), under the supervision of Prof. Roberto Baratta, and he is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Rome “La Sapienza”, supervised by Prof. Paolo Picone. His major research interests are in the field of private international law, especially in the development of EC private international law: his PhD thesis is focused on Rome II Regulation on the law applicable to non-contractual obligations.

Giorgio has been a visiting scholar at the Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht, in Hamburg.

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Donald Earl (Trey) Childress III – Editor (USA)

Associate Professor of Law; B.A., University of Virginia, 1997; M.A., with Distinction, Oxford Brookes University, 1999; J.D., Duke University, magna cum laude, 2004; LL.M., Duke University, magna cum laude, 2004.

Prior to joining the Pepperdine law faculty in 2008, Professor Childress was associated with Jones Day in Washington, D.C. as a member of their Issues and Appeals practice, where he focused on Supreme Court litigation, general appellate litigation,and significant motions practice in trial litigation. While in private practice, his appellate representations included preparation of writs of certiorari, merits briefs, and amicus briefs in the United States Supreme Court. Professor Childress has briefed and argued appeals before the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit and has briefed matters in numerous other trial and appellate courts in the First, Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Seventh, and D.C. Circuits, as well as various state courts. He has significant private practice experience in complex civil procedure, conflicts of law, constitutional law, immigration law, international dispute resolution, federal Indian law, and national security law, including cases related to the war on terror. He maintains a very active pro bono practice. During his time in Washington, D.C., Professor Childress taught a Supreme Court Litigation Course at the Georgetown University Law Center and served as a “Justice” in the Georgetown University Law Center Supreme Court Institute. Professor Childress is admitted to practice in Virginia, the District of Columbia, and the United States Supreme Court.

Professor Childress clerked for the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. While at Duke Law School, he served as editor-in-chief of the Duke Law Journal (Volume 53). While at Oxford Brookes University, he served as a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in the United Kingdom, where his research focused, in part, on European constitutionalism and European Union law.

Professor Childress’s primary research interests are international civil litigation, comparative law, and ethics. In particular, he is working extensively on the role that international civil litigation plays in an increasingly global world. Professor Childress teaches International Litigation and Ethical Lawyering.

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Gilles Cuniberti – General Editor & France/Luxembourg

Gilles Cuniberti is a Professor of Private International Law and Comparative Law at the University of Luxembourg. Previously, he taught for 10 years at the Faculty of Law of Paris 12 University (Paris Val-de-Marne). His primary teaching and research interests are the conflict of laws, international arbitration, international litigation and comparative law. He is the author of three books and a regular contributor to the Journal du Droit International (Clunet). He has been a visiting faculty at Duke Law School, Renmin University of China, Sheffield Hallam University and National University of Singapore. In the fall 2011, he was the James S. Carpentier Visiting Professor of Law at Columbia Law School.

He holds a Doctorate in Law from Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University and an LL.M. degree from Yale Law School. He was also a Paris-Oxford Doctoral Program Scholar for a year at Trinity College, Oxford. He is admitted to the Paris Bar and practiced on a part-time basis in the Paris office of a leading English firm from 1999 to 2004.

SELECTED ARTICLES:

• “Abolition of Exequatur: Addressing the Commission’s Concern”, Rabelszeitschrift 286 (2011) (with I. Rueda)
• “Beyond Contract – The Case for Default Arbitration in International Commercial Disputes“, 32 Fordham Int’l L.J. 417 (2009)
• “Le principe de territorialité des voies d’exécution”, Journal du droit international 2008.963
• “The Recognition of Judgments Lacking Reasons in Europe: Access to Justice, Foreign Court Avoidance and Efficiency”, (2008) 57 Int’l & Comp. L. Q. 25
• “L’apprezzamento dell’efficacia della clausola arbitrale da parte del giudice statale : un conflitto tra Italia e Francia”, 21 Diritto del Commercio Internazionale 2007.789 (with M. Winkler)

E-mail: gilles.cuniberti@conflictoflaws.net

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Andrew Dickinson – Consultant Editor

Andrew Dickinson is a solicitor advocate (qualified 1997; higher rights 2002), consultant to Clifford Chance LLP, Visiting Fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law and Visiting Professor at the University of Sydney Law School.

