Professor Yuko Nishitani

​Yuko Nishitani is Professor of International Private and Business Law at Kyoto University Graduate School of Law in Japan since April 2015. Prior to this, she held a chair at Tohoku University (1997-2007) and Kyushu University (2011-2015). Among various research stays abroad, she visited Duke Law School in the U.S. (2009/12) and the University of Brescia in Italy (2007/08). She was also a Director of Studies (2004) and Lecturer (2011) at the Hague Academy of International Law.

After completing her undergraduate and master studies at Kyoto University, she did research in Hamburg and Heidelberg in Germany from 1994 till 1997. She received a PhD in July 1998 from the University of Heidelberg with a thesis „Mancini und die Parteiautonomie im Internationalen Privatrecht“, which was awarded the Lucia-und-Rolf-Serick-Preis 1998 and published in 2000. She further did research in Milan and Florence (1999-2000), New York (2003-2004), Paris (2007-2008) and Hamburg (2009-2011). She also served as a Senior Legal Officer on Secondment at the Permanent Bureau of the Hague Conference on Private International Law (2004).

Her area of interests is private international law, international business law, international civil procedure law, comparative law, and family and succession law. She is currently doing research on several topics, particularly on globalization and legal pluralism, the objectives and meaning of uniform law, cultural identity of individuals in private international family law, and the autonomy of children in family law.