Cornelis J.W. (Jaap) Baaij is an Associate Professor at the Montaigne Centre for Rule of Law and Administration of Justice and the Molengraaff Institute for Private law. His interdisciplinary research concentrates on the state’s utilization of contract law and civil procedural law to advance – or curb – private-market lawmaking through alternative dispute resolution. At this interface of public and private governance, he combines doctrinal analyses with empirical research, political theory, language philosophy, and comparative law to take on themes related to contract interpretation, cross-border commercial transactions and arbitration, corporate social responsibility, and transnational legal theory.

From Yale Law School, Jaap obtained a doctoral degree for his work on U.S. contracts and commercial arbitration, and from Amsterdam Law School, a Ph.D. degree, with honors, for his book on European contract law. He gained broad teaching experience in both the United States and Europe, in subjects such as contracts, contract theory, civil procedure, corporate social responsibility, international contract law, business transactions, and commercial arbitration. Jaap has held Visiting positions at Columbia Law School, National University of Singapore Faculty of Law, and Queen Mary University of London School of Law; taught courses at Cardozo Law School en Hofstra Law School; and gave guest lectures at, among others, London School of Economics, Yale Law School, and Princeton University. Jaap’s international publications include, among others, articles in the Harvard International Law Journal and King’s Law Journal, and books with Oxford University Press and Kluwer Law International.

Selected Publications

• Interpretation of Commercial Contracts in European Private Law (w/ L. Macgregor & D. Cabrelli). Cambridge Intersentia (2020), 454 pp.
• A Case of Mistaken Identity: Questioning the US Supreme Court’s Contract Theory
  of Arbitration, 14 Virginia Law & Business Review 1, 121-170 (2020)
• Hiding in Plain Sight: The Power Of Public Governance in International Arbitration, 60 Harvard International Law Journal 1, 135-180 (2019)
• Legal Integration and Language Diversity: Rethinking Translation in EU Lawmaking
  Oxford University Press, 312 pp. (2018)
• Confronting the Conjecture of Cultural Incommensurability in Comparative Law
  publication, 25 King's Law Journal 2, 287-300 (2014)