Prof. Dr. Lars Viellechner, LL.M. (Yale)

Current Positions

• Vice Dean, Faculty of Law, University of Bremen (since 2025)
• Director, Centre of European Law and Politics, University of Bremen (since 2022)
• Professor of Public Law, in particular Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Legal Philosophy and Transnational Law, University of Bremen (since 2021)

Previous Positions

• Associate Professor of Public Law, in particular Constitutional Law, Constitutional Theory, Legal Philosophy and Transnational Law, University of Bremen (2014–2021)
• Postdoc and Academic Coordinator, Graduate School “Constitutionalism Beyond the State”, Humboldt University of Berlin (2012–2014)
• Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer, Centre of European Law and Politics and Collaborative Research Centre “Transformations of the State”, University of Bremen (2009–2012)
• Law Clerk, Higher Regional Court of Hamburg and Federal Constitutional Court of Germany (2005–2008)
• Junior Research Fellow and Lecturer, Institute of Public Law and Theory of the State, University of Hamburg (2005–2007)
• Junior Research Fellow and Lecturer, Chair of Public Law, Constitutional History and Comparative Law, Humboldt University of Berlin (2004–2005)
• Research Assistant, Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science, Yale Law School (2003–2004)
• Junior Research Fellow and Lecturer, Chair of Public Law, Constitutional History and Comparative Law, Humboldt University of Berlin (2002–2003)
• Research Assistant, Chair of Public Law, Constitutional History and Comparative Law, Humboldt University of Berlin (2000–2002)

Visiting Positions

• Visiting Fellow, London School of Economics and Political Science (2026)
• Visiting Scholar, University of Toronto (2025)
• Visiting Scholar, Osgoode Hall Law School (2025)
• Visiting Professor, Sapienza University of Rome (2024)
• Transnational Law Visiting Professor, University of Antwerp (2022)
• Visiting Fellow, European University Institute Florence (2019)

Education

• Doctorate in Law, Humboldt University of Berlin (2012)
• Second State Law Exam, Hamburg (2008)
• Master of Laws, Yale Law School (2004)
• First State Law Exam, Berlin (2002)
• Licence en droit, Panthéon-Assas University of Paris II (1999)

Scholarships and Awards

• Berninghausen Prize for Excellence in Teaching, University of Bremen (2023)
• Translation Award, Humanities International (2021)
• Conference Grant, German Academic Exchange Service (2018)
• Konrad Redeker Dissertation Award, Humboldt University of Berlin (2013)
• Printing Grant, Johanna and Fritz Buch Memorial Foundation (2013)
• Research Grant, Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (2008–2009)
• Doctoral Scholarship, German Protestant Academic Foundation (2003–2007)
• Walter W. Oberreit Scholarship, Yale Law School (2003–2004)
• Arthur T. Vanderbilt Scholarship, New York University School of Law (2003–2004, declined)
• European Recovery Program Scholarship, German National Merit Foundation (2003–2004)
• Undergraduate Scholarship, German-French University (1998–1999)

Languages

• German (native)
• English (fluent)
• French (fluent)
• Spanish (fair)
• Italian (fair)

Administrative Assistant

Francisca Vargas López
Forum am Domshof, Room 30052
Telephone: +49 (0) 421 218-66026
E-Mail: vargaslo@uni-bremen.de

Scientific Staff

Ruth Maria Kasper
Forum am Domshof, Room 30022
Telephone: +49 (0) 421 218-66007
E-Mail: rkasperprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Nicolai Timo Laing 
Forum am Domshof, Room 30020
Telephone: +49 (0) 421 218-66241
E-Mail:  laingprotect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Research Assistants

Lena Bergmann
Forum am Domshof, Room 30020
E-Mail: lebe2protect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Aylin Can
Forum am Domshof, Room 30020
E-Mail: aylin1protect me ?!uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de

Visiting Fellows

Qin Ruibiao (October 2025 – September 2026)

Asst. Prof. Dr. Aydın Atılgan (August – September 2024)

Ezgi Çaldıran (January – April 2022)

Summer Term 2026

• Constitutional Law
• Comparative Constitutional Law
• Theory of Public Law

Winter Term 2025 – 2026

      (research sabbatical)

Summer Term 2025

• Constitutional Law
• Comparative Constitutional Law
• Theory of Public Law

Winter Term 2024 – 2025

• Fundamental Rights
• Public International Law
• Transnational Law
• Theory of Public Law

Summer Term 2024

• Comparative Constitutional Law
• Exercise in Public Law
• Law and Political Economy
• Constitutional Courts Under Pressure
• Theory of Public Law

Winter Term 2023 – 2024

• Public International Law
• Transnational Law
• Regulating Online Platforms
• Proportionality and its Critique
• Theory of Public Law

Summer Term 2023

• Constitutional Law
• Comparative Constitutional Law
• Law and History
• Theory of Public Law

Winter Term 2022 – 2023

• Fundamental Rights
• Public International Law
• Interdisciplinarity in Law
• Theory of Public Law

Summer Term 2022

• Constitutional Law
• Regulating Online Platforms
• Legal Issues of the War in Ukraine

Winter Term 2021 – 2022

• Fundamental Rights
• Comparative Constitutional Law
• Judicial Review
• Transnational Climate Protection Law

Summer Term 2021

• Public International Law
• Constitutional Issues of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Winter Term 2020 – 2021

