Speakers
Mateusz Józef Pilich is an associate professor at the University of Warsaw, attorney at the BWHS law firm (Warsaw), specialist in private international law, international civil procedure and education law. He participated in the preparation of comments: to the Polish Act on Private International Law of 2011 (general provisions, status of natural persons, and the law applicable to compulsory insurance contracts) and to the bilateral Polish-Ukrainian Convention on Legal Assistance in Civil and Criminal Matters (chief editor and author). Speaker at numerous domestic and foreign conferences.
Raffaele Sabato Raffaele Sabato holds a degree in law from the University of Naples and one in political sciences from the University of Macerata. He has been an Italian magistrate since 1991. He was assigned to the Italian Court of Cassation as a Counsellor in 2012. He was a member of the scientific committee of the Consiglio Superiore della Magistratura (CSM) (1998-2001) and an expert reporter to the United Nations, European Union and Council of Europe, participating in numerous missions and initiatives in programmes aimed at the promotion of judicial reform, magistrate training and the protection of human rights in general. He sat on the board of the Scuola Superiore di Magistratura as head of the International Section. He has taught at various schools of specialisation for the legal professions of Italian universities on civil law, European Union law and the judiciary. He was a member of the Consultative Council of European Judges of the Council of Europe and was elected Vice President and then President of his Working Group. In its session of 22 January 2019, the Assembly of the Council of Europe appointed him as sixth Italian judge at the European Court of Human Rights.
Vincent Kronenberger is Legal Secretary (Référendaire) of Judge L. S. Rossi at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Luxembourg, since 2018. He joined the Court of Justice in 2003, working with Advocate General P. Mengozzi for 15 years. Prior to joining the Court, he was Officer at the EFTA Surveillance Authority in Brussels. He also worked as Officer in the European Commission (DG Internal Market), Brussels and as Senior Researcher at the TMC Asser Institute, The Hague. Vincent Kronenberger has obtained a doctoral degree in law (Dr.iur.) from the University of Toulouse (France) in 1999. He was also assistant associate professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Luxembourg from 2010 to 2019. He has published numerous articles and edited three books in the field of EU Law.
Andreas Stein is is a Head of Unit responsible for civil justice at the European Commission’s Directorate General for Justice. He is a German lawyer holding a doctoral degree (University of Hamburg) and a postgraduate degree in International Relations (Johns Hopkins University SAIS Bologna). After several years of practising as a judge at a district court and subsequently at a labour tribunal, he joined the Commission in 2001 and has worked in the areas of private international law, contract law, equality and anti-discrimination law, and competition law before taking his current position.
Patrick Kinsch is a member of the Luxembourg bar and Honorary Professor at the University of Luxembourg. He is also the Secretary General of GEDIP, the European Group for Private International Law.
Professor Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm is a Chair in Private International Law at Edinburgh Law School. She is a widely published scholar in private international law in Europe and Latin America. Her research focuses on the intersections between private international law and other disciplines, including public international law, shipping, migration, sustainable development and legal education. Verónica is President of the European Law Faculties Association (ELFA), Vice-President of the American Association of Private International Law (ASADIP), and Member of the Scientific Council of the European Association of Private International Law (EAPIL).
Iryna Dikovska is a Professor of Private International Law at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev (Ukraine). She is a Member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Supreme Court of Ukraine. She is a visiting researcher at Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (Hamburg, Germany). She obtained a PhD in Law in 2002 and Habilitation in 2014 (both dissertations on private international law matters) at Taras Shevchenko National University of Kiev. She authored four monographies on law (three of which on private international law matters) and many articles. Her current research focuses on family private international law issues.
Tamás Szabados is an associate professor at ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. He obtained an LL.M. degree at the University College London. He completed research stays at renowned universities and research institutions, such as the University of Cambridge, Oxford and Heidelberg, the Harvard University and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law. His main areas of interest include the private international law aspects of company mobility and the private international law treatment of stolen and illegally exported cultural objects. He has also published widely on the application of economic sanctions and blocking statutes. He is the author of the book ‘Economic Sanctions in EU Private International Law’ that was published in 2019 by Hart.
Alex Mills is a Professor of Public and Private International Law, Faculty of Laws, University College London. He has degrees in Philosophy and Law from the University of Sydney, and an LLM and PhD from the University of Cambridge, where he also taught before joining UCL. He has published widely on questions of public and private international law, and is the author of books on The Confluence of Public and Private International Law (2009) and Party Autonomy in Private International Law (2018), and a co-author of Cheshire North and Fawcett’s Private International Law (15th edition, 2017). He is also a specialist editor for Dicey, Morris and Collins on the Conflict of Laws (16th edition, 2022), and General Editor of the International and Comparative Law Quarterly.
