Prof. Dr. Giesela Rühl

Professor Rühl studied law in Bonn and Lausanne (Switzerland). She passed the two state examinations at the Higher Regional Courts of Cologne and Hamburg and earned her LL.M. degree from the University of California at Berkeley (USA) in 2001. She received her doctorate and her post-doctorate degree (Habilitation) in 2003 and 2010 from University of Hamburg.

Professor Rühl’s doctoral thesis was awarded the Otto-Hahn Medal by the Max Planck Society in 2003. In 2013 Rühl was the first lawyer to receive the Carus Medal by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina for her innovative research in the field of private international law and procedural law. In 2018 when she was awarded a Certificate of Merit by the American Society of International Law for the Encyclopedia of Private International Law (jointly edited with Jürgen Basedow, Franco Ferrari and Pedro de Miguel Asensio).

In her research, Professor Rühl deals with the international dimensions of private and procedural law. Her publications focus on (European) private international and international civil procedure (including the law of alternative dispute dispute resolution) as well as on European private law.

Professor Rühl is the author of two monographs in the field of European private internatonal private law (Statute and Efficiency, Mohr Siebeck 2011; Obligations in Insurance Contract Law, Mohr Siebeck 2004) and (co-)editor of several volumes on (European) private international law (Eckart Gottschalk/Jan von Hein/Ralf Michaels/Giesela Rühl (Hrsg.), Conflict of Laws in a Globalized World, Cambridge University Press, 2007; Jan von Hein/Giesela Rühl (Ed.), Kohärenz im Internationalen Privat- und Verfahrensrecht der Europäischen Union, Mohr Siebeck, 2016, Jan von Hein/Eva-Maria Kieninger/Giesela Rühl, How European is European Private International Law, Intersentia, 2019). She is also a co-editor of the 4-volume Encyclopedia of Private International Law (Jürgen Basedow/Giesela Rühl/Franco Ferrari/Pedro de Miguel Asensio (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Private International Law, Edward Elgar, 2017).

In addition to her publication work, Professor Rühl acts as an expert for court or arbitration proceedings. In addition, she has written two studies for the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.

Professor Rühl is a (founding) member and (founding) Director of the Center for European StudiesExternal link (CEuS) at the Friedrich Schiller University of Jena as well as a member of the Extended Board of Directors of the Schumpeter Center de. She is also (co-) editor of Conflict of Laws.netExternal link, member of the editorial board of the Journal of European Consumer and Market Law (EuCML), associate member of the International Academy of Comparative Law and member of the European Academy of Sciences and ArtsExternal link. From 2010 to 2015, she was a member of the German Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, and from 2009 to 2013 a member of the DFG network "Private Power and Freedom to Organise under Private Law"External link.

Since 2013 she has been a member of the regional board of the German-American Lawyers' AssociationExternal link (DAJV) and one of the mentors of the TANDEM scholarship programme for "First Generation Students" of the German University Foundation. Since 2014 she has been a liaison professor of the German National Academic FoundationExternal link and since 2018 a liaison professor of the Fulbright CommissionExternal link. She is also a member of numerous national and international academic associations.