• Law and Social Sciences

Summer Term 2020

• Constitutional Law
• Introduction to Comparative Constitutional Law

Winter Term 2019 – 2020

• Fundamental Rights
• 100 Years Weimar Constitution, 70 Years Basic Law: The Path to Democracy

Summer Term 2019

       (parental leave)

Winter Term 2018 – 2019

      (research sabbatical)

Summer Term 2018

• Constitutional Law
• Weimar Constitutional Scholarship and its Current Significance

Winter Term 2017 – 2018

• Fundamental Rights
• Comparative Public Law

Summer Term 2017

• Internationalization of Law
• Introduction to Legal Theory
• Alien Suffrage: Possibilities and Limits

Winter Term 2016 – 2017

• Public International Law
• Transnational Administrative Law

Summer Term 2016

• Introduction to Constitutional Theory
• The Public–Private Distinction: Past and Future

Winter Term 2015 – 2016

• Introduction to Public Law
• Fundamental Rights in the European Multi-Level System

Summer Term 2015

• Landmark Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court
• Transnational Law

Fields of work

Constitutional Law

• German Constitutional Law

• U.S. American Constitutional Law

International Law

• Foundations of International Law

• Relationship of International Law and National Law

European Law

• European Constitutional Law

• Relationship of European Law and National Law

Comparative Law

• Comparative Public Law

• Methodology of Comparative Law

Legal Theory

• Law and Social Sciences

• Law and Globalization 

Publications in English

Journal Articles and Book Chapters

• The Transnational Dimension of Constitutional Rights: Framing and Taming “Private” Governance Beyond the State [Reprint], in: Poul F. Kjaer (ed.), The Law of Political Economy: Transformation in the Function of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020), 348–371.

• “Friendliness” towards Others: How the German Constitution Deals with Legal Pluralism [Reprint], in: Guillaume Tusseau (ed.), Debating Legal Pluralism and Constitutionalism: New Trajectories for Legal Theory in the Global Age (Cham: Springer, 2020), 189–228.

• The Transnational Dimension of Constitutional Rights: Framing and Taming “Private” Governance Beyond the State, Global Constitutionalism 8 (2019), 639–661.

• The Limits of Law (and Democracy) in the Euro Crisis: An Approach from Systems Theory [Reprint], in: Matthias Goldmann and Silvia Steininger (eds.), Democracy and Financial Order: Legal Perspectives (Berlin: Springer, 2018), 45–59.

• “Friendliness” towards Others: How the German Constitution Deals with Legal Pluralism, in: Martin Schmidt-Kessel (ed.), German National Reports on the 20th International Congress of Comparative Law (Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2018), 511–545.

• Governing through Transnational Arrangements: The Case of Internet Domain Allocation, in: Regine Paul et al. (eds.), Society, Regulation and Governance: New Modes of Shaping Social Change? (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 2017), 106–120.

• Responsive Legal Pluralism: The Emergence of Transnational Conflicts Law [Reprint], in: Kerstin Blome et al. (eds.), Contested Regime Collisions: Norm Fragmentation in World Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 109–135.

• The Limits of Law (and Democracy) in the Euro Crisis: An Approach from Systems Theory, German Law Journal 17 (2016), 747–762.

• Responsive Legal Pluralism: The Emergence of Transnational Conflicts Law, Transnational Legal Theory 6 (2015), 312–332.

• Constitutionalism as a Cipher: On the Convergence of Constitutionalist and Pluralist Approaches to the Globalization of Law, Goettingen Journal of International Law 4 (2012), 599–623.

• The Constitution of Transnational Governance Arrangements: Karl Polanyi's Double Movement in the Transformation of Law, in: Christian Joerges and Josef Falke (eds.), Karl Polanyi, Globalisation and the Potential of Law in Transnational Markets (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2011), 435–464.

• The Network of Networks: Karl-Heinz Ladeur’s Theory of Law and Globalization, German Law Journal 10 (2009), 515–536.

• Introduction: The Law of the Network Society (co-authored with Ino Augsberg and Peer Zumbansen), German Law Journal 10 (2009), 305–309.

Book Reviews

• Jelena von Achenbach, Demokratische Gesetzgebung in der Europaeischen Union: Theorie und Praxis der dualen Legitimationsstruktur europaeischer Hoheitsgewalt [Democratic Legitimacy and the Legislative Procedures of the European Union] (Heidelberg: Springer, 2014), International Journal of Constitutional Law 16 (2018), 1373–1376.

• Gregory Shaffer (ed.), Transnational Legal Ordering and State Change (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); Terence C. Halliday and Gregory Shaffer (eds.), Transnational Legal Orders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), European Journal of International Law 26 (2015), 767–773.

• Paul Schiff Berman, Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), Transnational Legal Theory 3 (2012), 461–470.

• Nico Krisch, Beyond Constitutionalism: The Pluralist Structure of Postnational Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), European Law Journal 18 (2012), 595–598.

• A. Claire Cutler, Private Power and Global Authority: Transnational Merchant Law in the Global Political Economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), Yale Journal of International Law 29 (2004), 608–611.

• Robert C. Paehlke, Democracy’s Dilemma: Environment, Social Equity, and the Global Economy, Cambridge (MA)/London: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press 2003, in: Yale Journal of International Law 29 (2004), 263–266.