11 May 2025

Call for papers

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the Swiss Federal Tribunal, the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (SICL) is pleased to announce its 35th Conference on Private International Law, to be held on 19–20 November 2025 in Lausanne.
The conference addresses how courts, lawyers, and litigants have shaped—and how they continue to shape—private international law. Special emphasis will be placed on how legal practice drives the development of private international law at both the national and supranational levels. Judges, through landmark rulings, have clarified conflicts of laws rules, set precedents on the recognition of foreign judgments, and adapted legal frameworks to globalization and digital commerce. Lawyers, by crafting novel arguments, have influenced judicial reasoning and contributed to evolving legal doctrines. Finally, strategic litigation, led by litigants and advocacy groups, has driven major jurisprudential shifts, particularly in fundamental rights, corporate liability, and cross-border regulation. The conference will analyse these actors' distinct but interconnected roles in shaping contemporary private international law.

CALL FOR PAPERS

11 May 2025

Call for Participants: Workshop in Comparative Law Methods

Call for Participants: Workshop in Comparative Law Methods

Conveners: Prof. Dr. Philipp Renninger (University of Arizona/Seattle University); Prof. Dr.
Odile Ammann (Ecole de droit, Faculté de droit, des sciences criminelles et d’administration
publique, Université de Lausanne); Dr. Lukas Heckendorn Urscheler (Vice Director of the Swiss
Institute of Comparative Law). This workshop is a cooperation between the École de droit of the
University of Lausanne and the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law.

Location: Swiss Institute of Comparative Law, Dorigny, CH-1015 Lausanne.

Date and time: Tuesday, 10 June 2025, 9:00am – 5:00pm.
Target group: PhD candidates; postdocs; advanced master students; any researcher interested in
comparative law (not necessarily at the early-career stage).

Languages: While the conveners’ presentations will be in English, participants are welcome to
speak and participate in English, French, and German.

08 May 2025

Droit & Eurovision

17 Mar 2025

Comparative Trade Law Workshop

05 Feb 2025

Shaping Tomorrow’s Law on the Strength of Tradition : A joint celebration

04 Dec 2024

International Economic Law and the Role of the Judiciary

19 Nov 2024

The challenges of comparative law in Latin America: methodologies and interdisciplinarity

Conference

The challenges of comparative law in Latin America: methodologies and interdisciplinarity

18 and 19 November 2024

19 Nov 2024

Global Perspectives on Judging: AI and other challenges

06 Nov 2024

Stability and Change in International Investment Law: Assessing the Risks and Challenges for the Next 25 Years

Three round tables with thought leaders from around the world to assess the future of international investment law and dispute resolution

October 23 & 30, and November 6, 2024

Organized jointly by the AUWCL Center on International Commercial Arbitration (Washington, D.C.) and the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law (Lausanne, Switzerland)

26 Sep 2024

Contrats de mariage d’ici et d’ailleurs

Cette conférence explore les points suivants concernant les contrats de mariage :

• La formation, la fonction et les effets selon le droit de différents ordres juridiques (Allemagne, Angleterre, Russie, Suède et Suisse)
• Les particularités du droit des pays arabes
• Les questions de droit international privé suisse

La conférence sera suivie d’un cocktail.

18 Sep 2024

International Economic Law and the Role of the Legislature

16 Jul 2024

The Role of Sovereign Wealth Funds in the Global Financial Markets: a Legal Viewpoint

Guest Lecture by Dr Lucia Satragno 

Sovereign Wealth Funds (“SWFs”) as a group of diverse government-owned investment vehicles have changed considerably since their inception to become key players in the global financial markets. Improvements to their institutional and governance arrangements during the past decade have helped SWFs overcome certain concerns over their purposes and the quality of their investments. During this presentation Dr Satragno analyses the evolution of SWFs’ governance arrangements from a multi-level governance perspective. In doing so, she examines how SWFs—as investment vehicles primarily focused on foreign investments—have taken on expanded roles and become invaluable domestic policy tools that their home countries can rely on to deal with crises. In particular, this presentation offers a study of the different regulatory approaches to SWFs with a special mention to the special case of Singapore’s two funds (GIC Private Limited and Temasek Holdings).

