About
Wim Decock is a Professor of Roman law, legal history, and comparative law at the University of Louvain (UCLouvain)'s Faculty of Law and Criminology, Department of Private Law. He concurrently teaches legal history part-time at the University of Liège's Faculty of Law and Political Science. Previously, he served as a Research Professor at KU Leuven and led a junior research group (2012–2014) at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt.
Decock holds a PhD in Law (2011) from KU Leuven and Roma Tre University. His research reinterprets early modern legal thought, emphasizing the interplay of theology, economics, and jurisprudence. Key interests include:
- The School of Salamanca's influence on contract law and market ethics
- Moral dimensions of monopolies, credit, and property rights
- Neoscholastic contributions to Western legal traditions
His publications predominantly explore 16th–17th century scholastic jurisprudence, with recurring themes of justice, economic regulation, and theological ethics. Recent works analyze moral constraints on markets and Iberian jurists' role in shaping private law.
Honors include the H.M. Leibnitz Prize (2014) for his dissertation on theological foundations of contract law. He actively supervises postdoctoral researchers and PhD candidates, notably in projects examining Jesuit economic thought (e.g., Luis de Molina's theology).
Decock directs interdisciplinary initiatives, including collaborations with the KU Leuven Institute (LECTIO) on digital humanities in legal history. His work bridges historical scholarship with contemporary debates on law, religion, and capitalism.
