Institute Publications
The Max Planck Institute publishes an array of works addressing fundamental questions in all fields of its eponymous areas of research: comparative and international private law. These in-house publications are supervised by the Directors, and by research fellows and associates working on their behalf. Editorial work on the publications takes place largely within the Institute, where we coordinate cooperation with authors, reviewers, publishing houses and other service providers, and where we see to the delivery of print-ready manuscripts to our pertinent partners.
Current Publications
The Institute publishes several legal journals and print series in its own name, and its academic staff contributes in a variety of ways to other publications aiming at a scholarly treatment of the Institute’s fields of research. In addition to its own output, the Institute also supports the publication of suitable external research efforts. Particularly in the field of comparative and international law, the demand for thorough academic analysis and a clear presentation of research findings extends beyond boundaries based on geography or language. Accordingly, the Institute is part of an international network and cooperates with renowned German and foreign publishing houses.
The Journal was founded in 1927 by Ernst Rabel as the principal German forum for fundamental research on the international aspects of private, economic, and procedural law. Areas of specific interest are thus comparative law as well as foreign law in comparative analysis, the conflict of laws, the law of international transactions, and the unification of law, including the law of the European Union.
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The three Institute series on comparative and international private law are not limited to the publication of research completed by Institute staff. Rather, they are also open to external authors and editors for monographs and edited volumes on topics in the Institute's fields of inquiry.
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Die deutsche Rechtsprechung auf dem Gebiete des internationalen Privatrechts [German Court Rulings in Private International Law], abbreviated “IPRspr”, is a collection of German court decisions on private international law and international civil procedure in publication since 1926. In 2020, work began on converting from hardcopy book format to a freely accessible online database.
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On behalf of the German Council for Private International Law (
Deutscher Rat für Internationales Privatrecht), the Institute has since 1965 been part of a cooperative effort publishing selected expert reports (
Gutachten) that have been prepared by the Institute or other academic entities for use primarily by German courts.
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Together with the German-Japanese Association of Jurists, the Institute has published the J.Japan.L. since 2004. Offering a timely documentation and analysis of the myriad lines of development Japanese law in western-languages, the Journal is an international periodical serving the needs of individuals interested in Japanese law.
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The GJCL is published by the German-Chinese Association of Jurists together with the Sino-German Institute for Legal Studies in Nanjing, and since 2015 in cooperation with the Max Planck Institute. The Journal publishes reports and analyses of current developments in China as well as translations of important new Chinese legislative acts.
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The Institute’s Research Paper Series is published on the online platform of the Social Science Research Network. In existence since 2010, the Accepted Paper Series presents a selection of articles authored by Institute staff members which have recently been accepted for print publication in journals or edited volumes.
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The Re-Publication Series of the Institute came into existence in 2022 and operates in connection with the repository of the Max Planck Society. Consistent with the notion of green (self-archiving) open access, the Institute’s editorial team works to see that all publications by Institute staff can be republished here where this is feasible., both legally and factually.
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Subsequent to the print edition release of the “Handwörterbuch des Europäischen Vertragsrechts” (2009) as well as its English-language counterpart, the “Max Planck Encyclopedia of European Private Law” (2012), the Institute has made both works available as digital editions. These are now conveniently searchable open access on the internet and can also serve as point of reference for terminology and translation issues.
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