Vivian Curran

Vivian Curran is a member of the American Law Institute and of the International Academy of Comparative Law, and was awarded the Grand Decoration of Merit in Gold for Services Rendered to the Republic of Austria for her work as the United States appointee to the Austrian General Settlement Fund Committee for Nazi-era property compensation. She is the creator of Pitt Law School's innovative Languages for Lawyers program, in which students study foreign languages in a legal context, and of English for Lawyers, in which foreign lawyers study English in a legal context. She is the author and editor of two books, Learning French Through the Law; and Comparative Law: An Introduction; and translated from the German Bernhard Grossfeld, Core Questions of Comparative Law. She is a past Secretary of the American Society of Comparative Law and book review editor of the American Journal of Comparative Law.

Professor Curran has given talks at universities in the United States, France, Germany, Italy and Holland. Her work has appeared in such publications as the Notre Dame Law Review, Hastings Law Journal, Boston College Law Review, Alberta Law Review, the American Journal of Comparative Law, Columbia Journal of European Law, Cornell International Law Journal, and in numerous books.

Currently Teaching

• Law and Globalization Seminar (Fall 08)
• The Civil Law Tradition (Fall 08)

Courses Previously Taught

• Estates and Trusts

Selected Publications

Books:

• Comparative Law: An Introduction (Carolina Academic Press 2002).
• Learning French Through the Law:  A French/English Comparative Treatment of Terms in a Legal Context (Columbia University, Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law & Juris Publishing, Inc., 1996).
• Core Questions Of Compartive Law, (English translation of Bernhard Großfeld’s Kernfragen der Rechtsvergleichung) (Carolina Academic Press 2005).

Articles, Chapters, Other:

• Voices Saved from Vanishing, 70 University of Pittsburgh Law Review 435 (2009), available on SSRN.
• Legal Developments in France and the United States in the Era of Globalization, European Union Center of Excellence Newsletter (Feb. 2009).
• La Sécurité juridique à l'ère de la mondialisation 110 La Revue du Notariat 311 (2008).
• Globalization, Legal Transnationalization and Crimes Against Humanity:  The Lipietz Case, 36 American J. Comparative Law 363 (2008). Available on SSRN.
• The Pursuit of Law, in Larry Backer, ed., Harmonizaing Law in an Eera of Globalization: Convergence, Divergence and Resistance (Carolina Academic Press, 2007).
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, Book review of Le droit sous Vichy (Durand et al., eds., 2006), vol. 7 H-France Review No. 141 (Nov. , 2007).
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, Standing on the Shoulders of Schlesinger: The Trento Common Core of European Private Law Project, in Opening Up European Law (Mauro Bussani & Ugo Mattei, eds., 2007).
  (previously published in 11 Eur. J. Private L. 66 (2003), 2 Global Jurist Frontiers, Issue 2, Article 2 (2002)).
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, Translation and annotation of Lipietz c. Préfet de la Haust-Garonne, Tribunal Administratif de Toulouse, June 6, 2006.
• Book review of Mireille Delmas-Marty, Globalisation économique et universalisme des droits de l'homme, 4 Revue de sciences criminelles et droit pénal comparé (2006).
• Re-Membering Law in the Internationalizing World, 34 Hofstra L. Rev. 93 (2005). Available on SSRN.
• Beyond the Digest, translation from the French of Claude Witz [original title in English] (volume of proceedings of University of Pittsburgh conference on the Vienna Convention, February 2003, Ronald Brand et al. eds.).
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, Politicizing the Crime Against Humanity: The French Example, 78 Notre Dame Law Review 677 (2003) (available on SSRN), to be published in condensed version under the title Politicizing the Crime Against Humanity in France’s Courts in Law and Critique (forthcoming).
• On the Shoulders of Schlesinger: The Trento Common Core of European Private Law Project, in  Opening Up European Law (Mauro Bussani & Ugo Mattei, eds., 2007). Available on SSRN.
• Comparative Law and Language, in Oxford Handbook of Comparative Law (ed., Mathias Reimann & Reinhard Zimmermann, Oxford University Press, 2006). Available on SSRN and bepress.
• A Comparative Perspective on the CISG, in Drafting Contracts Under the CISG (eds Ronald Brand & Harry Flechtner, Oxford University Press, 2007).
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, "L’Enseignement du droit aux États-Unis: réflexion sur l’actualité",University of Pittsburgh School of Law Working Paper Series, Working Paper 34, 
  available on bepress.
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, The Role of Foreign Languages for Transnational Legal Education, 23 Penn State Int'l L. Rev. 779 (2005). Available on SSRN.
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, Law's Past and Europe's Future, 6 German L.J. 483 (2005).
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, Racism's Past and Law's Future, 28 Vermont L. Rev. 683 (2004). Available on SSRN.
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, The Politics of Memory/Erinnerungspolitik and the Use and Propriety of Law in the Process of Memory Construction, 14 L. & Critique 309 (2003). Available on bepress.
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, On the Shoulders of Schlesinger:  The Trento Common Core of European Common Law Project, 11 European Journal of Private Law 66 (2003). Available on SSRN.
• Vivian Grosswald Curran, Politicizing the Crime Against Humanity: The French Example, 78 Notre Dame L. Rev. 677 (2003). Available on SSRN.

Awards and Honors

• Awarded the Grand Decoration of Merit in Gold for Services Rendered to the Republic of Austria for her work as the United States appointee to the Austrian General Settlement Fund Committee for Nazi-era property compensation (2007).