Despite the long history of European harmonisation in the area of private law, it is striking to see that so far very little work is done on the extent to which harmonisation measures actually lead to more convergence among the member states’ national laws. Empirical and quantitative analysis of the extent of convergence is largely missing in the current academic and policy-oriented debate.

This MEPLI-HiiL Round Table conference takes up this challenge. The question central to the conference is how European harmonisation influences the convergence of laws and how current methods of harmonisation must therefore be assessed. To this end, four main approaches to the understanding of legal convergence will be explored: doctrinal, self-regulatory, numerical and empirical.

Participants: Bram Akkermans, Anna Beckers, Caroline Cauffman, Gijs van Dijck, Catalina Goanta, Mark Kawakami, Hans Schulte-Nölke, Mathias Siems, Jan Smits

Preliminary Programme
 
09:30-10:00 Registration and Coffee
10:00-10:10 Welcome and Introduction: Jan Smits
 
Panel I Convergence and European private law
Chair: Anna Beckers
10:10-10:30 Bram Akkermans: The doctrine of public policy as an obstacle to convergence in property law
10:30-10:50 Discussion
10:50-11:20 Hans Schulte-Nölke: European consumer law
11:20-11:40 Discussion
 
11:40-12:40 Lunch break
 
Panel II Measuring the law
Chair: Caroline Cauffman
12:40-13:00 Mathias Siems: How to examine legal convergence: traditional and numerical comparative methods (with examples from company law)
13:00-13:20 Discussion
13:20-13:40 Gijs van Dijck: The (im)possibility of empirically testing the effect of harmonization on convergence
13:40-14:00 Discussion
 
14:00-14:20 Coffee Break
 
Panel III Convergence and interdisciplinarity
Chair: Jan Smits
14:20-14:40 Mark Kawakami: The insensitivity of convergence
14:40-15:00 Discussion
15:00-15:20 Catalina Goanta: An interdisciplinary approach to measuring legal convergence
15:20-16:00 Concluding remarks
 
Informal drinks