Andrew is a member of the North Committee (the Ministry of Justice’s advisory committee on private international law) and of the editorial board of the Journal of Private International Law. He has recently joined the editorial team of Dicey, Morris and Collins on the Conflict of Laws.

Andrew’s main area of legal practice and research interest is private international law, but his practice also covers civil litigation, commercial and banking law and public international law. He is the author of The Rome II Regulation: The Law Applicable to Non-Contractual Obligations (OUP, 2008) (romeii.eu), co-author of State Immunity: Selected Materials and Commentary (OUP, 2004) and an editor of the International Commercial Litigation Handbook (LexisNexis, 2006). His published papers include “European Private International Law: Embracing New Horizons or Mourning the Past? ” (2005) 1 J Priv Int L 197 and “Third Country Mandatory Rules in the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations: So Long, Farewell, Auf Wiedersehen, Adieu?” (2007) 3 J Priv Int L 53.

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Dr Veronika Gaertner LL.M. – Editor Emeritus (Germany and the EU)

Veronika passed her first state exam at the University in Heidelberg before obtaining an LL.M. in International and European Law from the University of Aberdeen and completing her doctoral thesis on extra-judicial divorces at the University of Heidelberg (supervised by Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Erik Jayme). At present she is a trainee lawyer in Kiel. Her major research interests are in the fields of private international law – especially private international law of family law, on which she has published an article (Veronika Gaertner, “European Choice of Law Rules in Divorce (Rome III): An Examination of the Possible Connecting Factors in Divorce Matters Against the Background of Private International Law Developments” (2006) 2 Journal of Private International Law 99).

Before starting her practical legal training, Veronika was a research assistant at the Institute for Private International Law, University of Heidelberg where she was involved inter alia in the Study JLS/C4/2005/03 concerning the application of Regulation 44/2001/EC in the Member States which was conducted on behalf of the European Commission under the direction of Prof. Dr. Burkhard Hess, Prof. Dr. Thomas Pfeiffer (both Heidelberg) and Prof. Dr. Peter Schlosser (Munich).

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Martin George - General Editor & Founder

Martin George joined the University of Birmingham as the CSET Lecturer in Property Law in September 2009, having previously been a Postgraduate Teaching Assistant, and a non-stipendiary College Lecturer at Hertford College, Oxford.. He is a graduate of Leicester and Nottingham Universities. His major research interest is in the conflict of laws and, within that, on the private international law aspects of the carriage of goods by sea. He has been a consultant to the British Institute of International & Comparative Law, and a national reporter for the European Commission. He is also the creator and General Editor of Conflict of Laws .net. Martin has taught both Land Law and Equity & Trusts at Birmingham, and Land Law at Oxford.

Selected Publications:

• ‘Service Contracts, Carriage by Air and the Brussels I Regulation’ (2010) 126 Law Quarterly Review 30 (with J Harris)
• ‘The Rise and Fall of Adverse Possession’ [2009] Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
• ‘The Law Applicable to Torts Committed On Board Vessels in Foreign Territorial Waters’ (2009) 15 Journal of International Maritime Law 13
• ‘Cheshire, North & Fawcett: Private International Law’ (book review) [2009] Lloyd’s Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 265
• ‘Choice of Law in Maritime Torts’ (2007) 3 Journal of Private International Law 137-172 [Ingenta Connect] [£/SSRN]

Email: martin.george@conflictoflaws.net.

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Perry Herzfeld – Editor (Australia)

Perry obtained his law degree from the University of Melbourne. He is currently Associate to Justice Crennan of the High Court of Australia.

