Events

As part of a two-week series of training events that took judges from Chaoyang to several Austrian universities and courts, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Mazal, the head of the faculty's research platform for Asian law, gave a full-day lecture on topics related to labor and social law, medical law and family law. The basics of the historical development and the current legal situation met with lively interest. The questions focused on topics of application in everyday court life, evidence issues and the instruments for dispute resolution beside the adversarial process.

Chaoyang is a district of Beijing that is comparable to Vienna in size and population. Located in an inner-city location east of the former imperial palace ("forbidden city"), the district is characterized by urban life and is home to a large number of government offices, diplomatic missions and international companies. In the last two decades, construction activity and traffic have developed enormously dynamically; traditional Chinese and Western lifestyles come together to create an inspiring atmosphere.

 

Wolfgang Mazal

Fundamental issues of demographic change

Joint seminar with the Kyoto University

Under the direction of Prof. Dr Wolfgang Mazal (Institute for Labour and Social Law) and a team from Kyoto University (Prof. Atsuko Kimura, Prof. Yuko Shimada, Prof. Gabriele Koziol, Prof. Fumihiro Nagano, Prof. Hiroki Harada), a joint seminar was held between the two universities in Kyoto from 8-11 September 2024.

20 members of the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies (Institute of East Asian Studies - Department of Japanese Studies) and the Faculty of Social Sciences (Austrian Institute for Family Studies) discussed fundamental issues relating to coping with demographic change.

This was based on informative presentations by academics from both universities: we would like to thank Dr Peter Denk (Department of Tax Law), Mag Helene Schnabl (Institute for Labour and Social Law) as well as Dr Sonja Dörfler-Bolt and Lorenz Wurm, BA MA (both Austrian Institute for Family Studies) for the Austrian presentations!

Excursion funds from the Faculty of Law supported 15 students who attended Prof Mazal's comparative law thesis seminar Austria-Japan in the summer semester 2024 and enabled them not only to participate in the seminar but also to gain insights into Japanese culture: in the spirit of the ideal of a university, members of several generations cultivated contacts with each other and with professors and students from another cultural background and discussed topics that are highly relevant to both societies.

The seminar was part of a series of events that have been held continuously for decades as part of the cooperation between the Institutes of Labour and Social Law at the two universities, a collaboration founded by Prof. Dr. Theodor Tomandl in 1989 that has since become highly interdisciplinary in terms of both subject matter and organization. As part of the strategic partnership agreement that has linked the University of Vienna and Kyoto University since 2019, Kyoto University has recently assigned this part of the cooperation to the newly created Centre for Law and Political Science. This emphasises the breadth and importance of the cooperation between the two universities in these fields of research.

Short reports on the presentations written by the students are available here.

© Wolfgang Mazal

Labor Law, work organization and Fertility

A delegation of business people and administrative officials from the South Korean province of Gyeonggi-do, which surrounds the capital Seoul, visited the Institute for Labor and Social Law at the University of Vienna on April 26, 2024. After a short tour of the Juridicum, Univ.-Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Mazal, head of the Asian Law Research Center at the Faculty of Law, gave a lecture on the basic principles of Austrian labor and social law with a special focus on questions of work organization.

 

The comparison of the Austrian and Korean regulations made it clear that non-wage labor costs are influenced not only by taxes and social security contributions, but also by labor law regulations. The organization of work also depends on the regulations on working hours, the right to vacation and continued payment of wages. The fact that the maximum permissible working hours on average over several months is 51 hours per week and employees are entitled to 2 weeks of vacation per year probably also contributes to South Korea having the lowest fertility rate in the world (0.72 children per woman between the ages of 15 and 49 ) has.

 

Although Austria has a higher value of 1.41, the trend here is also downwards - regardless of the fact that the structure of labor law and family benefits in Austria is of an extremely high quality compared to international standards. Mazal, who is also head of the Austrian Institute for Family Research at the University of Vienna, pointed out the responsibility of companies: in Austria too, work organization is a crucial key to balancing family life and employment.

Japanese Information Law - Visiting Professorship

Satoshi Narihara will hold the course "030333 KU Introduction to Japanese Information Law (2024S)" at the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna in the summer term of 2024.

For more information see https://ufind.univie.ac.at/de/course.html?lv=030333&semester=2024S 

 

 

Multidisiciplinary Academic Seminar Vienna-Kyoto

Under the framework of the stratgic partnership agreement between University of Vienna and Kyoto University, and within the research focus on Asian law at the Faculty of Law at the University of Vienna, Prof. Wolfgang Mazal (University of Vienna) and Prof. Mariko Yoshida (Kyoto University) - with the active help of the team - organized a one-week multidisciplinary seminar in March 2024 for 28 students from Kyoto University.

