Prof. Dr. Hans Schulte-Nölke

Professor Hans Schulte-Nölke is Dean of the Law Faculty at the University of Osnabrück since 2018, after having already served as Dean and Vice-Dean in 2010-2013 and 2017. Dean Schulte-Nölke’s teaching and research interests are in European private and business law. He has particular expertise in contract law and consumer law, and frequently explores issues that lie at the intersection of contract law, business law and information law, including online platforms, e-commerce and the law concerning the data economy. In addition to his law degree, he also holds a degree in legal history. He has served on the Advisory Committee of the American Law Institute’s project Restatement on Consumer Contracts since 2012.

Dean Schulte-Nölke has published his scholarly work in several languages in law reviews, edited volumes and legal commentaries on the legislation of the European Union and the German Civil Code. Recent law review publications include articles in the European Review of Contract Law (ECLR), the European Review of Consumer and Market Law (EuCML) and the European Review of Private Law (ERPL). He was one of the editors of the Draft Common Frame of Reference of European Private Law (DCFR) and of the feasibility study of the European Commission on a Common European Sales Law (CESL). He has been awarded several competitive research grants, including grants from the European Commission. He has been invited to more than 150 guest lectures and speeches in more than 20 countries on three continents.

Professor Schulte-Nölke was one of the co-founders of the European Law Institute and has served on its Council since 2011 and on its Executive Committee since 2017. He is Director of the European Legal Studies Institute at Osnabrück since 2008 and he holds a part-time chair as Law Professor at the Business and Law Research Centre of the Radboud University at Nijmegen (the Netherlands) since 2013. He was elected to the Academia Europaea in 2016. He regularly advises law-making bodies, in particular institutions of the European Union, in preparing and drafting legislation. He also acts as an arbitrator in commercial arbitration.