Description

The Choice of Law Dataverse is a pioneering platform that combines private international law and digitalization. By adhering to an open research data policy, we strive to enhance transparency in the field of applicable law in international commercial transactions and promote the dissemination of successful experiences in legal harmonization. This platform will provide extensive interconnected data, including crucial information on over 60 jurisdictions, such as court decisions, arbitral awards, and legislation, all conveniently available in English.

Our objective is to empower scholars, researchers, students, practitioners, and policymakers, enabling them to conduct their analyses more efficiently in this domain. The project's specific goals encompass expanding data collection to additional countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, presenting information in a systematic manner, offering a comprehensive overview of choice of law rules at various levels and identifying transferable best practices.

Additionally, the project aims to closely monitor the work of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH), with a particular focus on the reassessment and potential augmentation of the Principles on Choice of Law in International Commercial Contracts (2015) in the coming years.

 

Team

The project is led by Prof. Daniel Girsberger (Tenured Professor for Swiss and International Private, Business and Procedural Law as well as Comparative Private Law at the University of Lucerne) and managed by Agatha Brandão de Oliveira (Project Coordinator). They were previously involved in the coordination of the SNSF research project “The Hague Principles and Beyond”, conducted at the University of Lucerne between 2018-2021.

The team is also composed of four assistants: Rorick Tovar (Senior Researcher), Simon Weigold (Data Architect), Fabian Aiolfi (Product Developer) and Olga Shpakova (Data Scientist).

 

Project Partners

Prof. Geneviève Saumier (Université de Montreal), Prof. Jan L Neels and Prof. Eesa A Fredericks (University of Johannesburg) are the main Project Partners of the Choice of Law Dataverse. They contribute to the expansion and refinement of information in jurisdictions of the Global South.

 

Duration

The project has officially started on May 1st, 2023, and will run for three years.

 

Funding

The Human and Social Sciences division of the Swiss National Science Foundation has decided to support the project by granting a research grant of CHF 844,792. The majority of the funds are allocated towards salaries and research funds (covering costs incurred by project partners as well as expenses related to field trips and workshops that will be organized in the project's final year). The evaluation panel placed the research proposal at the top 20% quintile rank; the success rate of the October 2022 Project Funding call was 40%.

The project also counts on the provost’s administrative support from the University of Lucerne.

 

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