Main Areas of Research:

Civil Law, Comparative Law, Private International Law

Academic Career:

Born 14 November 1935 Schneidemühl. - Doctorate Hamburg (1962) - Master of Comp. Law, Ann Arbor/Mich. (1963) - Post-Doctorate (Habilitation) Hamburg (1970) - Full Prof. Univ. Konstanz (1971-78) - Judge at the Regional Court of Appeal (OLG) Karlsruhe (1975-78) - Director at the Max Planck Institute (1978-2000) - Full Prof. Univ. Hamburg (1981-98). - 1973-2001 Member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Comparative Law - 1981-84 Member of the German Council of Science and Humanities. 1986-89 Vice-President of the German Research Foundation. 1988-91 Chairman of the Human Sciences Section of the Max Planck Society. - 1986-1991 Member of the Federal Ministry of Justice’s Commission on the Law of Obligations. 2000-2006 President of the Int. Ass. of Legal Science. 2000-2004 President of the Bucerius Law School. - Guest Professorships: 1971 University of Chicago Law School (USA); 1985 Tel Aviv University (Israel); 1987 Univ. Uppsala (Sweden); 1994-95 Univ. Cambridge; 1999 Univ. Oxford. - 1995 Dr. iur. h.c. Univ. Uppsala; 1996 Dr. iur. h.c. Univ. Maastricht; 1996 Dr. iur. h.c. Univ. Utrecht. - Professional Memberships: Academia Europaea (since 1989), Int. Academy for Comparative Law (since 1994), British Academy (since 1997), Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (since 1998).