Before commencing as Justice Crennan’s Associate, he was a lawyer at leading Australian commercial law firm Allens Arthur Robinson, where his principal areas of practice were general litigation and insurance (both litigation and advice).  He is currently completing his LLM part-time at the University of Melbourne.  Perry’s academic research interests include insurance, international arbitration and private international law, on which his work has been published.Perry is the Editor for Australia of CONFLICT OF LAWS .NET.

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Caroline Kleiner – Editor (Switzerland)

Caroline Kleiner is a lecturer (maître-assistante) in the Geneva University and the Graduate Institute for International Studies and Development for the new created Master in International Dispute Settlement (equivalent to a LL.M, directed by prof. Gabrielle Kaufmann-Kohler). She completed her Ph.D in the Sorbonne University in Paris in private international law under the supervision of prof. Pierre Mayer, on the topic ‘Money in private international relations’. Her main interests are international arbitration, international litigation and international economic relations.

Before her current position, Caroline was an assistant at the Geneva University in the business law department (2006-2008) and gave seminars in private international law, contract law and tort law at the Sorbonne University (from 2001 until 2006). Caroline has been a visiting scholar at the Max Planck Institute für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht (in 2004, 2006 and 2007).

In addition to French, Caroline speaks English, German and Spanish. She wrote articles on international merger in Switzerland :“Les aspects internationaux de la LFus: trois ans de pratique”, Revue Suisse de droit des affaires, 4/2008, pp.369-379) , on european private international law: “La conception des règles de droit international privé dans la directive services”, Europe juin 2007, pp. 49-54, and on the French rules of International Litigation outside the “Brussels System”: “Les règles de competence internationale et les effets des jugements étrangers, en matière civile et commerciale, dans l’ordre juridique français en dehors du système de Bruxelles”, DeCita 2006, pp. 599-614.

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Charles T. Kotuby Jr – Editor (U.S.A.)

Charles is an associate at the international law firm of Jones Day. Charles maintains an active appellate practice before the United States Supreme Court and the Courts of Appeals, with a particular focus on matters involving significant international issues. Prior to joining Jones Day, he served as a law clerk to the Honorable Joseph F. Weis Jr., Senior Circuit Judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, as a legal fellow at the Max Planck Institute on Foreign and Private International Law in Hamburg, Germany, and as a stagiere attorney with the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law in the Netherlands.

Charles received his B.A and J.D. from the University of Pittsburgh, and his LL.M. from the University of Durham. He is admitted to practice law in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia, as well as before the United States Courts of Appeals for the Third and Ninth Circuits.

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Xandra Kramer – Editor (Netherlands)

Xandra Kramer is an associate professor of Private International and Comparative Law at the Erasmus University Rotterdam in the Netherlands where she has worked since 2001. She obtained her Masters and Ph.D. degrees (in 1996 and 2001 respectively) from the Leiden University, where she also worked as an assistant professor. Her Ph.D. focused on Provisional and Protective Measures in Private International Law. She has published numerous articles and some books in the fields of private international law, international litigation as well as the harmonization of civil procedure. She is editor of several journals, and editor-in-chief of Nederlands Internationaal Privaatrecht (Netherlands Private International Law; see www.nipr-online.eu). She lectures on private international law, European private law, comparative private law, civil procedure and international dispute settlement, amongst others in the LL.M. Business, Corporate and Maritime Law of Erasmus University. She has been a visiting professor at the Foreign Trade University in Hanoi, Vietnam, and a guest scholar at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg. In 2007 she was appointed Deputy Judge of the District Court of Rotterdam in addition to her academic work.

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Thalia Kruger – Editor (South Africa)

Thalia Kruger obtained her BA and LLB degrees from the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa. Thereafter she completed her PHD at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium on “Civil jurisdiction rules in the European Union and their impact on third States”. While working on her PHD, she was a teaching and research assistant at the Law Faculty’s Institute for Private International Law where she tutored and lectured on various aspects of private international law and international business law and initiated the Institute’s websites on the CISG and on European civil procedure. She has also participated in a research project funded by the European Commission on “International Civil litigation in Europe and relations with third States”.

