Honorary doctorate conferred on Prof. Dr. Reinhard Zimmermann by McGill University
17.06.2010
Institute Director Professor Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Reinhard Zimmermann was awarded an honorary doctorate by McGill University in Montreal on 4 June 2010. In the words of the Canadian university, the honour was conveyed in recognition of Zimmermann's status as "one of the world's leading authorities in comparative law and legal history".At an early stage of his academic career, Reinhard Zimmermann assumed a professorial chair at the University of Cape Town; beginning in 1988 he taught and conducted research at the University of Regensburg. During this time he contributed significantly to advancing the Europeanisation of private law based on historical and comparative foundations. In 1996 he was awarded the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz Prize, Germany's highest academic honour. Zimmermann has since the 1990s acted as guest professor on numerous occasions, including stints at Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, Berkeley, Chicago, Auckland and Edinburgh. Recently, he also was appointed as a professor at the Bucerius Law School in Hamburg. Since his years in Cape Town, an emphasis of his work has been the comparative study of continental private law and English common law as well as an analysis of the development of mixed legal systems combining elements of both traditions. Reinhard Zimmermanns’ tenure at Regensburg also brought about an unusual honour, namely he is featured prominently in a series of humorous novels by the Scottish author Alexander McCall Smith.
McGill University was founded in 1821. As Montreal's oldest university and, owing to its strong international orientation, it numbers among the most significant of Canada's research and teaching institutes. Its faculty, with which Reinhard Zimmermann has a long-standing history of academic exchange, has also established an internationally groundbreaking transsystematic program of legal education. The unique approach mirrors the mixed law character of bilingual Québec, where the legal system is shaped by both French influences as well as Anglo-American law.