Ecole doctorale en sciences juridiques
Comparative Law and its Methods
Mathias Siems (European University Institute)
24 April 2025, 12pm-4:30pm, UClouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles
Cycle Interdisciplinarités en droit
Language: English

Mathias Siems is Professor of Private Law and Market Regulation at the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. He previously taught at Durham University, the University of East Anglia, the University of Edinburgh and the Riga Graduate School of Law. He was also a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard Law School and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the EUI. He is a graduate of the universities of Munich and Edinburgh. His main research interests are comparative law, empirical studies and corporate/commercial law.
12.00-12.45: Lunch
12.45-13.30: Interview with Mathias Siems, moderated by Emmanuel Slautsky
During the interview, you will learn how Mathias Siems became interested in comparative law and how it relates to his general interest in research methods as well as his substantive expertise. He will also explain his experience supervising and mentoring PhD students and Postdocs on choosing the appropriate methods for their project, also considering possible career trajectories.
13.30-15.00: Comparative Law Methodology (presentation + Q&A).
The methodology of comparative law includes multiple variants. This presentation will start with, what may be called, the ‘traditional method’, which often uses a functional question to compare and evaluate the laws of a small number of countries. Subsequently, the presentation will move on to the topic of other – more modern methods – which may be called postmodern, socio-legal, numerical and empirical comparative law. These methods also reflect broader trends in legal scholarship and can therefore can also be seen as challenging conventional legal research more generally.
Participants should read Mathias Siems, ‘New Directions in Comparative Law’ (Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law, 2019) in preparation for the lecture (available here on the OUP website; or here in an ungated version). For further reading they may also consult the in Mathias Siems, Comparative Law (3rd edn, 2022) and/or Mathias Siems and Po Jen Yap (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Comparative Law (2024).
15.00-15.15: Coffee break
15.15-16.30: Workshop discussion
Participants whose thesis includes a comparative part are invited to prepare a short 5-minute presentation on the comparative dimension of their project. Depending on their level of progress with their research, they may specify the interest of mobilising comparative law given their research topic, as well as the selected method comparison method and a brief justification. They are also invited, if they wish, to raise any questions or challenge with the method that they encounter.
Participants whose thesis does not contain a comparative dimension are also invited to prepare a 5-minute presentation during which they can explain whether, in view of their research topic, comparative law could be of interest and submit any questions they consider useful to the speaker.
During the first part of the workshop, we will listen to the short presentations of the PhD students. On this basis, we will try to group the questions and difficulties around themes that will be successively discussed during the second part of the workshop.
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Location
To access the Salle du Conseil, enter via the main entrance: Bd du Jardin Botanique 43, 1000 Brussels.
Take the lift to the 4th floor. The room is across from the elevator.
Organizer: Elise Dermine (ULB) elise.dermine@ulb.be