Thalia currently works at the Flemish Centre for Minorities where she advises lawyers, civil servants, welfare organisations and individuals on private international law in family matters and also lectures to civil servants in this field. She has been recording for the Hague Conference on Private International Law on several occasions.

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Ivana Kunda – Editor (Croatia)

Ivana graduated in law from the Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka in 1999, and in 2004 she earned her Masters degree in the Law on European Integrations at the same University. The updated version of her Masters thesis, written in English, which is dedicated to internationally mandatory rules in European private international law, will be published in 2006. Ivana is currently engaged with the scientific project on “Private International Law of International Business Transactions”, within which she particularly focuses on the field where private international law and intellectual property law intersect. In preparing her Ph.D. Thesis, she conducted a six-month research project at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geistiges Eigentum, Wettbewerbs- und Steuerrecht in Munich, Germany in 2006.

Since 2000 she has worked as an assistant at the Private International Law Department of the Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka, Croatia. Prior to working at the University of Rijeka, she worked at the law office, and completed an internship at the Commercial Court in Rijeka. In 2004 she passed the Croatian Bar Exam.

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James McComish - Editor (Australia)

James is a graduate of the University of Melbourne and is currently associate to the Honourable Justice W M C Gummow AC of the High Court of Australia. Before commencing his associateship, he worked in the Melbourne office of the law firm Allens Arthur Robinson, where his principal areas of practice were general litigation and insurance.

James’ research interests span both private and public law. He has a particular interest in the interaction between private international law and federalism, and in procedural aspects of transnational litigation.

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Jan Neels – Editor (South Africa)

Jan Neels obtained his B Com, LLB and LLM degrees, all cum laude, from the Rand Afrikaans University, now the University of Johannesburg. He was awarded the Faculty of Law medal and the Chancellor’s medal during the course of his studies. He obtained his LLD from the University of Leiden and is currently professor of Private International Law at the University of Johannesburg.

Prof Neels is head of the Department of Private Law, member of the editorial board of the Tydskrif vir die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg / Journal of South African Law and director of the Institute for Private International Law in Africa. He delivered papers at various national and international conferences in South Africa and at the University of Namibia, Yeditepe University (Istanbul), the University of Antwerpen, the University of Innsbruck, the University of British Columbia (Vancouver) and the University of Zaragoza. Prof Neels has authored or co-authored 35 articles, primarily in the field of Private International Law and published in De Jure, EUREDIA European Banking and Financial Law Journal, the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, the South African Law Journal, the South African Mercantile Law Journal, the Stellenbosch Law Review, the Tydskrif vir die Hedendaagse Romeins-Hollandse Reg / Journal of Contemporary Roman-Dutch Law, the Tydskrif vir die Suid-Afrikaanse Reg / Journal of South African Law, the Yearbook for Private International Law and in a Festschrift published in Turkey. Three reported cases of the Cape High Court and two decisions of the Supreme Court of Appeal of South Africa accepted the proposals for law reform in some of the articles. Prof Neels has written reports to the South African Law Reform Commission on the conflicts aspects of the Islamic Marriages Draft Bill and to the European Commission on the revision of the Rome Convention on the Law Applicable to Contractual Obligations.

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Stephen Pitel – Editor (Canada)

Stephen G.A. Pitel has a B.A. from Carleton University, an LL.B. from Dalhousie University, and an LL.M. and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge. He is an Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Western Ontario.

His teaching and research is focused on international commercial litigation, civil procedure, torts, unjust enrichment and legal ethics.  He has co-authored, edited or co-edited nine books since 2003 including Conflict of Laws (2010) and Private International Law in Common Law Canada: Cases, Text and Materials, 3d ed. (2010).  His articles on private international law have been published in the Canadian Bar Review, the Canadian Business Law Journal and the Journal of Private International Law.  He has won several teaching awards and has spearheaded several curriculum reform initiatives.  He was called to the Bar of Ontario in 1994 and has practiced corporate and commercial litigation in Toronto.

