TPR visiting professorship for Emil Verheul

Emil Verheul, associate professor of property law at the Faculty of Law, will hold the visiting professorship of the Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht (Journal of Private Law) at the Catholic University of Leuven this academic year.

The Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht awards a number of Belgian-Dutch visiting professorships each year. The aim of the visiting professorship is to promote academic exchange between Dutch and Belgian law faculties and to enable the visiting professor to expand their academic network and gain international teaching and research experience.

As part of the TPR visiting professorship, Verheul will spend several periods in Leuven this academic year to teach and conduct research. He will also give an inaugural lecture to mark his acceptance of the visiting professorship.

The visiting professorship in Leuven has two main focuses: the status of digital objects in property law and the reform of the law on (personal) securities.

Learning from each other

Both Belgian and Dutch law raise fundamental questions about the place of digital objects in property law. Verheul's comparative legal research aims to provide more clarity about the classification of digital objects and the possibilities for transfer in the various transfer systems.

In addition, Belgian law is on the verge of a major revision of the rules on security rights, the first part of which, concerning personal security, has already been adopted.

His stay in Leuven will enable Verheul to investigate what Dutch law can learn from this Belgian reform and to contribute to the further reform of Belgian security law from a Dutch perspective.