Prof. Dr. Giesela Rühl, LL.M. (Berkeley)
Giesela Rühl has held the Chair of Civil Law, Civil Procedure, European Private and Private International Law, International Civil Procedure and Comparative Law at Humboldt-University of Berlin since 1 October 2020. Her research focuses on the challenges that globalization and European integration pose for the enforcement of rights. She analyses how the tension between globally interconnected societies and national law can be resolved and how digitalization may help to overcome enforcement deficits (nationally and internationally). In addition, she endeavors to understand how human rights can be better protected in global supply chains.
Education and Academic Career
Giesela Rühl studied law in Bonn (Germany) and Lausanne (Switzerland). She passed both German state examinations (J.D. equivalent, Bar Exam equivalent) and obtained a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from the University of California at Berkeley (USA). She holds a doctorate (PhD equivalent) as well as a post-doctorate (Habilitation) from the University of Hamburg.
Before joining Humboldt University of Berlin Giesela Rühl was a full professor of law at Friedrich Schiller University Jena (Germany). Prior to that she was a Max Weber Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence (Italy), a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg (Germany), and a Joseph Story Research Fellow at the Harvard Law School in Cambridge (USA). Over the past years she has held visiting positions, among others, at the University of Sydney (Australia), the University of Kyushu (Japan), Stanford Law School, Duke Law School (USA), the University of Oxford as well as the London School of Economics and Political Science (UK).
Publications and Presentations
Giesela Rühl is the author of two monographs as well as numerous law review articles and book chapters on European Private International Law, International Civil Procedure and Comparative Law. She is also the editor of several books in these fields. In addition to her academic work Giesela Rühl also regularly provides expert opinions. In recent years, she advised the Committee of Legal Affairs of the European Parliament as well as the Committee of Legal Affairs of the German Federal Parliament.
A complete list of her publications can be found here. A list of her presentations is available here.
Scholarships and Awards
Since 1993 Giesela Rühl has received scholarships from the German Academic Scholarship Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service as well as the German Research Foundation. Her work has been honored by the Max Planck Society (Otto Hahn Medal 2003), the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (Carus Medal 2013) and the American Society of International Law (Certificate of Merit 2018).
Academic Functions, Memberships and voluntary Offices
Giesela Rühl serves as the Secretary General of the European Association of Private International Law (EAPIL) which she helped to found in 2019. She is also one of the editors of Conflict of Laws.net as well as a member of numerous national and international academic associations and institutions, among them the European Academy of Sciences and Arts, the European Law Institute, and International Academy of Comparative Law.
Giesela Rühl served as the director of the Center for European Studies (CEuS) at Friedrich Schiller University Jena (2017 to 2020). In addition she was a member of the Young Academy at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (2010 to 2015) and a member of theacademic research network “Private power and private freedom” (“Private Macht und privatrechtliche Gestaltungsfreiheit”) funded by the German Research Foundation (2009 to 2013).