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Prof. Dr. Bertram Lomfeld
» THEORY: Debt in the Anthropocene
Bertram Lomfeld studied law, philosophy and political economy at the universities Heidelberg, Cambridge, Paris-Sorbonne, Vienna and obtained his PhD at Frankfurt University. He is currently professor for private law and the foundations of law at Freie University Berlin. He held visiting positions at, among others, Columbia Law School, Sciences Po Paris, LUISS Rome, and was appointed to the European Law Institute and Young Academy of Europe.
Jannis Poetzsch-Heffter
» Comparative Studies: Corporate Insolvency Regimes
Jannis studied law in Freiburg and Coimbra (Portugal) and holds a Master's in legal theory & socio-legal studies from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Within the ERC project, Jannis focuses on the area of corporate insolvency law. His research interest lies at the intersection of legal theory and political economy, covering questions of corporate governance, corporate insolvency law and debt theory, and their connection to sustainability science. With his work on the project, he hopes to map out the potential for a more democratic and sustainable conception of corporations and the economy. He writes his dissertation about collective procedures in private law.
Esra Louise Celebi
» Comparative Studies: Consumer Insolvency Regimes
Esra studied law at Freie Universität Berlin, University of Glasgow, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne and participated in a summer program on global challenges at the Graduate Institute in Geneva. After her first state examination, she worked as a research assistant for a Member of the German parliament before joining the ERC project.
Within the ERC project, she focuses on the field of consumers. Her research interests include legal and debt theory as well as law and political economy. She is particularly interested in the purpose of behavioral requirements that consumers must comply with during insolvency and the underlying paradigms of insolvency law. Her aim is to define what sustainability in the realm of consumer debts entails, considering debt not only as an economic medium, but also including political, ecological, and cultural perspectives. She is writing her dissertation on the normative backgrounds and theoretical approaches of consumer insolvency law in different jurisdictions.
Caterina Foti
» RE:DEBT: State-Contingent Debt Instruments
Caterina studied Law at Humboldt University of Berlin (HU), where she is also obtaining a degree in Art History and Cultural Studies. During her legal clerkship at Kammergericht Berlin, she worked, inter alia, at the German Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe. In her doctoral dissertation at HU, Caterina examines the case for state-contingent debt instruments for sovereigns from a legal perspective. She contributes to the ERC project by focusing on sovereign debt contracts as a reflexive medium within the international financial architecture.
Julia Naßl
» RE:DEBT: A Public Law Analysis of Debt-Nature Swaps
Julia Naßl holds a law degree from the Ludwig-Maximilians University of Munich (LMU). She has studied at the Humboldt University of Berlin (HU) and the Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. Her research interest centers on General International Law, international legal theory, and international legal thought. As a member of RESOLVENCY, her research explores the sustainability dimensions of a specific sovereign debt management tool –debt-nature swaps– and, from a public law perspective, examines its implications against the backdrop of global redistributive traditions within public international law.
Claudius Deppe
» THEORY: Normative Credit Ontology of Money
Claudius studied philosophy and political science in Leipzig, Málaga, and Berlin. His research interests lie in political philosophy and social philosophy, as well as political economy, with a particular focus on the theory of money. Within the ERC project, Claudius works on developing a social-philosophical foundation for a reflexive debt theory. With his contribution, he aims to uncover the normative structures constituting the social relations of credit/debt and to explore how debt governance is inevitably linked to questions of sustainable finance, justice, and political legitimacy.
Cristiano Moita
» THEORY: Political Grammar of Debt Market Governance
Cristiano Moita holds both bachelor's and master's degrees in Law from the Federal University of Ceará (Brazil), where he also worked as a lecturer and practicing lawyer. He is currently a PhD candidate and was a member of the Graduiertenkolleg 2638 “Normativity, Critique and Change” at HU Berlin and UdK, where he developed his dissertation on “Certainties and Deep Disagreements in Law”. He has also served as a visiting researcher at the Lucerna Iuris Institute. Within RESOLVENCY, his research focuses on clashes of rationality at the intersection of the grammar of reasons and pressing societal challenges in times of polarization, with a particular focus on legal and political narratives surrounding debt.
Dr. Sven Hoeppner
» Just Distribution in Debt Deliberation (Experiment)
Sven Hoeppner is a trained economist and lawyer. He received his PhD in law from Ghent University. His research interests include transaction and institution design, contract theory, auctions and bargaining, economic equality, contract law, intellectual property, law and economics, and law and technology. Sven uses experimental and quantitative methods as well as some computational tools to conduct his research.
Max Ablass
» THEORY: The Normative Grammar of Debt
Max holds a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Leipzig and is currently studying Law at Freie Universität Berlin. His academic interests lie in the intersection of morality, society, and the legal system, with a particular focus on the rationality of law and its justification(s).
As part of RESOLVENCY, Max conducts research within the framework of Moral Foundations Theory (MFT). He explores the extent to which the anthropological and sociological assumptions made by MFT can be used for a modern legal theory.
Elijah Li
» RE:DEBT: Social Credit Systems as Alternative Currencies
Elijah studied law in Nanjing and Shanghai (China) and then German in Berlin and Mittweida. He holds an LL.M. in German and European Law and Legal Practice from Humboldt Universität Berlin. Likewise, he now studies law at Freie Universität Berlin and focuses on German legal history and comparative private law. Within the ERC project, he has assisted Prof. Lomfeld and his research assistants in their research on bankruptcy law, focusing on the relationship between the social credit system in China and bankruptcy law.
Ruth Lipka
» RE:DEBT: Anthropological Varieties of Debt Governance
Ruth is a fifth-semester law student. Before she started studying law, she had studied political science for two years. After an internship in the German Bundestag, she started working on the ERC project Resolvency. Her focus lies on the Greek government-debt crisis. In addition, she helps the doctoral students with the coding of legal texts. Through the project, she can gain in-depth knowledge of insolvency law and comparative law.