Anne Röthel has been appointed Director by the Max Planck Society at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law and will assume her position in the directorate as of 1 January 2024. She succeeds Reinhard Zimmermann, who retired in 2022.

The German Federal Constitutional Court’s publication on 29 March 2023 of its decision on the Act to Combat Child Marriages occasioned the Institute to hold an online symposium for interdisciplinary analysis of the topic. A collection of papers from the symposium has now been published open access in an online-first edition of the Rabel Journal.

Joaquín Garrido Martín holds degrees in law and in philosophy from the University of Seville. He has completed postgraduate studies at the University of Bern and at the European University Institute in Florence. 2017 he obtained a PhD in law from the University of Seville.

From the European Single Market to the global interweaving of multi-national businesses or financial firms to our increasingly international everyday lives, the world around us is steadily converging. At the same time, our laws are encountering the limits of their application. The Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law embraces the task of critically studying the social, economic and legal challenges of globalisation.

The Institute library is Europe’s largest library specialising in foreign and international private law and is recognised worldwide for its scope and services. It has a collection of specialist literature from more than 200 countries around the world. The library has a particular focus on acquiring literature from countries that are not easily accessible, such that these can be gathered and made available at one location.