Professor John Cartwright awarded honorary doctorate by Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas

Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas has conferred on Professor John Cartwright the title of Docteur Honoris Causa.

Professor Cartwright is Emeritus Professor of the Law of Contract in the Faculty of Law and Emeritus Student of Christ Church, Oxford. His relationship with Paris–Panthéon–Assas spans more than 20 years: from 2002 to 2024 he taught a wide range of courses at Assas, serving as a visiting professor each year until 2018 and subsequently holding a half-time post as Professor of Private Law until his retirement in 2024. He devised and taught courses on English law for undergraduate students, as well as courses on comparative law for master's students. Many of the students he taught in Paris went on to study in common-law jurisdictions – notably in Oxford through the longstanding student exchange programme with Assas, for which he served as the Faculty's academic director from 2000 to 2013.

At the ceremony on 1 December, Professor Cartwright was one of seven academics honoured by Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas for their contributions to law, economics, history, and international relations. In making the award, Assas highlighted Professor Cartwright's efforts both to make English law accessible to civil-law audiences and to illuminate aspects of French law for English readers.

Reflecting on the occasion, Professor Cartwright said: "It was an immense honour – and wholly unexpected – to receive the title of Docteur Honoris Causa, but I was delighted to accept it in the context of my long relationship with Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas. On an individual level, the relationship with Assas has given me many valuable opportunities for collaboration in comparative law research and teaching, and on an institutional level it has helped to strengthen and foster the ties between Paris-Panthéon-Assas and the Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford."

Professor Cartwright's principal research interests lie in English and comparative private law, with a particular focus on French law. To mark his exceptional contribution to college life over nearly four decades, Christ Church recently announced the creation of a fund in his name to support legal scholarship and teaching. The college also held a comparative contract law conference in September featuring discussion of papers written specifically in Professor Cartwright's honour. These papers will be published in a volume titled Comparing Contract Laws.

Congratulations to Professor Cartwright from all at the Faculty of Law.

(This news item is adapted from an article published by Christ Church, Oxford.)