University of Valencia confers honorary doctorate on Jürgen Basedow

Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. mult. Jürgen Basedow, LLM. (Harvard), Director Emeritus at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, was awarded an honorary doctoral degree on 31 May 2019 from the Law Faculty of the University of Valencia.

The University of Valencia numbers among Europe’s oldest universities. It was founded at the start of the 16th century by Pope Alexander VI, of the Borgia family, and King Ferdinand II. Against the background of this Renaissance heritage, the acceptance speech of Jürgen Basedow traced the historic arc of legal scholarship over the last five decades. He described how a fundamental methodological change has taken place in light of a growing orientation on legal practice, advancing internationalisation and a movement towards collective and increasingly interdisciplinary research. The text of his remarks, in Spanish and German, can be downloaded below.

Jürgen Basedow was director at the Max Planck Institute for Private Law from 1997 to 2017. Before his appointment at the Institute, he was dean of the Law Faculty at the University of Augsburg and professor at the Freie Universität Berlin. Additionally, he has served as guest professor at numerous universities around the world, including the Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, Moscow State University, the University of Oxford, the Université Paris 2 Panthéon-Assas, New York University and the Hague Academy of International Law. He is a member of the Institut de droit international. The degree awarded by the University of Valencia is his sixth honorary doctorate.