Ralf Michaels

Ralf Michaels is a Global Law Professor at Queen Mary University of London, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law in Hamburg, and Professor of Law at Hamburg University. He holds an LLM from Cambridge University and a PhD from Passau University. His research focuses on private international law, comparative law, and legal theory, particularly decolonial approaches and global legal pluralism.

Michaels teaches Global Legal Reasoning (undergraduate) and Comparative Law Methodology (postgraduate). He is affiliated with Queen Mary’s Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context. His work spans theoretical foundations of private international law, regulatory conflicts, and methodological innovations in comparative law.

Notable contributions include decolonial comparative law frameworks, postsecular legal analysis, and critiques of Western-centric legal methodologies. He is a member of the Academia Europaea and American Law Institute, among other prestigious organizations.