“Legal Transformation in Business Law and Economic Law and Infrastructure for Legal Scholarship in Azerbaijan: Developments and Challenges” is the name of the project, which also aims to bring outstanding young scholars of law, business, and economics from Azerbaijan to Halle as part of their education. To this end, a joint German-Azerbaijani research unit focusing on legal transformation is being developed at the Institute of Business Law and Economic Law.

The project is scheduled to start in the spring of 2017 upon completion of the appointment process that is already under way for an assistant professor, whose responsibilities will also include heading up the research unit. Plans also call for a centre for comparative law and legal harmonisation to be established at the partner university, Baku State University, and for a graduate programme in business law and economic law to be developed.

Ten million people live in the oil-rich nation of Azerbaijan. The country broke away from the disintegrating Soviet Union in 1991 and is still considered to be a developing country in terms of its legal system. “The transition from a system based on a planned economy to a market economy has been successful in Azerbaijan so far, and we want to analyse what exactly has taken place,” says Professor Christian Tietje, who is in charge of the project and the head of the Institute of Business Law and Economic Law at the University of Halle.

At the same time, the legal scholars plan to follow the process of gradual internationalisation of the economic order in Azerbaijan, a country in transition.