Vincenzo Varano is a Professor Emeritus at the University of Florence, Department of Legal Science, where he has served as a chaired Professor of Comparative Law since 1983 and as a Dean in the early 1990s. He has been also the Director of the University of Florence Ph.D. program in Comparative Law.
Professor Varano is a respected European comparative lawyer. His main research interests include comparative law and methodology, and comparative civil procedure. He has written extensively on the subject of civil justice in comparative perspective.
His most significant recent publications include: Civil Litigation in Comparative Context (with O. Chase & Others, 2007) and La tradizione giuridica occidentale (with V. Barsotti), a successful comparative legal systems textbook published in 2002 (4th ed. 2010). He is also the editor of L’altra giustizia. I metodi alternativi di soluzione delle controversie in diritto comparato (The other justice. Alternative methods of dispute resolution in comparative law)(2007) and the co-editor (with N. Trocker) of The Reforms of Civil Procedure in Comparative Perspective (2005).
Professor Varano has been a member of the steering committee of the Italian Association of Comparative Law (1981-2001), and is a titular member of the International Academy of Comparative Law, and a member of several other scientific associations. He sits on the editorial board of the Rivista di diritto civile, and of the Annuario di Diritto Comparato e di Studi Legislativi, and is director or co-director of several publication series.
He has been a Visiting Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford, a Jean Monnet Fellow and a part-time professor at the European University Institute, Florence, and a Visiting Professor at Cornell, Norhtwestern and Brooklyn Law Schools. Since 1994, Professor Varano is a member of the Global Law Faculty of New York University; in this capacity, he has taught Comparative Law and Comparative Civil Procedure a number of times in the last 20 years.