Joseph Lookofsky

Primary fields of research

• Law of Obligations (Contracts and Torts)
• Law of Sales (Danish and International)
• Private International Law
• International Commercial Arbitration
• Comparative Law and Legal Culture

Fields of interest

• Law of Obligations (Contracts and Torts)
• Law of Sales (Danish and International)
• Private International Law
• International Commercial Arbitration
• Comparative Law and Legal Culture

Current research

• UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts and the Interpretation of Danish National Law
• Danish and international sales law
• Transnational litigation & commercial arbitration under European & American law

CV

Professor Emeritus Joseph Lookofsky is a native of New York, USA. He studied Economics at Lehigh University (B.A.) and then American law at New York University (J.D.). After admission to the New York State Bar, he began his professional career as in-house legal counsel for United Artists Corporation.

Lookofsky came to Denmark in 1973, studied Danish law (cand.jur. 1981 University of Copenhagen), and joined the University Law Faculty in 1981. He defended his doctoral (dr.jur.) thesis (Consequential Damages in Comparative Context) in 1989 and was appointed to a chair in the Law of Obligations in 1992. In 2007 Professor Lookofsky was knighted (Ridder af Dannebrogsordenen) by Queen Margrethe of Denmark.

Lookofsky's principal research has been in the area of Contractual Obligations, Law of Sales (domestic and international), Comparative Law and Private International Law. He has taught courses in European & International Commercial Law, Transnational Litigation & Arbitration, and Comparative Law and Legal Culture. He has also taught in the United States at Duke University Law School and has been a Visiting Scholar at New York University School of Law.  In April 2013 and again in May 2016 he was Scholar in Residence at the NYU Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law.

Lookofsky serves as Denmark's National Correspondent for UNCITRAL (United Nations Commission on International Trade Law). He is co-founder and Coordinator of the Copenhagen Law Faculty's student mobility programmes with Duke University Law School and New York University School of Law. He serves on the Executive Committee of the Danish Committee for Comparative Law and is also an Honorary Titular Member of the International Academy of Comparative Law (Académie Internationale de Droit Comparé).