The group De Conflictu Legum (DCL)

The institutionalization in the USC of the category “research group” as the basic and nuclear unit of research within the university was the pretext for formalizing what existed de facto for the past fifteen years: a group of scholars working together in different fields of Private Law, beyond the straitjacket areas of knowledge. A group of researchers in International Private Law and Civil Law with a well established career and with relations beyond the strictly academic sphere with other legal professions with whom to exchange their concerns and knowledge.

The transition towards De conflictu legum (GI-1147 of the USC) was little more than filling out an electronic form, taking on the name of the collection of legal monographs which we have edited since 2000. If the term given to the collection was, perhaps, by chance (inspired in Ulrich Huber’s work, De Conflictu Legum Diversarum in Diversis Imperiis), the reference to the Group itself turns out to be a declaration of intent. Our legal research is focused on the world: from the closest Galician Civil Law to the international efforts towards unifying or harmonizing Private Law, including, in particular, the European Union.

In 2006 De conflictu legum participated in the first call of the “Program for consolidating and structuring competitive research units”, processed on a competitive tendering, promoted by the Galician Government’s Department of Education and Universities. We were the only Group of Legal Research in the Region to obtain recognition as a Competitive Reference Group. This singularity was repeated in the last public competition in which we participated (2021).

For a time, the Group grew, incorporating new distinguished researchers, Juan de la Cierva researchers and new PhD students. This growth, however, is gradually giving way to a reduction in the promotion of talented people, in a display of argumentative escapism between the successive crises and the incompetence or incapacity of the national and regional authorities and of the USC itself to retain talent.

Despite all this, the quality and solvency of the Group are accredited in the continuous training of young researchers, a scientific production in continuous growth, the uninterrupted and consistent attraction of external resources that replace the scarce regular resources, the maintenance of enviable bibliographic collections, the stable links with other legal professions and with researchers from other Universities, the organisation of meetings, conferences and seminars on current topics, or the growing attraction for visiting researchers from Spain and abroad who value the work of the Group.

This web page provides information about the unique character of the Group De conflictu legum; a Group which sustains an unwavering commitment with leading research in the face of all the environmental factors working against it.