Biography:
Professor Fedtke joined the Tulane University Law School faculty in time for the start of the Spring 2009 semester.  Professor Fedtke's main interests are public law (both constitutional and administrative), tort law, and comparative methodology.  He was eduated at schools in Zambia, the Philippines, and Germany, where he went on to study law and political science.  Following research both at the Institute for International Affairs in Hamburg and the Institute for Foreign and Comparative Law at the University of South Africa (UNISA) in Pretoria, Professor Fedtke was awarded a PhD, summa cum laude, by the University of Hamburg for an extensive analysis of legal transplants in South Africa's Constitutions of 1993 and 1996.

Professor Fedtke joined University College London in 2001 as DAAD/Clifford Chance Lecturer in German Law.  He received a Lectureship in 2002, a Readership in 2004, and was promoted to Professor of Comparative Law in 2007.  Professor Fedtke has also served since 2003 as Visiting Professor at The University of Texas at Austin.  He is also a Fellow of the European Centre of Tort and Insurance Law (ECTIL) in Vienna, Austria.  Before joining University College London, Professor Fedtke was a full-time researcher at the University of Hamburg/Germany.

Within the framework of the 'Democratisation Assistance Programme' of the German Foreign Office, Professor Fedtke has provided expert advice on questions of constitutionalism to members of the Iraqi National Assembly and, in the context of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), for the Office of Constitutional Support (OCS) of the United Nations Mission for Iraq (UNAMI).  He has also been involved in research projects for the European Commission (liability for genetically modified crops) and the French Cour de cassation (on the reform of the Code civil).  He is General Editor (with Sir Basil Markesinis) of The University of Texas Studies in Foreign and Transnational Law.  Jointly with Sir Basil, he was awarded the 2005 John Minor Wisdom Award for Academic Excellence in Legal Scholarship of the Tulane Law School for a contribution to Volume ip of the Tulane Law Review, "The Judge as Comparatist."

Current research projects include the use of comparative methodology in international commercial practice; human rights protection in Germany, the United Kingdom, and on the European level; constitutionalism in post-conflict societies; data protection and access to information; and questions of law reform.  He has published extensively on constitutional law, tort law, and comparative methodology.