Anna Beckers (A.)
Anna Beckers is a Professor of Private Law and Social Theory at the Faculty of Law at Maastricht University. Her research interests are theoretical and doctrinal approaches to the central private law institutions. Anna has a strong interest in social theory approaches to legal research, specifically focussing on social systems theory and science and technology studies. Her doctrinal work on private law follows a comparative approach and covers research into the core legal institutions of private law (contract, tort, corporation). Anna also works on questions that link the field of private law to economic law and transnational law.
Anna has published her research widely and in different languages (English, German, French). Her work appeared in books by prestigious publishers (Hart Publishing, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press) and highly regarded peer-reviewed journals (inter alia Common Market Law Review, Yearbook of European Law, European Law Open).
Her projects were successful in European grant competitions. She was offered, inter alia, a European Commission financed Max Weber Fellowship (2015) and a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Personal Fellowship (2022). In 2022, Anna received an European Research Council Starting Grant to lead the project CHAINLAW - Responsive Law for Global Value Chains (2023-2028).
Career history
Since 1 September 2023, Anna holds the Chair of Private Law and Social Theory at Maastricht University, Faculty of Law.
This appointment follows previous positions at the same Faculty, as an Associate (2022-2023) and Assistant (2015-2022) Professor and as a postdoctoral Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute (2015-2016).
Anna obtained her PhD from Maastricht University in 2014 (cum laude) with a thesis on the legal enforcement of corporate social responsibility codes. An updated and revised version of the thesis has been published as "Enforcing Corporate Social Responsibility Codes: On Global Self-Regulation and National Private Law" with Hart Publishing Oxford (now part of Bloomsbury). The thesis was awarded the German Dissertation Prize 2015 (Deutscher Studienpreis) by the Körber Foundation. Anna conducted the PhD research within the externally funded UM-HiiL-Chair on the Internationalisation of Law. Recenty, Anna has been working on a co-authored monograph entitled Three Liability Regimes for Artificial Intelligence that is published by Hart Publishing in 2021.
Anna graduated in law from the University of Frankfurt am Main with the First State Exam (law degree) in 2007 before working in Germany as a legal trainee (Referendarin) for a judge in commercial matters and a public prosecutor at the Regional Court Frankfurt am Main, the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin, the international commercial law firm Mannheimer Swartling and the European Institute of Public Administration. She completed the Second German State Exam (bar exam) in 2010.