Area of specialisation
Experience with legal system
Professional experience
Sophie STIJNS is a full professor at the KU Leuven Faculty of Law where she teaches the courses Law of obligations and Law of obligations in corporations. Her doctorate entitled “Gerechtelijke en buitengerechtelijke ontbinding van overeenkomsten” (which was awarded the Colin award in 1994) and her books “Leerboeken Verbintenissenrecht” are famous not only among students, but also among lawyers and magistrates. Her expertise is located in the domains of contract law, the general regime of the obligations and corporate law.Together with Ilse SAMOY I lead the Institute for the Law of Obligations where we supervise on average 5 Ph.D. students. I was Ph.D. supervisor of 13 successfully defended doctorates. In 2016 I held the Francqui Chair at the University Saint-Louis in Brussels. Since 2015, I am co-chair, together with Patrick Wéry (UCL), of the commission for the reform of the Law of Obligations that resulted in the introduction of Book 5 ‘Obligations’ into the new Belgian Civil Code.
My publications particularly emphasize the enforcement and termination of contracts, the remedies in the event of non-compliance, the sanctioning of unlawful contracts and clauses ((partial) nullity and moderation), the doctrine of reliance, the prohibition of abuse of law and the good faith, the interfaces between contractual and extra-contractual liability. I also often focuses on the drafting by companies and the assessment by the court of contractual clauses. For these and other subjects I am a much sought-after arbitrator.