Research institutes

Maastricht European Private Law Institute

The Maastricht European Private Law Institute (M-EPLI) conducts fundamental research in the field of European private law, covering not only the law of contract, property and tort, but also European procedural law, European legal theory and European legal history. Special focus is on exploring the consequences of Europeanisation and globalisation in the field of private law.

Fast facts

MEPLI-researchers lead the European download lists on Social Science Research Network (SSRN)
two members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (KNAW)
regularaly publishing in top journals and with top publishers
12 of the 15 PhD researchers are externally funded
led by Prof. Jan Smits and Prof. Gijs van Dijck

News

Call for Papers for the 18th Joint Seminar of the European Association of Law and Economics and The Geneva Association
Monday, July 9, 2018

Milan, 13-14 June 2019

Law and economic issues of insurTech

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Bram Akkermans Appointed TPR Visiting Chair
Tuesday, June 6, 2017

M-EPLI associate director and Associate Professor of European Private Law Bram Akkermans has been appointed to the TPR Visiting Chair for the academic year 2017-2018 at the Catholic University of Leuven. During the upcoming academic year Bram will hold several lectures and plan other activities at KU Leuven.

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M-EPLI fellows at the New Civil Rights and the Rule of Law conference in China
Thursday, November 17, 2016

From 7-9 November 2016, M-EPLI PhD candidates Jiangqiu Ge and Liuhu Luo presented their papers at the conference New Civil Rights and the Rule of Law in China.

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What is Private Law For? A MEPLI Round Table Conference
Wednesday, October 19, 2016
This Round Table conference explores the limits of, and justification for, the exercise of private autonomy in five main fields of private law: the law of contract, tort, property, succession and family relationships.
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New Working Paper on The Reform of the French Law of Obligations
Monday, October 3, 2016
A new MEPLI working paper by Jan Smits and Caroline Calomme on 'The Reform of the French Law of Obligations: Lex Jeux Sont Faits'.
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New MEPLI working paper by Fabian Junge on The Necessity of European Harmonization in the Area of Trade Secrets
Thursday, September 29, 2016
New MEPLI working paper by Fabian Junge on 'The Necessity of European Harmonization in the Area of Trade Secrets'.
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Research

M-EPLI conducts fundamental research in the field of European private law and related areas. Our belief is that in an age of Europeanisation and globalisation law should be studied as an international phenomenon. M-EPLI crosses borders between both national jurisdictions and the classical areas of law. A post-national legal science cannot take the distinction between public and private law as a starting point, but has to question the relevance of this distinction. Where useful, it also involves other disciplines (such as political science, economics and psychology).

Education

All M-EPLI researchers are involved in teaching, one way or the other. In bachelor’s and master’s programmes, their focus is on European Private Law. Students also have the opportunity to participate in M-EPLI research projects in various ways.

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Law Blogs Maastricht
Would you like to know more about our research? Visit Law Blogs Maastricht and find more information about the Faculty of Law's research output.

MEPLI Maastricht European Private Law Institute

Jan Smits

“I always like to tell my students that private law is the ‘law of the people’: everyone in his or her daily life is confronted with questions that relate to this field, ranging from concluding contracts and inheriting to owning property or being liable in damages.”

Read the whole interview

Bram Akkermans

“At M-EPLI we try to push the boundaries to improve each other’s research. We work on common projects and frequently meet to discuss developments and new ideas. For me the people and the working environment are the primary reason to base my research at M-EPLI”

Mark Kawakami

“My research is on what private actors can do to reduce labor exploitations in the global supply chain. I feel blessed to be surrounded by such lovely folks in Maastricht and I really cannot imagine doing my PhD anywhere else.”

Blogs

LWOW a giant hackathon: the law without walls experience
16-10-2018byLawblogger in Law
The quest for perfection in LWOW allows you to learn fast, develop many skillsets, and give you a good introduction to the workplace of tomorrow. Technology is all around in LWOW, we might be young millennials drowned in it, but we still have a bit to learn. LWOW will teach you how to use...
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Dean’s blog episode 11: a new book series for our faculty
15-10-2018byJan Smits in Law
Books remain important for legal scholars as a means to present their research. On 28 September a new Faculty book series was launched.
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Why I didn’t sign the Fundingmatters.tech petition
25-09-2018byCatalina Goanta in Law
In 2018, academic storms start on Twitter. One of them has been the public concern surrounding the sponsors accepted by this year’s Amsterdam Privacy Conference . The Data Justice Lab at Cardiff University was hosting one of the...
Read moreinGeneral

- MEPLI fellows Caroline Cauffman and Niels Philipsen, together with METRO fellow Mariolina Eliantonio, participated in an international seminar on the use of EU soft law by administrations and courts in the area of competition and state aid law, held in Ljubljana (SI), at Nova Univerza.
  
