A jurist and sociologist of German law, member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei. He has taught in the most prestigious European institutions, like the University of Frankfurt, the European Institute of Florence and the London School of Economics, where he held the Otto Kahn Freund Chair.
He has been a visiting professor at Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Stanford, Toronto, Berlin and Maastricht, Shanghai and Beijing. From 2010 to 2013 he taught at the International University College of Turin, and from 2007 to 2012 he was one of the Principal Investigators of the cluster of excellence “Normative Orders” of the University of Frankfurt.
He has received honorary doctorates from the universities of Lucerne, Naples, Tiflis, Macerata and Lund, as well as many honors for his research on social theory and private law, contractual law and comparative law. His research focuses on the relationship between law and other social systems, on the globalization of law and processes of constitutionalization of civil spheres.
Among his most important works translated into Italian: Nuovi conflitti costituzionali. Norme fondamentali dei regimi transnazionali (Bruno Mondadori, 2012); Il diritto possibile. Funzioni e prospettive del medium giuridico (Guerini, 2011); La cultura del diritto nell’epoca della globalizzazione. L’emergere delle costituzioni civili (Armano editore, 2005); Diritto policontesturale: prospettive giuridiche della pluralizzazione dei mondi sociali (Ruffino, 1999); Il diritto come sistema autopoietico (Giuffrè, 1996).