Professor Dr Anne Röthel has recently been appointed Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law , succeeding Professor Dr Dr hc mult Reinhard Zimmermann.
An internationally renowned legal scholar, Professor Röthel’s research focuses on the theoretical and comparative analyses of family Law, the law of the person and of private life. Other topics of interest include the notion and significance of autonomy in law, the relationship between private law and public law, and the benefits of interdisciplinarity for legal scholarship and legal education. Her most recent research addresses current debates on emancipation and explores the dogmatics and discourses relating to bodily self-determination.
Professor Röthel studied law and political science at the University of Cologne and at the Université de Clermont-Ferrand. Following the completion of a dissertation on constitutional law, she was awarded a doctorate from the University of Trier. She then earned a post-doctoral degree at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg based on a Habilitation thesis focused on legal theory. Since 2004 she has taught and researched at Bucerius Law School in Hamburg.
On hearing about the many activities of Max Planck Law—ten grassroots Initiatives and their associated events, the ‘Approaches to Legal Research’ curriculum, the annual conference, career development support, exchanges with major law schools, Pespectives, the Lawcast, and so on—Professor Röthel was very impressed. She sees comparative law as one of the major points in common amongst the Institutes in the Max Planck Law network. As this is also an important focus of her work, she looks forward to seeing Max Planck Law create further synergies in this area. Moreover, she says:
I’ve always been intrigued by the idea of offering PhD and Postdoc students the same kind of opportunities you might find in a graduate school. This is an experience I have had myself, and my own career has been very much influenced by it. Max Planck Law approaches this kind of experience and I look forward to being able to contribute to it personally.