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Course objectives

The Course aims to strengthen the interdisciplinary nature of legal research and to study law from an international perspective in order to enhance young scholars’ ability to draw on the conceptual tools and sources of different disciplines: an increasingly pressing need in the current evolution of domestic, international and European legal systems. The programme adopts an approach that conceptualises a world composed not only of States, but also of a wide range of norm-producing communities.

Without a broader understanding of law that recognises the non-sovereign (and even non-governmental) forms of norm production, we risk either overlooking such normative expressions or denying them legal status, thereby failing to appreciate their practical force and the way they interact with legal doctrine. Rather than focusing exclusively on the nation-state, legal scholarship in the age of globalisation should prepare scholars who are aware of a world of porous borders, multiple affiliations and overlapping interests, in which law and legal communities are constantly evolving.

The programme ultimately aims to educate legal scholars who are fully aware of the interdisciplinary nature of their studies and of their shared European and international dimension.

Educational activities

The PhD Programme includes a range of educational activities.

Seminars:
Throughout the PhD cycle, seminars are organised on emerging topics in private law, labour law and international law, as well as interdisciplinary seminars addressing themes that cut across these fields. Contributions from guest lecturers from Italian and international universities are encouraged in order to foster dialogue with members of the PhD board on specific research topics.

Language Enhancement – Academic Writing and Abstracts:
These classes aim to improve English language skills, with particular attention to academic legal terminology. The course is designed to introduce third-year PhD candidates to the use of academic legal English.

Laboratory Activities – Library Resources for Legal Sciences:
This course introduces first-year PhD candidates to the full range of resources offered by the University’s library system, from tools for locating printed bibliographic materials to the wide array of Italian and international databases and electronic resources.

Valorisation and Dissemination of Research Results, Intellectual Property, and Open Access to Research Data and Outputs:
Summer School in Bressanone – PhD Candidates’ Conference (joint activity with the PhD in Private, International and Labour Law and with the PhD-Doktoratsstudium Italienisches Recht of Innsbruck).Selected second- and third-year PhD candidates present interim results of their research together with PhD candidates from the PhD in Law of the University of Padua and from the PhD-Doktoratsstudium Italienisches Recht of Innsbruck. A lectio magistralis is also delivered on this occasion.

Research areas

The PhD Programme provides an interdisciplinary education that integrates the perspectives of international law (public and private), private law (comparative and European), and labour law (including trade union law), thereby laying the foundation for the development of specialised
expertise in one of the following research areas:
a) public and private international law and European Union law, including from the perspective of their historical evolution;
b) private law, examined in a comparative perspective that takes into account other European legal systems and the dynamics of their harmonisation;
c) labour law and trade union law, considered from the perspectives of the domestic legal system, comparative analysis among EU Member States’ legal systems, EU law, and international law.
The curriculum is designed to offer doctoral candidates the experience of genuine interdisciplinarity among the fields of international law, private law, and labour law, both as a methodological approach and as a foundation for research training. It focuses on those areas and issues in which the interaction among these fields is most evident, and fosters the ability to draw on the conceptual tools and sources of different disciplines.

To this end, teaching activities are primarily organised during the first year so as to combine specialised instruction in the Programme’s different areas with a shared interdisciplinary teaching framework.

Professional profile

The professional and academic opportunities available to PhD graduates may be summarised as follows:

- access to the legal professions (including lawyers, judges and notaries);

- access to managerial positions within local, national and supranational public administrations;

- opportunities to work as consultants in the industrial and commercial sectors;

- access to academic positions within the scientific-disciplinary sectors involved in the Programme’s training activities.

  Other information

• Calls and Admissions
• Administrative information
• The International PhD guide