To ensure the effectiveness of its activity, the Legal Research Center follows a theme-based structure. Each of the LRC’s research laboratories focuses on a specific theme that reflects USEK’s deep ethical concerns and its active involvement in today’s most pressing issues.
The Person and Law research Laboratory / Laboratoire de recherche « personne et droit »
As part of the Legal Research Center, the Person and Law Research Laboratory at the School of Law and Political Sciences brings together scholars who are interested in a transversal approach of the law focusing primarily on the legal notion of a “person” in its eminently human dimension.
One of the strengths of this laboratory lies in its interdisciplinarity, with its research involving actors from the fields of law, philosophy, and sociology.
Currently, the work of the laboratory is organized around two topics:
Topic 1: Dignity
Topic 2: Ethics
These topics allow the members of the laboratory and external collaborators, especially the Catholic University of Lyon (UCLy) to use the technique of crossed perspectives to tackle their research objects in a complementary manner. This approach will contribute to the dissemination and valorization of research thanks to the publication of collective works and to the organization of academic events linked to one or more of the topics.
Previous project
Collective work in collaboration with UCLy:
« La dignité humaine face aux défis du siècle : approche comparée » (Human Dignity and the Challenges of the 21st Century: a Comparative Approach), published in the USEK Law Journal, special issue, 2020.
Read the collective work
Current project (2021-2022)
Collective work in collaboration with UCLy:
« Éthique et droit : de nouvelles perspectives d’interactions » (Ethics and Law: New Interaction Perspectives)
Download the call for papers
Head of the Laboratory
Dr. Reine Daou
The Tin Route Research Laboratory – Business Law in Arab Countries
The Tin Route refers to the connection of the major maritime routes used by the Phoenicians since the 12th century B.C. as essential trade and cultural communication itineraries in the Mediterranean. The Tin Route Research Laboratory aims to continue this long tradition of cultural exchange initiated by our ancestors. Its main mission is to make business law data of the Arab countries easily accessible to French and English-speaking jurists. In addition to organizing and promoting research in the scope of business law in Arab countries, it is particularly committed to developing a relevant fundamental and empiric approach centered on these laws.
The mission of the laboratory focuses on
1. Conducting theoretical and practical scientific research.
2. Disseminating and enhancing its research topics and promoting legal information and culture.
3. Contributing to the creation of an inter-Arab research community.
4. Enhancing inter-Arab and international scientific cooperation.
The laboratory intends to focus on the following topics
1. Joint-stock companies.
2. Corporate and business financing.
3. Joint ventures and other international cooperation laws.
4. Business goodwill law and individual business concern law.
5. International trade in goods law and import-export.
6. Banking law and practice, and international payments.
7. Innovation and artificial intelligence law.
8. History of commercial law.
Head of the Laboratory
Dr. Gaby Chahine
The Money and Law Research Laboratory
The Money and Law Research Laboratory focuses on studying money from a legal holistic perspective, in addition to studying monetary law. While this theme is topical due to the current events in Lebanon, the laboratory is not restricted to a local and circumstantial approach. Rather, it endeavors on a broader scope to study money as such from a legal point of view and all topics related to it, such as the role of cryptocurrencies in payments, private money, indexation clauses, or the status of foreign currencies. This leaves plenty of room for a fruitful interdisciplinary cooperation with other USEK schools and departments as well as with local or international institutions.
The activities of the laboratory also include the organization of academic events, publications, and public outreach in an effort to bring about scientific vulgarization.
Suggested research topics
- Definition of money between law and economics.
- The status and role of foreign currencies in national law.
- Payment of monetary debts.
- Digital cryptocurrencies: nature, function, and future outlook.
- Money and ethics.
- Money and politics.
Head of the Laboratory
Dr. Bechara Karam