Professors of 2025

Nadja El Beheiri
Subject: Discover the Foundations of Law: Roman Law and the Latin Language
Graduated from the University of Vienna. Studies on Roman Law at PPCU. Corso di Perfezionamento in Diritto Romano 1999 at the University “La Sapienza” in Rome (Italy) and Collegio di Diritto Romano in Pavia 2005 and 2008 (Italy). Habilitation 2012 at the Catholic University in Budapest, 2014 nominated full professor. Head of Department of Roman Law, Pázmány Péter Catholic University. Editor-in-Chief for Pázmány Law Review. Since 2018 Visiting Lecturer at Strathmore University, Kenia. Publications in Roman Public Law, Natural Law and Phenomenology and Roman Law.

János Erdődy
Subject: Legal Reasoning in English: Logic and Rhetorics
Janos Erdődy, PhD, habil. is an Associate Professor at the Department for Roman Law at the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences, Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest, Hungary, where he teaches Roman law. His scientific interest encompasses the law of property, ancient legal thinking, the concept of natural law and restrictions on power and authority in ancient Roman society. His papers are regularly published in Iustum Aequum Salutare, Pázmány Law Review and the Journal on European History of Law. From 2013 he is a regular participant in the conferences of Société Internationale Fernand De Visscher pour l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité.

FRANCESCA FUSCO
Subject: The birth and development of Italian legal language over the centuries
Francesca Fusco graduated with full marks cum laude first in Law (BA, MA, 2010) at the Università Commerciale ‘Luigi Bocconi’ in Milan, then in Foreign Languages and Literature (BA, 2014) and in Modern Literature (MA, 2016) at the University of Milan. In 2020 she obtained a Ph.D. (cum laude) in Linguistics at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” with a thesis about the language of law of the XIXth century.
In June 2024 she obtained the National scientific qualification (ASN) as Associate Professor in Italian linguistics and philology, and since October 2013 she has been admitted to practice as a lawyer.
From August 2020 to February 2022 she was a research fellow at the University of Salento in the framework of the PRIN 2017 ‘Clarity in Court Proceedings (ClarAct): a new database for scholars and citizens’; and since March 2022 she has been a research fellow at the University of Padua in the framework of the ERC 2020-CoG Project ‘Migrating Commercial Law and Language. Rethinking Lex Mercatoria (11th-17th Cent.) - MICOLL’.
She is an adjunct lecturer in ‘Writing Techniques for Journalism’ at the LUMSA University in Rome and teaches at the IusDA Winter School – Italiano per gli usi del Diritto e dell’Amministrazione at the University of Salento (Lecce).
Her research interests mainly concern the language of law (from a synchronic and diachronic point of view), on which she have published the book “Il Dizionario del linguaggio Italiano storico ed amministrativo di Giulio Rezasco” (Firenze, Accademia della Crusca, 2023) and many articles in national and international journals and volumes. She has participated as a speaker at national and international conferences on this topic and has given lectures and doctoral seminars at the Universities of Milan, Rome Sapienza, Rome LUMSA, Bologna, Brescia, Padua, Venice, Genoa, Viterbo, Trieste and Salzburg.
In 2019 she was chercheuse invitée at the Université de Lausanne (Switzerland), in 2023 visiting researcher at the Paris Lodron Universität (Salzburg, Austria) and in 2024 visiting researcher at the Heidelberger Akademie der Wissenschaften (Heidelberg, Germany).

Viola Heutger
Subject: Law and Languages in the European Union
Viola Heutger, Dr. iur. habil, born in 1971 and raised in Germany, is the former rector magnificus of the University of Aruba and former professor of Translingual Practices in Educational and Professional Context at the same University. She served as the Dean of the Faculty of Law, University of the Netherlands Antilles and from 2006 to 2009 as Program-Director: „Winter abroad program in comparative and International law“, a co-operation of the Universities of Hofstra Law School, Erasmus Rotterdam, University of Baltimore School of Law and the University of the Netherlands Antilles (ABA accredited). Heutger’s legal expertise spans European Sales Law, Consumer Law, Transport Law and Legal Linguistics. She has advised Law Commissions in diverse locations such as Suriname, Curaçao, Kosovo, and Poland. One of her primary goals as a board member of the Dutch Association for Comparative Law (Nederlandse Vereniging voor Rechtsvergelijking) is to enhance student interest in comparative law.

Petra Lea Láncos
Subject: Legal translation and interpreting
Petra Lea Láncos, LLM, PhD, habil., is full professor and vice dean for international relations at Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Budapest, Hungary, teaching EU law, academic writing and interpreting. She was a Junior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Law and Public International Law, Heidelberg, from 2006–07. Between 2016 and 2019 she was a Research Fellow at the Deutsches Forschungsinstitut für öffentliche Verwaltung, Speyer, Germany. Besides her academic career, she has worked at the Office of the Commissioner for Fundamental Rights (2013–15), the National Media and Infocommunications Authority (2015–16) and the Constitutional Court of Hungary (2019-2022). She is Member of the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Co-Editor of the Hungarian Yearbook of International Law and European Law and is currently writing her phd in translation studies focusing on paraprofessional interpreters at the International Criminal Court.

Bastiaan D. van der Velden
Subject: the protection of the Frisian and Papiamentu languages in the Netherlands
Bastiaan D. van der Velden (1970) wrote his master thesis on the use of German as a legal language in Belgium in 1995 and obtained his doctorate in 2004 with a dissertation on the historical development of legislation on the use of Frisian in the Netherlands (Waar gaan wij weg met het Fries?). From 2006 to 2009, he served as an associate professor at the University of the Netherlands Antilles in Curaçao. In 2011, his legal history of Curaçao was published: Ik lach met Grotius, en alle prullen van boeken (Amsterdam: SWP). Since 2008, Bastiaan van der Velden has provided legal assistance to the Island Council and the Executive Council of Bonaire, as well as to the Apapia Foundation and Splika. He played a significant role in drafting local language legislation for Bonaire, which came into effect in 2013. He also prepared for the visit of members of the board of Stichting Apapia and Splika to the Committee of Experts of the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages in 2016, 1919 and 2022. In 2024, Papiamentu was protected under this commitment in Part III (Bonaire) and Part II (Netherlands) of the ECRML. He is currently a lecturer at the Open University, where he teaches legal history and contract law.