Christian von Bar - Biography#

Dr. jur. 1976; Assessor 1977; Dr. jur. habil. (Privatdozent) 1979. LL.M. studies in Cambridge/England October-December 1979. University Professor at Osnabrück since 1981. Founder and Director of the Institute of Private International and Comparative Law (from 1987-2003). Founder and Director of the European Legal Studies Institute (ELSI) since 2003. Dean 1988/89. Offered the position of Department Chair at the University of Munich in 1987 and Department Chair at the University of Heidelberg in 1991.

Bodossakis Research Fellow, Churchill College, Cambridge 1981/82. Visiting Professor, Waseda-University, Tokyo 1985; Guest Professor, University of Aix-en-Provence 1986; Guest Professor, University of Kobe, 1996; Visiting Professor, Hague Academy of International Law; 1998 session. Visiting Professor and Visiting Fellow of Brasenose College, University of Oxford, 2000.

Chairman of the Study Group on a European Civil Code 1999-2009. One of the speakers of the “Common Principles of European Contract Law (CoPECL)” network of excellence established in 2005 under the European Union’s 6th Framework Programme on Research. Member of the Commission on European Contract Law (Lando-Group) since 1992. Consultant to the UNIDROIT working group on international commercial contracts 2005-2011.

Head of an international research group on Pan-European Tort Law 1992-1998. Head of a project on the History of German Private International Law 1989-2001. Head of an international research group on Pan-European law on Unjustified Enrichment and Negotiorum Gestio 1999-2009. Co-editor of the Draft Common Frame of Reference 2008 and 2009. Head of an international research group on Pan-European Property Law since 2009.

Member of the Council of the European Law Institute since 2011. Chairman of the committee for legal studies of the Deutsche Forschungsgesellschaft 1996-2000. Consultant, inter alia, to the European Parliament, European Commission, Bundesrat, German Lawyers Forum, Volkswagen Foundation, Thyssen Foundation, Humboldt Foundation, Austrian Research Fund, the Swiss National Research Fund, Scottish and Dutch universities, European University Institute, Florence, the National Research Foundation, South Africa and the DAAD. Consultant to several national and international research organisations.

Editor of three law serials. Editor and Commentator of the Staudinger Commentary on the German Civil Code/Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch. Co-Editor of the outline and the full editions of the Draft Common Frame of Reference (Principles, Definitions and Model Rules of European Private Law).

Organiser of numerous international conferences. Initiated the Anglo-German judicial conferences. Lectured in Austria, Belgium, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Israel, Japan, Korea, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey and the United Kingdom, and at the Hague Academy for International Law.

Author of approx. 390 books, articles and reviews, which have been published in Austria, Belgium, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, the UK and the United States