Institute Director Ken Oliphant has a series of engagements in Canada in July 2012. From 2 to 6 July, he will participate in a series of workshops at McGill University, Montreal, on the theme of 'Innovations technologiques, incertitude et droit de la responsabilité' (technological innovation, uncertainty and tort law). His own paper is entitled 'Tort Law, Risk, and Technological Change in England'.

From 10 to 13 July, he will be a guest of Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, where on 12 July he will give a lecture entitled 'European Tort Law as a New Field of Research'.

From 17 to 20 July, he will participate in the Sixth Biennial Conference on the Law of Obligations, hosted by the Faculty of Law, University of Western Ontario. His paper for this conference, whose theme is 'Challenging Orthodoxy', is entitled 'Against Certainty'.

Vienna will shortly play host to the 6th European Conference on Medical Law titled 'Establishing European Identity through Solidarity in Health Care'. The conference aims to bring together a range of a talented speakers addressing a wide range of pressing concerns in the world of medical law in Europe and beyond.

Inter alia, Bernhard Koch will be speaking on the topic of 'European Medical Liability in Comparison' taking into account recent published work of the Institute for European Tort Law and ECTIL. Participants can also look forward to hearing Erwin Deutsch adress the topic of harmonization of international medical cases including the draft of the German patients' rights statute (Patientenrechtegesetz) explained and compared to Anglo-French approaches.

The conference will be held on 1 June 2012 at the Hauptverband der Österreichischen Sozialversicherungsträger – HVB, Kundmanngasse 21, 1030 Vienna.

[Download of the Programme]

Alongside the many varied Projects undertaken by the Institute the Scientific Staff maintain a healthy publication record of their own also covering a wide range of legal areas. For the first Quarter of 2012 the publications by the Scientific Staff of Institute are as follows:

Karner, Ernst

• Za jake činnosti je stat odpovědny? Odpovědnost statu za legislativni ujmu z rakous-keho pohledu – Für welche Tätigkeiten haftet der Staat? Staatshaftung für legislatives Unrecht aus österreichischer Sicht, in: Luboš Tichý/Jiří Hrádek (eds), Odpovědnost statu za legislativni ujmu – Staatshaftung für legislatives Unrecht, (2012), 139 – 146 and 147 – 154.
• Der Haushaltschaden im europäischen Vergleich, in: Weber (ed), HAVE Personen-Schadenforum 2012, 165 – 186.
• Der Ersatz von Mangelfolgeschäden in Veräußerungsketten von Unternehmern, [with H Koziol], JBl 2012, 141 – 157.

Oliphant, Ken

• Symposium on Medical Malpractice and Compensation in Global Perspective (with Richard W Wright), Part II, special symposium issue of the Chicago-Kent Law Review (vol 87 no 1, pp 1–198 (excluding other contributions)).
• ‘Yangge Dance: the Rhythm of Liability for Medical Malpractice in the People’s Republic of China’ [with Zhu Wang], (2012) 87 Chicago-Kent Law Review 21–52.

Steininger, Barbara C

• Case note on OGH 4 Ob 8/11x: Introduction, in: ERPL - European Review of Private Law, Nijmegen, Kluwer 2012, 571–572.
• Case note on OGH 4 Ob 8/11x: Austrian Perspective on OGH 4 Ob 8/11x, in: ERPL - European Review of Private Law, Nijmegen, Kluwer 2012, 573–580.
• Case note on OGH 4 Ob 8/11x: Concluding Remarks, in: ERPL - European Review of Private Law, Nijmegen, Kluwer 2012, 639–642.

Thiede, Thomas

• Aktivgerichtsstand für Betroffene von Persönlichkeitsrechtsverletzungen im Onlinebereich, in: ecolex - Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftsrecht, Vienna, Manz 2012, 131-134.
• German Perspective on OGH 4 OB 8/11Z, in: ERPL - European Review of Private Law, Nijmegen, Kluwer 2012, 591-59.
• Punitive Damages in France – A new Deal? [with V. Wester-Ouisse]; JETL - Journal of European Tort Law 1/2012, Berlin/Boston, deGruyter 2012, 115-123.

In 2011 the Austrian OGH handed down a decision in a case concerning a father who claimed against his ex-partner for denying him a relationship with his child, their son. The court signalled that he could recover damages for non-pecuniary losses.

As this case raises interesting and fundamental questions about the relationship between tort and family law, Dr Barbara Steininger has coordinated a collective case note which will be published in the forthcoming issue of the European Review of Private Law (ERPL). A number of authors present national solutions from their own country demonstrating the breadth of solutions and approaches on offer, namely Colm Peter McGrath featuring an English (pp. 581–589), Thomas Thiede a German (pp. 591–596), Anne Marie Frøseth Anfinsen a Norwegian (pp. 597–602), Katarzyna Ludwichowska-Redo a Polish (pp. 603–607), Jordi Ribot a Spanish (pp. 609–627) and Julien Dubarry a French Perspective (pp. 629–638) on OGH 4 Ob 8/11x. Barbara C. Steininger's Concluding Remarks (pp. 639–641) review the essential aspects of all reports .

The 11th Annual Conference on European Tort Law (12-14 April 2012) attracted to Vienna some 150 delegates from 32 countries, including judges from several national supreme courts, and representatives from the worlds of legal academia, legal practice, and insurance. The venues were the Austrian Ministry of Justice (Palais Trautson) and the Austrian Supreme Court. The Opening Lecture was given by Prof Michael D Green, Co-Reporter for the new Third Restatement of the Law of Torts in the US; his subject was Restating Tort Law: The American and European Styles. Subsequent sessions of the conference highlighted particular tort law developments in 2011 in 28 European jurisdictions. The closing session was devoted to the theme of Cultures of Tort Law in Europe.

Full reports on tort law developments in each of the jurisdictions covered will be published in the Yearbook European Tort Law 2011 in autumn 2012. The papers from the conference session on Cultures of Tort Law in Europe will appear in a special issue of the Journal of European Tort Law in summer 2012.

Photographs of the conference, and all the conference materials, can be seen by clicking on the menu items on the left.

The 12th Annual Conference on European Tort Law will take place from April 4 to April 6, 2013.