Current Research in Private International Law: Virtual Book Launch with Sandrine Brachotte (Author) and María Julia Ochoa Jiménez

Tuesday, 6 October 2026, 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. (CEST)

Book Launch: 
Conflicts of Worldviews and Private International Law (Hart Publishing, 2026).
 
A Discussion Between Sandrine Brachotte (University of Antwerp) (Author) and María Julia Ochoa Jiménez  (Comillas Pontifical University)
 

About the Speakers:

Sandrine Brachotte holds her PhD from Sciences Po Law School (Paris). She is an FWO postdoctoral researcher at UAntwerp and a Lecturer in Legal Theory at UCLouvain (LLN) and UCLouvain-SLB (Brussels). She is also a member of the editorial team of the Revue critique de droit international privé. Her work concerns legal theory, and PIL theory in particular, with a focus on decolonial thinking and the importance of methods and techniques. In January 2026, she started a collective project called the 'DLMsProject', involving an edited book, a conference (January 2027) and a blog, which seeks to imagine decolonial legal methods for legal researchers, lecturers and practitioners in Europe.

María Julia Ochoa Jiménez studied law at the University of Los Andes (Venezuela) and holds a Ph.D. in law from the University of Göttingen (Germany). She is a professor of private international law at Comillas University in Madrid and has taught at Loyola University (Spain) and the University of Antioquia (Colombia). She is a member of the American Association of Private International Law (ASADIP). She is also a Fellow in the Global Justice Program at Yale University and was an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Bonn. Her research focuses on Colombian and Latin American private international law, particularly postcolonial approaches, and the restitution of indigenous cultural property.
 

Abstract:

This book brings together European private international law and decolonial thinking. It examines how European courts deal with conflicts between legal frameworks and postcolonised worldviews. Through three case studies—religious arbitration, Indigenous sacred land, and sexual minorities in the Global South—it shows that these conflicts are often overlooked. This results in the inadequate protection of the claims and identities of formerly colonised peoples. The book therefore proposes a more pluralist approach to jurisdiction, choice of court, and foreign law, giving greater weight to postcolonised worldviews. Prof. Ochoa Jiménez will comment on it, while focusing on private international law.
  

About the Virtual Workshop Series:

The virtual workshop series “Current Research in Private International Law" is organised by Ralf Michaels and Antonia Sittig. The series features leading national and international scholars who present and discuss their work on current developments and research topics in private international law. The workshops are geared to scholars who are researching in the field of private international law, but attendance is open to all individuals having an academic interest (doctoral candidates and students are expressly invited).