The two weeks program is the core project of the Association of Transnational Law Schools (ATLAS). The international consortium has committed itself to supporting and promoting networking opportunities among talented doctoral students in the field of jurisprudence. In addition to Bucerius Law School, current ATLAS members include American Univ. Washington College of Law, Bar-Ilan University, Erasmus School of Law Rotterdam, National University of Singapore, Osgoode Hall Law School of York University, Queen Mary Univ. of London, University College Dublin and Université de Montreal.
The 2016 Agora was carried out under the academic supervision of Prof. Dr. Karsten Thorn and focused on "Autonomy and Law." Twenty-three participants from member universities took part in numerous methodology lectures, thematic presentations and intensive supervised workshops to gain feedback on their doctoral projects and insight for future scholarly work. Extracurricular activities and events with local doctoral candidates rounded out the program and offered participants an opportunity to exchange with peers in a setting beyond the seminar room.
Ung Shen Goh, a participant from Canada, reflected on the experience saying, “It was refreshing to learn methodology from different professors who specialized in the approach on which they were lecturing. Their practical examples helped to illustrate how to use different methods and highlighted the pros and cons of each method. It was interesting to learn substantive law from the civil code perspective. This may sound like a strange stretch of the imagination, but each subject gave me an idea for a side paper related to my main thesis.”
The next Agora will take place in June 2017 at Queen Mary University of London.