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Marta Requejo – Editor (Spain)

Marta Requejo is a senior researcher fellow of the Max Planck Institute Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law. She obtained her law degree from the University of Santiago after spending a year at the University of Le Mans (France) as an Erasmus student; she holds a Doctorate (European Doctorate) from Santiago de Compostela University. Tenured lecturer since 2001, she qualified for access to senior professorship in September 2011. Her primary teaching and research interests are conflict of laws, international litigation, and international commercial law. She has been visitor for researching purposes at the Max Planck Institute on Foreign and Private International Law (Hamburg, Germany), the Institut Suisse de Droit Comparé (Lausanne, Switzerland), the Paris-Pantheon University and the BIICL; also visiting professor at the Paris-Panthéon University. So far she has published four monographs: “Ley local y forma de los actos en el Derecho internacional privado español”, 418 pp; “Proceso en el extranjero y medidas antiproceso (antisuit injunctions)”, 282 pp; “La cesión de créditos en el comercio internacional”, 281 pp; “Violaciones graves de derechos humanos y responsabilidad civil”, 369 pp. She is also author of several articles printed in collective works, and numerous papers in law journals, mainly Spanish ones, like the Revista Española de Derecho Internacional or Diario La Ley, but also in foreign magazins like The European Legal Forum or Era Forum.

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Giesela Ruehl – Editor (Germany)

GIESELA RÜHL is a full Professor of Civil Law, Civil Procedure, Private International Law, International Civil Procedure and Comparative Law at the Friedrich-Schiller-University in Jena (Germany). Before joining the Friedrich-Schiller-University Giesela was a Visiting Professor at the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (USA), a Fellow of the German National Science Foundation at the Humboldt-University in Berlin (Germany), a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy), a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg (Germany), and a Joseph Story Research Fellow at the Harvard Law School in Cambridge (USA).

Giesela’s main research and teaching interests are German and European contract law, German and European private international law as well as comparative law and economic analysis of law. She has authored two books and published numerous articles in German, European and American law journals. She is a member of the German National Young Academy and a fellow of the European Law Institute. She serves on the Editorial Board of the Journal of European Consumer and Market  Law (EuVR).

Giesela holds both German State Examinations (J.D. equivalent, Bar Exam equivalent), a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of California, Berkeley (USA), a Doctorate (Ph.D. equivalent) and a Post-Doctorate (Habilitation) from the University of Hamburg (Germany).

If you want to contact Giesela in matters relating to this blog please send an email to giesela.ruehl@uni-jena.de. Please do not use her conflict of laws-email address.

Recent Publications:

• The Choice of Law Framework for Efficient Regulatory Competition in Contract Law, in: Horst Eidenmüller (ed.), Regulatory Competition in Contract Law and Dispute Resolution, C.H. Beck, Munich (forthcoming 2012 ).
• The Common European Sales Law: 28th Regime, 2nd Regime or 1st Regime?, in: 19 Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law [Maastricht J. Eur. & Comp. L.] 148-163 (2012).
• Consumer Protection in Choice of Law, in: 44 Cornell International Law Journal [Cornell Int’l L. J.] 569-601 (2011).
• Der Schutz des „Schwächeren“ im europäischen Kollisionsrecht [The Protection of “Weaker” Parties in European Private International Law], in: Herbert Kronke & Karsten Thorn (eds.), Festschrift für Bernd von Hoffmann, Gieseking, Bielefeld, 364-377  (2011).
• Statut und Effizienz. Ökonomische Grundlagen des Internationalen Privatrechts [Applicable Law and Efficiency. Economic Foundations of Private International Law], Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, 2011, XXXII + 811 pp.
• The Problems of International Transactions: Conflict of Laws Revisited, in: 6 Journal of Private International Law [J. Priv. Int’l L.] 59-91 (2010).