Peer Zumbansen

Elizabeth Carmichael Monk Chair in Business Law 
Full Professor 

New Chancellor Day Hall
3674 Peel Street
Room 306
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3A 1W9

514-398-1453 [Office]
peer.zumbansen [at] mcgill.ca (Email)

Website: McGill Business Law Platform
Publications: SSRN
Twitter: @PZumbansen

Professor Zumbansen convenes the Seminars in Business and Society and edits the McGill Business Meter Blog.

Biography

After studying law and philosophy in Frankfurt, Paris and Cambridge, Mass., Peer Zumbansen passed the Bar and received his doctorate and Habilitation from Goethe-University in Frankfurt. During his Habilitation, he lectured at the Faculty of Law and worked part time as a lawyer with Taylor Wessing and White & Case before joining Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto in 2004. At Osgoode, he launched the Critical Research Laboratory in Law & Society with two CFI and two SSHRC grants and served as Associate Dean Research, Graduate Studies and International Relations. He founded the CLPE Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy Legal Studies Papers with SSRN and continued editing the German Law Journal (2000-2013). In 2014, he was appointed as the inaugural director of the Transnational Law Institute at The Dickson Poon School of Law at King’s College London. At King’s, Professor Zumbansen launched the new LL.M. Program in Transnational Law and, in 2018, directed the Transnational Law Summit.

Professor Peer Zumbansen joined McGill's Faculty of Law as inaugural Professor of Business Law in January 2021. As of 1 January 2026, he is the inaugural Elizabeth Carmichael Monk Chair in Business Law. His research focuses on private law, specifically contracts and corporate law, AI, platform capitalism, climate change, on transnational law, legal theory and legal sociology.

Editorships

• Transnational Legal Theory (Co-Editor in Chief):
• Corona Journal (Co-Editor in Chief)
• King’s College London, Transnational Law Institute (TLI) Think! Papers (Editor in Chief)

Visiting Professorships & Fellowships

• October 2026, University of Bremen, Faculty of Law, Transnational Law LL.M.
• Visiting Professor, FU Empirical Legal Studies Centre, Freie Universität Berlin, Fachbereich Rechtswissenschaften – Free University Berlin, Faculty of Law (Spring 2026)
• Senior Fellow, RefLex Reflexive Globalization Advanced Studies Institute, Humboldt University, Faculty of Law, Berlin (Jan-March 2026)
• Visiting Professor in Transnational Business Law, Peking University School of Transnational Law, Shenzhen, China May 2025
• Master Class Lecturer, LPE Europe, Summer School in Law and Political Economy, University of Rotterdam 2-4 June 2025
• Visiting Professor in Corporate Law and Governance, Université de Paris Dauphine PSL, Paris (Jan. 2016, Feb. 2017, Feb. 2018, Feb. 2019; Oct. 2023)
• Visiting Professor in Corporate Law and International Dispute Resolution & Arbitration, Southwestern Law School, Los Angeles (Spring 2020)
• Visiting Professor, FGV Direito Sao Paulo (Nov. 2017)
• Visiting Professor, Université de Paris IX Dauphine, Paris (Jan. 2016, Feb. 2017, Feb. 2018, Feb. 2019)
• Visiting Professor, University of St. Gallen, Switzerland (2012-2016)
• Visiting Professor Université de Sherbrooke, Transnational Law LL.M. Program (2014, 2015)
• Visiting Professor, Albrecht-Mendelssohn Graduate School of Law), University of Hamburg, Faculty of Law (June-July 2014)
• Senior Research Fellow, Michigan Law School (fall semester 2013)
• Visiting Professor of Law, Yale Law School (Spring semester 2014)
• Visiting Professor, University of Deusto, Bilbao, Spain (2013)
• Visiting Professor, Centre for Transnational Studies (ZenTra), University of Bremen, Germany (2012)
• Visiting Professor, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, Bogotá, Colombia (2012)
• Visiting Professor, University College Dublin, School of Law (Visiting Professor in Corporate Governance and Transnational Law, 2009-2010)
• Visiting Professor, International Institute for Legal Sociology, Oñati, Spain (March 2010)
• Visiting Professor, University of Lucerne, Faculty of Law (October 2009)
• Visiting Professor, Melbourne Law School, Global Law Masters (May-June 2009)
• Visiting Professor, University of Bremen, Faculty of Law, DFG Project “Transformations of the State” (2006-2012)
• Visiting Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, York University (Toronto), (Spring term, 2004)
• Visiting Professor, University of Idaho, College of Law (Fall 2003).

Professional Experience

• Since 1 January 2026: Elizabeth Carmichael Monk Chair in Business Law, McGill University, Faculty of Law
• 2022-2025: Academic Lead, CIBC SGI Office of Sustainable Finance, McGill Sustainable Growth Initiative
• 2021-2025: Professor of Business Law, McGill University, Faculty of Law
• 2004-2020: Inaugural Professor of Law, Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto
• 2004-2009: Canada Research Chair (I) in Comparative and Transnational Corporate Governance (Osgoode Hall Hall Law School)
• 2009-2014: Canada Research Chair in Legal Theory and Transnational Economic Governance (Osgoode Hall Law School)
• 2014-2018: Professor of Transnational Law, Founding Director of the Transnational Law Institute, King’s College London, The Dickson Poon School of Law
• 2000-2013: Co-Founder/Co-Editor in Chief, German Law Journal. Review of Developments in German, European & International Jurisprudence (2000-2013). Peer-reviewed, refereed, English-language monthly legal periodical, 21,000 subscribers globally. Since 2019: Published through Cambridge University Press.
• 1998-2004: Post-doctoral Researcher and Lecturer in Law, Goethe-University, Faculty of Law, Frankfurt, Germany
• 1998-2000: Clerk at the Competition law chamber, Regional Court (Landgericht) Frankfurt; Clerk to Justice Dieter Hömig, Federal Constitutional Court, Karlsruhe, Germany
• 1995-2000: Part-time Lawyer (Taylor Wessing; White & Case, Frankfurt)
• 1989-1994: Nighttime Taxi Driver, Frankfurt
• 1986-1988: Nurse, University Hospital, and Elderly Care, Kontakt, Frankfurt
• 1983-1986: Nighttime Cargo Handler, Frankfurt Airport

