Horatia Muir Watt

Horatia Muir Watt is a Full Professor at Sciences Po's Law School, where she is a leading figure in private international law and comparative law. She is Co-Director of the Global Governance Studies program and founder of the PILAGG research group. Her scholarship is widely published in top legal journals, and she serves as Director of the Revue critique de droit international privé, the premier French-language journal in her field. She is affiliated with the Institute of International Law and the Institut Universitaire de France.

• PhD in Private International Law, University of Panthéon-Assas Paris 2 (1985)
• Agrégation in Private Law, ranked second (1986)
• Former faculty at University of Tours, Paris XI, and Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne
• Appointed to Sciences Po in 2009, instrumental in founding its Law School

Her research centers on international private law in global governance, comparative law with new theoretical approaches, and fundamental rights. She critically examines the role of law in transnational disputes, arbitration, migration, and environmental justice. Her work often explores the philosophical and cultural dimensions of legal reasoning, including alterity, translation, and ecological jurisprudence.

Her recent publications, spanning 2023–2024, demonstrate a consistent focus on the evolving landscape of private international law. Key themes include jurisdiction in transnational litigation, the recognition of foreign judgments, the impact of war on family law, and the ethics of legal publishing. Her articles appear predominantly in the Revue critique de droit international privé, with additional contributions to journals like Rabels Zeitschrift and Transnational Legal Theory. The body of work reflects a blend of doctrinal precision and critical theory, engaging with EU regulations, comparative methodologies, and global legal challenges.

• Member of the Institute of International Law (since 2013)
• Member of the Institut Universitaire de France (since 2018)

Horatia Muir Watt has supervised numerous PhD candidates and leads the PILAGG research group, which has produced several influential books with publishers such as Oxford University Press and Edward Elgar. She is part of the core faculty at the Institute for Global Law and Policy (IGLP) and serves on the editorial boards of multiple international legal journals, including the Journal of Private International Law and Transnational Legal Theory. Her work is supported by institutional affiliations and collaborative research projects rather than specific grant mentions in the text.

She directs the PILAGG (Private International Law and Global Governance) research group at Sciences Po, which fosters interdisciplinary and critical approaches to transnational law. The group has organized collective research projects resulting in major publications and contributes to shaping contemporary discourse in private international law.