17 Jun 2024

International Economic Law and the Role of the Executive

Based on the expansion of The Edward Elgar's Encyclopedia of International Economic Law to include a section on how international economic law obligations are actually implemented in domestic jurisdictions, this series of seminars aims to provide insights into the role of the different branches of government in IEL rule-making and rule-applying. Our first session will focus on the role of the executive branch, using the legal frameworks of Canada, China, Lesotho, and Liechtenstein as examples

23 Mar 2024

BiblioWeekend

A l’occasion du BiblioWeekend, l’ISDC propose un escape game pour découvrir ses locaux. Attablez-vous et résolvez une série d’énigmes qui vous mènera dans les quatre coins de notre bibliothèque !

05 Mar 2024

Outsourcing digital work under the law: The legal governance of a global workforce

17 Jan 2024

The Economics and Law of Space-Based Commerce

15 Nov 2023

INTERNATIONAL ARBITRATION: EVOLUTION OR DEVOLUTION?

Technology, social transformations, politicalupheaval, environmental degradation, and shiftingeconomic priorities require that arbitration and, morebroadly, dispute resolution re-invent themselves.
Challenges are everywhere in this field ofarbitration: Investment arbitration faces challengesby states proposing alternatives to avoid subjectingtheir measures to international arbitral review. Incommercial arbitration, the increasing complexityand quantity of the matters to be resolved, theimpact these cases have beyond the individual parties in dispute, and raising geopolitical tensionsrequire innovative scholarship to offer potentialsolutions.
During the Symposium on November 15 and 16, wewill critically assess where arbitration is headed: isarbitration evolving toward more sophisticated formsor are there setbacks?
Are all current developments increasing efficiency inarbitration proceedings? Does arbitration still offer asuitable solution to business disputes everywhere?

26 Oct 2023

The Changing Concept of National Security and the International Economic Law System

The recent past has witnessed a growth in national security concerns. The debates about how to address national security have become both deeper and broader as risks having seemingly little to do with military capabilities are labeled “security” threats. From terrorist networks and organized crime to pandemics and climate change, the term “security” has been extended beyond clearly definable bounds. Human security and global security are by now commonly used and interlink with the multiple others. The reemergence of war on European soil and the growing tension in the Asian Pacific, however, offers good cause to look more carefully at what states need to ensure their existence as sovereign entities – that is, at core national security. It has also demonstrated the critical link between core national security and economic power.

This one-day conference takes up an inquiry into the changing views on the concept of national security as revealed in the international economic law system. Over the course of four sessions, it will investigate what governments characterize as “national security” issues, what economic measures they are taking to reduce national security threats, and how international trade and investment decisionmakers see such measures. Drawing on experts from Europe (including Switzerland) and the United States, the discussion will also address the fundamental balance-of-power question of who should decide what is an issue of national security. Finally, the speakers will consider how an expanding view of national security will impact states that are committed to maintaining neutrality.

15 Sep 2023

Call for Paper: Astronomics Society inaugural workshop:The Economics and Law of Space-Based Commerce

Call for Papers
Astronomics Society inaugural workshop: The Economics and Law of Space-Based Commerce
University of Bern, 17-19 January 2024

This workshop will focus on the economics and governance of commercialization in outer-space. It will look at the applicability of economic concepts, the concepts of international economic law, and the concepts of economic governance to space-based commerce.

06 Sep 2023

Simposio: Los límites de la regulación económica en Latinoamérica

Simposio: Los límites de la regulación económica en Latinoamérica
6 de Septiembre, 2023

Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Chile,
Pío Nono 1, Santiago, Chile

Organizan: Instituto Suizo de Derecho Comparado, Departamento de Derecho Económico y Centro de Regulación y Competencia de la Facultad de Derecho de la Universidad de Chile.