Professor Stefan Vogenauer (University of Oxford) (pictured left) will give the winter lecture for the Irish Society of Comparative Law (ISCL) at 5:00pm on Thursday, 11 November 2010, in the Swift Lecture Theatre, Room 2041A Arts Block, Trinity College Dublin (map here). His title is:

The Theory and Practice of Using Comparative Law in the Harmonisation of Private Law: the Case of Release of Contractual Rights.

Professor Vogenauer is Professor of Comparative Law at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of Brasenose College Oxford, and Director of the Oxford Institute of European and Comparative Law (IECL). His research interests lie mainly in the areas of comparative law, private law, international uniform law, European legal history and legal method. For his comparative and historical analysis of the interpretation of statutes in English, French, German and EU law, Die Auslegung von Gesetzen in England und auf dem Kontinent (Verlag Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2001, 2 vols), he was awarded the Max Weber Prize of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society in 2002, as well as the 2008 Prize of the German Legal History Conference. More recently, the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) awarded him approximately £350,000 to for a research project on ‘The Common Frame of Reference on European Contract Law in the Context of English and German Law’, which will explore the relationship between the recently published Common Frame of Reference and the contract laws of EU member states, as exemplified by German and English law. His ISCL lecture forms part of this larger work.

The ISCL encourages the comparative study of law and legal systems, and it seeks affiliation with individuals and organisations with complementary aims. As well as organising an annual winter lecture, it organises an annual conference. The next such event will take place at University College Dublin on 29-30 April 2011. The 2012 event will take place on 2-3 March 2012 at University College Cork.