General topic was the development of Vienna between 1880 and 1938. Lectures, given by members of the Vienna University Archives (Dr. Nina Knieling), the Institute for Art History (Prof. Martina Pippal), the University of Music and Performing Arts ( Prof. Markus Grassl) and the development of labor and social law and the development of a democratic society (Prof. Mazal) were the focus of the event, which sought to provide answers to the social problems of that time.

An overview of the historical developments and a fascinating tour of the parliament (Mag. Alexander Dinhobl) as well as tours of the Museum of Social and Economic History, the Vienna Museum and the Leopold Museum illustrated the magnitude and at the same time tragedy of the developments of those years. The great tradition of the University of Vienna became apparent when taking part in the ceremony in St. Stephen's Cathedral as part of the dies academicus. 

Overall, the high value and simultaneous fragility of the culture of a democratic discourse became apparent, and the individual modules stimulated numerous conversations about the current challenges. Societies in technological change experience fascinating artistic developments and at the same time enormous social tensions that will hopefully be resolved peacefully. Students from the law faculty, participating in the events made cross-border personal contacts possible within the generation that will bear responsibility for shaping a free and prosperous society in the coming decades.

Before the seminar, 20 Japanese students took part in a one-week intensive course in German, which was organized by the Language Center at the University of Vienna.

Dean´s Visit in Bhutan

From October 28th to November 3rd, 2023, our Dean, Prof. Zöchling-Jud, and Prof. Windischgrätz visited our partner university, JSW School of Law, to renew the faculty agreement signed in 2016 and strengthen our collaboration. In addition to visiting the Law School, they engaged in a discussion on constitution and state with the judges of the High Court. They also had the opportunity to meet with Ashi Sonam Dechen Wangchuck, the President of the Law School. The visit included meetings with Bhutanese alumni who had completed LLM programs in International Law and Human Rights Law in Vienna, as well as planning for future joint teaching and research projects.

Guest lecture Dr. Karma Phuntsho

On October 23, 2023, Dr. Karma Phuntsho delivered a guest lecture titled "Reflecting on Bhutan's Spirituality, Culture, and History" at our faculty. During the lecture, he specifically discussed the socio-cultural changes that have taken place in Bhutanese society in recent years. Dr. Karma Phuntsho is a former monk, thinker, and renowned scholar on Bhutan and Buddhism. He has authored several books on Bhutan and Buddhism, and his expertise stems from his monastic education in India, followed by studies in Sanskrit and classical Indian religions at Oxford, where he obtained his doctorate in Oriental Studies. He has conducted research at various universities, including the University of Cambridge, Paris, and Virginia. Dr. Karma Phuntsho is also the award-winning author of the book "History of Bhutan".

Kyoto University - University of Vienna - Conference 2023

Human rights, environmental protection and the rights of employees are the focus of a conference that the Institute for Labor and Social Law is organizing together with the law faculty of Kyoto University from September 11-13, 2023 on the top floor of the Juridicum. An EU directive, the final version of which is currently being negotiated, will oblige European companies to pay due attention to human rights, environmental and labor rights issues: The design of supply chains is not just a logistical problem, but also affects the living conditions of all people in a globalized world significantly. The conference takes place as part of the more than 30-year-old cooperation between the law faculty of the University of Vienna and Kyoto University as well as under the umbrella of the strategic partnership agreement which was established in 2019. The presentations will be held in German or English; Participation is free. For the program click here.

More Information: wolfgang.mazal@univie.ac.at   

You can find the powerpoint presentations here.

Certificate of Appreciation

On March 31, 2023, Prof. Wolfgang Mazal as Scientific Advisor for the strategic partnership agreement between the University of Vienna and the University of Kyoto, presented Prof. Takashi Muranaka the Certificate of Appreciation, which the Rector of the University of Vienna, Magnificence Prof. Sebastian Schütze, has issued.

Professor Muranaka has been involved in the cooperation since 1989, which was initiated by the Institute for Labor Law and Social Security Law at the University of Vienna (Prof. Theodor Tomandl) and in which numerous other members of the law faculty and other faculties have also been involved since the 1990s. In 1991/92 he worked in Vienna during a research stay at the Institute for Labor Law and Social Security Law with Prof. Tomandl and has since then played a leading role in the organization of more than thirty joint conferences. Professor Muranaka has also rendered outstanding service in bringing about the strategic agreement between the two universities. After his retirement on March 31, 2023, Prof. Muranaka will work as a professor at the renowned private Doshisha University and pass on his knowledge in the teaching and research activities for further years.