  Caroline and Niels presented the results of the case study of the Netherlands. Caroline presented her case law research and interviews with Dutch judges on competition and soft law, while Niels presented the part on State aid.
  
  Mariolina is one of the academic coordinators of SoLaR. For more info, see https://www.solar-network.eu/home/.
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  1 week 2 days ago
- https://documentosrriiuruguay.blogspot.com/2018/10/libros-free-online-derecho.html
  Libros Free Online Derecho Internacional privado: Manuales de América, EEUU y Europa
  
  via
  
  1 week 2 days ago
- Dean Jan Smits kicking off the Maastricht Private Law Lecture by Prof. dr. Symeon C. Symeonides on “The ‘Private’ in Private International Law” #happeningnow
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  1 week 4 days ago
- Today, MEPLI external fellow Stephan Mulders presented the paper he co-authored with Catalina Goanta on 'Moving Fast and Breaking Things: Social Media, Data Brokers and Unfair Commercial Practices' at the Amsterdam Privacy Conference. The paper takes the Cambridge Analytica data sharing debacle as a starting point, explains how Facebook access tokens work, and asks whether the way in which Facebook communicates to its users how third parties make use of their data can be qualified as misleading/aggressive practices. This research complements the privacy discourse with aspects of consumer protection and raises questions about the suitability of the UCPD when applied to social media practices.
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  2 weeks 22 min ago
- MEPLI's Mark Kawakami was recently invited by the government of Navarra to speak in Pamplona about international commercial mediation, his research on the benefits of lawyers/mediators adding subjects such as neuroeconomics and psychology into their tool kits, and his work with the Maastricht Mediation Clinic.
  Maastricht Mediation Clinic
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  2 weeks 13 hours ago
- MEPLI's co-director Gijs van Dijck presented his research on network analysis together with Marcel Schaper today at the Law Faculty, in an event that marks the start of two intense weeks for the Faculty's law & technology research agenda! Many thanks to the colleagues and students who joined us today, as well as to the exceptionally talented data scientists from the Institute of Data Science at Maastricht University, Amrapali Zaveri, Kody Moodley & Pedro Hdez Serrano!
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  2 weeks 5 days ago
- Caroline Cauffman's master thesis supervisee, Manon van Roozendaal, won this year's European Law Institute Young Lawyers Award! Congratulations to Manon for this wonderful achievement, and to Caroline for the excellent supervision! Find her paper on 'Algorithms: Teenage Troublemakers of EU Competition Law' here: https://www.europeanlawinstitute.eu/fileadmin/user_upload/p_eli/Award/Winner_2018_ELI_Young_Lawyers_Award_Manon_van__Roozendaal_FINAL.pdf
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  2 weeks 5 days ago
- For anyone who may have missed Catalina Goanta's recent law blog post, its a very thought-provoking, worthwhile read 🤔
  Why I didn’t sign the Fundingmatters.tech petition - blog - Maastricht University
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  3 weeks 7 hours ago
- The Data Science and Technology Club at the University of St. Gallen hosted a lunch talk on social media influencers. Isabel Ebert (Institute of Business Ethics, University of St. Gallen), Isabelle Wildhaber (Institute for Work and Employment, University of St. Gallen), Anja Olsson (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) and MEPLI's Catalina Goanta looked at business practices, private law legal questions, and ethical issues of the phenomenon. Catalina presented some of the research done for the DIY Marketing project, which she is currently undertaking together with Sofia Ranchordás as part of the Flexible Grant for Small Groups, awarded earlier this year to the two by the Independent Social Research Foundation (UK): https://www.maastrichtuniversity.nl/blog/2018/01/grant-project-regulation-social-media-influencers
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  3 weeks 6 days ago
- Caroline Cauffman recently gave a presentation at the Institute for Judicial Training (see below in Dutch). Most publications about the private enforcement of competition law focus on actions for damages. However, in Belgian legal practice, these cases are extremely rare. Whether the implementation of the Damages Directive will change this is still to be awaited. The presentation focuses on two types of private enforcement that are common in Belgian legal practice: nullity and injunctions. The former is usually used by way of defense, the second is the most common way of invoking competition law as a sword in cases between private undertakings.
  www.researchgate.net
  
  Maastricht European Private Law Institute (MEPLI) via
  
  1 month 4 days ago