Anne Röthel

Other offices

• Director of the Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht

Research focus

• German, European and International Family and Inheritance Law

Professor Röthel’s research focuses primarily on the fields of family law and succession law, particularly in theoretical and comparative contexts, areas in which she has published extensively. Her other research interests include the role and notion of autonomy, the interaction between private law and public law, the role of judicature, the use of interdisciplinary approaches and aspects of medical law. Her latest research concerns the right to self-determination of children and the notion of “body” in legal contexts.
 

Publications

List of publications (German only)
 

Biography

Prof. Anne Röthel has been appointed by the Max Planck Society to the Board of Directors of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law as of January 1, 2024.

Anne Röthel held the Chair of Civil Law, European and Private International Law at Bucerius Law School from September 1, 2004 to January 1, 2024.

Professor Röthel studied law, French literature and political sciences at the Universities of Cologne (Germany) and Clermont-Ferrand (France). In addition to her postgraduate studies in environmental and technology law, she completed her doctorate in constitutional law at the University of Trier. Prior to coming to Bucerius Law School, she was research assistant at the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, before she was promoted to professorship with a study in the field of legal theory. Professor Röthel's postdoctoral qualification was supported by the German Research Foundation and received the Bavarian Habilitation Award in 2000. Thereafter, Professor Röthel received a Heisenberg Scholarship from the German Research Foundation, before she was appointed full professorship at Bucerius Law School. Professor Röthel was also offered a Chair of Civil Law at the University of Zurich in 2006 and a Chair of Civil Law at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in 2015, both of whom she declined.

Professor Röthel is Director of the Center for Family Businesses and organizes conferences on current issues of family law regularly. She has been teaching as a professeur invitée at the University of Paris Panthéon-Assas since 2010. In 2014, Professor Röthel was appointed Lady Beaufort Visiting Fellow at Lady Margaret Hall, University of Oxford.