Ralf Michaels is an expert in comparative law and conflict of laws. His research focuses mainly on three issues: the role of domestic courts in globalization, the potential of conflict of laws as a theory of global legal fragmentation, and the status and relevance of non-state law. He is the editor or co-editor of two special volumes of the American Journal of Comparative Law: “Beyond the State ? Rethinking Private Law” (2008), published as a book with Mohr/Siebeck, and “Legal Origins” (2009), as well as a book and a journal issue on conflict of laws, “Conflict of Laws in a Globalized World”, Cambridge, 2007; and Transdisciplinary Conflicts, Law & Contemporary Problems, 2008.

Michaels studied law at the Universities of Passau and Cambridge, U.K. While at Duke, he has been a visiting professor at the Universities of Panthéon/Assas (Paris 2), Princeton, Pennsylvania, and Toronto and the London School of Economics; he has also held senior research fellowships at Harvard and Princeton, as well as the American Academy in Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Private Law in Hamburg.