European Private Law Summer School, Salzburg
The Foundation helped fund the attendance of 5 University of Edinburgh students at the Salzburg Summer School Event.
The programme concerned European Private Law and was intended to enhance students’ understanding of its principles and the key matters in today’s globalised world. All attending Scottish students were passionate about private law issues and were enthusiastic at the opportunity to learn more.
This year the students were able to attend the programme virtually, like more than half of the other students, while some who were located in or near Austria were able to experience it in person.
There were 41 available sessions, of which the Scottish students attended almost all, with only some being unavailable due to a language barrier. Classes mostly consisted of lectures which were taught by experts from a certain jurisdiction. Their purpose was to give a brief but detailed overview of the historical development and current law in their country. Four of the most important of these were the Common law, French Law, German law, and Nordic law sessions.
Augmenting the lectures were five round table sessions where multiple speakers took part in teaching. Their subject matter was often topical, such as emphasising the importance of language, exploring harmonization in Europe, methodology issues, and the impact of Covid-19 upon lawmakers.
Finally, there was a workshop where students were assigned problem questions on the topic of transfer and title to corporeal moveable property. They were able to interact with the other online students to compare how the problem would be solved under their legal system. The workshop helped participants understand how the theory they had learnt about during the lectures would be put into practice under many different systems.
The students felt that attending the summer school provided great benefit, improving their ability to think and communicate in a cross-jurisdictional way regarding key legal matters. They also appreciated the benefits of dialogue with legal practitioners in other countries and the summer school sparked their interest to continue to expand their knowledge of the law in years to come.