Professor Dr Matthias Weller, Mag.rer.publ., is one of the two Directors of the Institute of German and International Civil Procedural Law at the University of Bonn, Germany. He received his legal education at the Universities of Heidelberg and Cambridge, United Kingdom. Since then, he has held various positions, including the Joseph Story Fellowship of Private International Law at the Harvard Law School from 1998 to 1999, and the position of a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Heidelberg from 2002 to 2010. In 2011, he was called to the chair for civil law, civil procedure and private international law at the EBS Law School and, shortly afterwards, acted as Vice Dean there. He delivered a special course at the Hague Academy of International Law in 2019 and contributed to the Academy’s First Advanced Seminar on „Current Trends on International Commercial and Investment Dispute Settlement“ in Hong Kong in 2023. Also in 2023, he convened an international conference on the HCCH 2019 Judgments Convention, co-hosted by the Permanent Bureau of the HCCH. Weller has delivered more than 200 publications and delivered nearly 100 presentations on private international law, international civil litigation and arbitration as well as transnational commercial law.
Olivera Boskovic is a professor of private law at the Université Paris Cité in Paris, France. She has been visiting professor at the Sorbonne Abou Dhabi University since 2014. She studied at the Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne and in Oxford. She received her PHD from Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne in 2000. She was assistant professor from 2001 from 2005. As full professor she taught at several Universities before joining Université Paris Cité in 2012. There she is the head of the masters program in international business law. She is also co-director of the sustainable development masters law program. Her teaching subjects are private international law, comparative law and international arbitration. She publishes mainly in the area of private international law and regularly participates in conferences and workshops. She has a special interest in environmental issues.
Eduardo Álvarez-Armas is an Assistant Professor of Private International Law at the Universidad Pontificia Comillas (ICADE), Visiting Professor at the Université Catholique de Louvain (Belgium) and a lawyer at the bar of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (Spain). He currently teaches, researches, and advices on international commercial litigation, including ESG/CSR-related matters. Between 2019 and 2022 he has been rapporteur or advisor for the European Commission on matters of private international law in three instances, including his membership of the “Expert group against SLAPPs” (Strategic Litigation Against Public participation), whose work led to the wording of the draft anti-SLAPP EU directive. In the past he has held positions at Queen Mary University of London and J&A Garrigues, amongst other entities, and he holds, among other academic qualifications, a double PhD from the Université Catholique de Louvain and the Universidad de Granada, an LL.M from Stanford Law School (USA), and a Master’s degree in EU Law from the College of Europe (Belgium).
Rui Dias is a Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Coimbra, where he teaches International Litigation, Private International Law, and Commercial Law. Rui studied in Porto, Heidelberg, Coimbra, and New York, having benefited from Fulbright and Humboldt scholarships. Inter alia, he serves as Executive Editor of the Portuguese company law review (DSR – Direito das Sociedades em Revista), a deputy Director of the Portuguese arbitration law review (Revista Internacional de Arbitragem e Conciliação), a co-editor of the blog Conflict of Laws (www.conflictoflaws.net), and a Vice-President of the Portuguese-German Lawyers Association (DLJV).
Klaas Hendrik Eller is an Assistant Professor at the Amsterdam Center for Transformative Private Law (ACT). His research interests are centered around the role of (private) law in social and technological change, particularly through an angle of contract and economic law, alongside comparative and private international law as well as human rights. His work draws on (transnational) private law theory, socio-legal and anthropological approaches, law & political economy and the history of legal thought. In 2022, he received a 3-year grant by the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) for his project ‘Recoding Global Production: Towards a Legal Ethnography of Sustainable Global Supply Chains’. Dr Eller is a contributor to the project ‘The Private Side of Transforming the World: The UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030 and the Role of Private International Law’ (Max-Planck Institute, Hamburg). He is a co-editor-in-chief of the German Law Journal, an editor of Kritische Justiz, and a member of the Amsterdam Young Academy (AYA). Dr Eller obtained his PhD from the University of Cologne (“The Constitution of Global Production”) and holds law degrees from Cologne and the Université de Paris 1 (Panthéon-Sorbonne). He passed the German bar exam (Referendariat) at the High Court of Berlin with secondments inter alia at the Supreme Court of the State of Israel (Justice Daphne Barak-Erez) and an international arbitration boutique. He was a Doctoral Fellow at Humboldt-University’s European Law School Graduate Program, held fellowships at both Tel Aviv University’s and Harvard University’s Safra Center for Ethics, was a Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP, Harvard Law School) and a Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University.
Laura Carpaneto is an Associate Professor of EU law at the University of Genoa (Italy). She obtained a PhD in Law in 2004 on EU transport law matters at the University of Genoa. She authored 4 monographies on EU law (3 of which on EU private international law matters) and many articles. Her current research focuses on EU private international law issues.
