Michael Blakeney is Herchel Smith Professor of Intellectual Property Law at Queen Mary, University of London and Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Western Australia. He has held academic positions at a number of Universities in Australia and the UK, and formerly worked in the Asia Pacific Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Professor Blakeney has directed EC projects concerned with the establishment of an IP infrastructure in a number of new EU Member States and EU Applicant States.

Jörg Fedtke is A. N. Yiannopoulos Professor in Comparative Law and Co-Director of the Eason Weinmann Center for Comparative Law at Tulane Law School. Before joining Tulane in January 2009, he was Professor of Comparative Law and Director of the Institute of Global Law at University College London. Professor Fedtke’s main research interests are constitutional law, torts, comparative methodology, and the European Union. He has provided advice on federalism, judicial review and human rights protection to members of the Iraqi National Assembly, and has on a number of occasions served as a legal expert for UN- and EU-funded projects on various aspects of constitutionalism in the Arab region. Professor Fedtke has also been involved in collaborative research for the European Commission and the French Cour de cassation, and has given expert evidence to the UK House of Lords Select Committee on the Constitution.

Ulrich Magnus is Professor of civil law, private international law and comparative law at the University of Hamburg. He has also served as a judge at the Hamburg Court of Appeal. Professor Magnus is Executive Vice-Director of the European Centre for Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL) in Vienna, Germany’s National Correspondent at the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), Executive Co-Director of the International Max-Planck-Research School for Maritime Affairs in Hamburg, and a member of the German Council for Private International Law, the European Group on Tort Law, and the European Acquis Group. His main subjects of research are private international law, German and comparative tort and contract law, and uniform sales law (CISG). Professor Magnus has served as an expert for European and international institutions (UNCITRAL, the European Commission, IAEA, FIFA), and both German and foreign governments and courts.

Vernon Valentine Palmer is Thomas Pickles Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Eason Weinmann Center for Comparative Law at Tulane Law School. His research has focused on the comparative law of obligations, code revision, delictual liability, and third party beneficiary contracts. Professor Palmer is the author of more than forty books and articles. He teaches courses in comparative law, obligations, European legal systems, products liability, and sales and leases.