Research

METRO, the Institute for Transnational Legal Research (in Dutch: Maastrichts Europees instituut voor Transnationaal Rechtswetenschappelijk Onderzoek), was founded in 1991 by the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University. METRO initiates and stimulates comparative and trans-boundary legal research and organizes conferences about various legal themes. Moreover, the institute publishes the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law, and the Ius Commune Europaeum Book Series.

METRO is active in the field of contract research. Since the founding of the institute, research has been conducted for the Dutch Ministries of Justice, Internal Affairs, Foreign Affairs, Environment, Social Affairs and Employment, Education, the European Commission, and for the OECD.

METRO Seminars (2024-2025)

25 January 2024: Sjoerd Lopik (Allen & Overy / external PhD researcher Leiden University)
11 March 2024: Meng Wang (METRO)
25 March 2024: Demetrio Villani and Federica Montanaro (METRO guest researchers)
17 April 2024: METRO meeting
13 May 2024: Constantijn van Aartsen (ICGI & METRO)
3 June 2024: Zilin Huang (METRO guest researcher)
17 June 2024: Dominic Coppens & Belén Gracia (IGIR)
30 September 2024: Justine Richelle (UHasselt & METRO/MCEL)
28 October 2024: Ying Xie (METRO)
16 December 2024: Mingya Jiang (METRO/MEPLI)

27 January 2025: Luísa Cortat (Academy of European Law ERA / External METRO fellow)
17 February 2025: Guotong Shen (METRO)
17 March 2025: Sung Yoon Yang (METRO guest researcher)

Past METRO Seminars

Please click here for an overview of the latest METRO seminars.

overzichtsfoto Metro Seminars — Past METRO Seminars

METRO Dissertations

METRO guides many PhD candidates. Read about their research topics.

An overview of all planned PhD dissertations at METRO (if any) can be found in the Agenda.

Flick through the overview of all the PhD defences under Metro's wing.

Ius Commune

METRO facilitates the Ius Commune Research School, a cooperation between the Law Faculties of the Universities of Maastricht (UM), Utrecht (UU), Amsterdam (UvA), and Leuven (K.U. Leuven), focused on the realization of a Ius Commune in Europe. Management and secretariat of the Research School are located at METRO.

METRO also acts as one of the hosts of the Ius Commune Casebook Project - a joint initiative of the universities of Maastricht and Leuven. The project unites over 100 scholars from universities all-over Europe. They’re developing a new generation of genuine comparative, legal teaching materials which take the main European legal systems as a starting point and explore their interaction with European law.