OKSPO Center for Foreign Law Schools is a research and didactic unit at the Faculty of Law and Administration of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. Established in 2000, OKSPO aims to internationalize university cooperation, promote foreign legal systems, and educate students interested in foreign law. Some of our international programs allow the participants to earn an additional master's degree.
The following programs are organised by OKSPO in cooperation with the following foreign partners:
- The Catholic University of America: American Law Program, LL.M. Program, International Business and Trade Summer Law Program, series of webinars titled 'Contemporary Challenges in American & Global Law'
- University of Heidelberg and University of Mainz: German Law Program, School of Polish Law in German, LL.M. Program
- University of Orleans: French Law Program, Master's in Business Law
- University of Vienna: Austrian Law Program
- University of Ivan Franko in Lviv, Mohyla Academy in Kiev, National University of Economics in Tarnopol: Ukrainian Law Program, Polish and European Law Program in Ukraine
- Slovak Academy of Sciences: Slovak Law Program
- Kobe University: Program in Japanese Law and Culture
- East China University of Political Sciences and Law: Program in Chinese Law and Culture
- Universities of Granada and Alicante: Spanish Law Program
Over 2500 students and graduates have already taken part in our programs. Their unique competencies are highly sought-after on the market.
OKSPO is linked to a large number of research activities, mostly in the field of sustainability. Our projects range from research grants, through publications, to international conferences.
Examples of recent activities include:
- Polish-French Hubert Curien Polonium Partnership Programme, research grant: «Durabilité» et le droit : perspectives internes et internationales [Sustainability and law: domestic and international perspectives], 2021-2022;
- a book Law and Development. Balancing Principles and Values (eds: Piotr Szwedo, Richard Peltz-Steele, Dai Tamada), Springer, Singapore 2019
- French-Polish Legal Days (Journées Juridiques Franco-Polonaises), a cyclical event, which has already resulted in several publications, such as Le constitutionnalisme face au populisme en Europe centrale (2021); Les sources du droit dans les pays européens et francophones : troisièmes journées juridiques franco-polonaises (2016), Deuxièmes journées juridiques franco-polonaises : convergence et divergence entre systèmes juridiques (2015); L'injusticiabilité : échanges franco-polonais (2014);
- research grant Climanité, awarded by Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie (2020).
- research grant Rights of Nature – a vehicle for sustainable development? Operationalisation and critique from an international and comparative law perspective, awarded by the National Science Centre, Poland (2022-2026).
One of our current focal points in research is the concept of the Rights of Nature, approached from a critical interdisciplinary perspective. It is linked to a major grant, which is presented more extensively below.
We contribute to the Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University – a strategic program aimed at the amelioration of research through internationalization, interdisciplinarity, innovation, and integration of various missions of the University. We are particularly active in topics linked to the Anthropocene Priority Research Area.
On top of academic research, two of our team members have created a tutoring program for students, initially focused on international law of sustainable development. The tutees had an opportunity to develop and present their projects; e.g., in 2022, some of them participated in a Blended Intensive Program and took part in an international conference in Granada, followed by a 2023 conference in Poitiers. The program's success has led to the adoption of the tutoring method in other areas of teaching at our faculty.