CENTRAL (Universität zu Köln / University of Cologne)

CENTRAL is a research facility at the University of Cologne Faculty of Law, Germany. It is devoted to the research and teaching of transnational commercial law, the "New Lex Mercatoria" and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR). Each semester, CENTRAL also offers a comprehensive program of highly practical soft skills courses for students and young practitioners. They range from self-presentation and legal rhetoric and efficient client interviewing to the hearing of witnesses and settlement negotiations before domestic courts as well as intercultural communication. CENTRAL also operates Trans-Lex.org, a unique research tool on transnational commercial law for academics and practitioners. It contains the TransLex-Principles, a systematic collection of over 130 rules and principles of transnational commercial law together with short commentaries and thousands of comparative law references, such as arbitral awards, international restatements, statutes, doctrinal writings and contract clauses. TransLex also hosts the "Johnny Veeder Archive", the largest online archive of rare historic arbitration and ADR documents, from Homer's Illias to the original texts of the famous Lena Goldfields and Alabama Awards and other rare historic documents of modern times. In 2006, a unique multimedia project on Alternative Dispute Resolution was produced under the auspices of CENTRAL. The third edition of the project was published in 2015. The multimedia project combines a highly realistic Case Study, a Handbook, with a USB-Card with more than six hours of video simulations of negotiation, mediation and arbitration sessions, as well as the whole file of the case, including procedural orders, awards, settlement agreements etc., and numerous interactive teaching and training tools, and a website (www.private-dispute-resolution.com). Each year, CENTRAL organizes the Cologne Academies, two parallel Summer Academies on International Business Negotiation/Mediation and Arbitration.