Education

• Habilitation [Full Professor qualifying, post-Doctoral Dissertation] (Frankfurt 2004)
• 2nd State Law Exam (2000)
• Ph.D. law (Frankfurt 1998)
• LL.M. (Harvard 1998)
• 1st State Law Exam (Frankfurt 1995)
• Licence en droit [avec mention] (University of Paris-X-Nanterre 1991)

Selected Publications

• Cloud Delusions: Image Economics and the Legal Constitution of Big Tech Power and the Violence in Front of and Behind the Screen (under review).
• International Law's Icebergs: Anatomy of Impending Disaster and How to Confront It, McGill Law Legal Studies Research Paper 07-2026 / (2026) 40 Maryland Journal of International Law, forthcoming. (https://ssrn.com/abstract=6639978).
• Disaster Law as Methodology, Verfassungsblog, 13 February 2026 (https://verfassungsblog.de/disaster-law-as-methodology/).
• Global Value Chains, Strategic Litigation & Transnational Advocacy (co-edited with Miriam Saage-Maaß, Palvasha Shahab, and Michael Bader), European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, Berlin (open access link).
• Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law (Oxford University Press 2021).
• The Many Lives of Transnational Law: Critical Engagements with Jessup’s Bold Proposal (Cambridge University Press, April 2020), 520 pp.
• Beyond the Domestic: The London Lectures in Transnational Law and Global Governance (Cambridge University Press, co-edited with Prabha Kotiswaran [forthcoming 2021].
• Reshaping Markets. Economic Governance and Liberal Utopia (co-edited with Alessandro Somma and Bertram Lomfeld), Cambridge University Press 2016, 361 pp.
• Beyond Territoriality. Transnational Legal Authority in an Age of Globalization, Brill, 2012 (co-edited with Günther Handl & Joachim Zekoll), 559 pp.
• Comparative Law as Transnational Law: A Decade of the German Law Journal, Oxford University Press, 2012 (co-edited with Russell Miller), 501 pp.
• Law, Economics and Evolutionary Theory, Edward Elgar 2011 (co-edited with Gralf-Peter Calliess). Paperback 2012, 378 pp.
• The Embedded Firm: Labour Corporate Governance and Finance Capitalism, Cambridge University Press 2011 (co-edited with Cynthia Williams), 485 pp.
• Rough Consensus and Running Code: A Theory of Transnational Private Law (co-authored with Gralf-Peter Calliess, with a foreword by Stewart Macaulay). Hart Publishing: Oxford, xv, 366 pp., Hb 2010. Pb 2012.
• Zwangsarbeit im Dritten Reich: Erinnerung und Verantwortung. Juristische Und Zeitgeschichtliche Betrachtungen / NS-Forced Labor: Remembrance and Responsibility. Legal and Historical Observations, Nomos: Baden-Baden 2002, 428 pp. [Included in the Forced Labor bibliography at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum]
• The Transnationalization of Corporate Governance: Law, Institutional Arrangements and Corporate Power, 38(1) Arizona Journal of International & Comparative Law 1 (2020), forthcoming. [co-authored with Dionysia Katelouzou]. Preprint: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3601379
• Transnational Corporate Governance: State of the Art and Twenty-First Century Challenges, in: P. Zumbansen (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law (Oxford University Press, in press 2020) [co-authored with Dionysia Katelouzou]. Preprint: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3536488
• Transnational Law: Theories & Applications, in: Peer Zumbansen (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Transnational Law (Oxford University Press, in press 2021). Preprint: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3601385
• The New Geography of Corporate Governance, 42 University of Pennsylvania Journal of International Law 51-152 (2020) [co-authored with Dionysia Katelouzou]. Preprint: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3575009
• What is Economic Law?, 1:3 Journal of Law & Political Economy (2020). (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3660836)
• Transnational Law, With and Beyond Jessup, in: Peer Zumbansen (ed.), The Many Lives of Transnational Law: Critical Engagements with Jessup’s Bold Proposal (Cambridge University Press 2020, 1-54). Preprint: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3757067
• Manifestations and Arguments: The Everyday Operation of Transnational Legal Pluralism, in: Paul Schiff Berman (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Global Legal Pluralism (Oxford University Press, 2020), 231-262. https://ssrn.com/abstract=3502576)
• Transnational Law as Socio-Legal Theory and Critique: Prospects for ‘Law and Society’ in a Divided World, 67 Buffalo Law Review 909-960 (2019).
• Transnational Liability Regimes in Contract, Tort and Corporate Law: Comparative Observations on ‘Global Supply Chain Liability’, in: Sophie Schiller (ed.), Le devoir de vigilance (LexisNexis 2019), 157-183 [co-authored with Benedikt Reinke]. Pre-print: TLI Think! Paper 4/2019.
• Can Transnational Law Be Critical?, in: Emilios Christodoulidis & Ruth Dukes (eds.), Research Handbook on Critical Legal Theory (Edward Elgar, 2^nd edition 2026).