51cg

Biography

Péter Cserne joined the 51cg as a reader in law in June 2020. He was promoted to Personal Chair with effect from August 2022.

He is the Law School's Director of Postgraduate Research. 

A lawyer and economist by training, he has published widely on jurisprudence, comparative law, contract law and the history of legal and political thought.

Péter earned his Ph.D. at the University of Hamburg, Germany. He held visiting positions at Columbia, Oxford, and Toronto Universities, the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Private Law, the Tarello Institute for Legal Philosophy, and was a fellow at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study (HIAS). He is an Extramural Fellow of Tilburg Law and Economics Center (TILEC).  

In 2026/27, he works as research fellow at the Käte Hamburger Kolleg “Legal Unity and Pluralism” in Münster, Germany, focusing on "Cultural Diversity in/of Contract Law".

Before joining Aberdeen, Péter taught at Northumbria and Hull Universities in England, Tilburg University in the Netherlands, and Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Hungary.

Prizes and Awards

Best thesis award, European Master in Law and Economics, 2004

Research Overview

• Jurisprudence
• Law and Economics, its foundations and methods
• Contract law from comparative, philosophical and economic perspectives
• Private law theory
• Biography 
• History of political and legal thought, especially Max Weber and Central and Eastern Europe

Current Research

• nudging and behavioural interventions as regulatory techniques
• new technologies and algorithms as objects and alternatives of regulation by law
• legal biography

Past Research

Freedom of Contract

Paternalism in Contract Law

Legal Style

Legal reasoning: formalism and consequence-based arguments

Collaborations

2010– research network (founder and convenor, with F Esposito, A Stojanovic, F Figueroa Zimmermann)

2015–9 Law and style: Conceptualising ‘style’ in law and legal scholarship, with Viktor LÅ‘rincz and Miklós Könczöl (Institute for Legal Studies, Hungarian Academy of Sciences)

2016–8 Sustainable consumption: Information regulation, consumer democracy, and the rule of law, with Jörn Reinhardt (University of Bremen)

2009–12 Convergence and Divergence of National Legal Systems: coping with the challenges of globalization, project leader Pierre Larouche (Tilburg University), funded by The Hague Institute for Internationalisation of Law

Funding and Grants

• 30.000€ Hamburg Institute for Advanced Study, 6 months funded research fellowship and teaching buyout, Jan to June 2022
• 3480€ Bucerius Law School, Hamburg (with Hans-Bernd Schäfer) for international conference on “Economics and Philosophy in Private Law Theory”, 5–6 July 2019
• 3250€ European University Institute (EUI), Florence (with Fabrizio Esposito) for international conference on “Economic Law and Economic Theory: Defining the Domain of “Law and Economics”, 12–13 December 2018
• 5000€ University of Hamburg “Competence Centre Sustainable University” (with Jörn Reinhardt) for international conference on “Sustainable consumption: Information regulation, consumer behaviour, and the rule of law”, 7–8 September 2017
• 4500€ University of Amsterdam, Paul Scholten Centre and Centre for Law and Economics (with Bas Schotel) for international conference on “Law and coercion: the role of public and private enforcement in law”, 10–11 December 2015
• 1.600.000 HUF stipend for 4 months visiting fellowship, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Institute for Legal Studies, Budapest, Oct 2015– Jan 2016
• € 7500 ZiF (Centre for Interdisciplinary Research), Bielefeld, competitive grant for conference organization, 2012

Teaching Responsibilities

Course coordinator:

• LS2536 Introduction to Comparative Law
• LS402V Law and Economics: Selected Topics 
• LS555K Comparative Contract Law
• LS50R1 Advanced Research Skills for Postgraduate Researchers