Professor Burcu Yüksel Ripley

Biography

Professor Yüksel Ripley specialises in private international law, commercial aspects of international trade and finance law, and crypto/digital assets. She is the Theme Coordinator for commercial and trade law LLMs and a former Director of the Centre for Commercial Law.   

Burcu obtained her LLB and PhD in Private International Law (Turkey), and her LLM in International and Comparative Business Law (England). Before joining the University of Aberdeen, she worked at the Department of Private International Law at Ankara University Law Faculty. She also practised law and worked at the Export Credit Bank of Turkey (Turk Eximbank).  

Burcu has published on private international law, international trade law, international payments, international commercial dispute resolution, crypto/digital assets, and Turkish law. She is the author of Uluslararası Elektronik Fon Transferine Uygulanacak Hukuk (The Law Applicable to International Electronic Funds Transfers) and co-editor of Turkish and EU Private International Law, Cross-Border Litigation in Europe, and From Theory to Practice in Private International Law: Gedächtnisschrift for Professor Jonathan Fitchen. She has been involved in several internationally collaborative research projects and appointed by courts in the UK and Turkey to give expert opinion evidence.

Burcu is a pro-bono subject matter expert consultant for the HCCH Digital Tokens Project. She is a member of the CBDC Academic Advisory Group of the Bank of England and HM Treasury and of the Advisory Panel of the Digital assets and ETDs in private international law: which court, which law? project. Formerly, she was a NERC Fellow of the Digital Environment Expert Network; a Special Rapporteur for the UK for the International Academy of Comparative Law (IACL)’s General Report on ‘Cryptocurrencies: the impossible domestic law regime?’, and an Observer on the Committee on the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC) and Emerging Technologies.

Research Overview

Burcu's research interests are in the following areas:

• private international law (international jurisdiction, applicable law, and recognition and enforcement of foreign judgments in civil, commercial and family law matters),
• international trade and finance law
• international payments
• international commercial law and dispute resolution,
• law and technology (in particular crypto and digital assets, distributed ledger technology and blockchain),
• Turkish law. 

Current Research

Burcu is currently researching on private international law aspects of digital assets and electronic trade documents. 

Funding and Grants

• 2023- present: Digital Assets in Scots Private Law: Innovating for the Future, funded by the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE), Research Workshops Grant (Position held: Principal Investigator)  
• 2021- 2023: Time to Become Digital in Law (DIGinLaw), funded by the European Commission, Erasmus+ Programme (Position held: Co-Investigator). 
• 2020- 2023: NERC Constructing a Digital Environment (CDE) Fellow of the Digital Environment Expert Network, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), NERC/UKRI ‘Constructing a Digital Environment’ Programme.
• 2014- 2016: Cross-Border Litigation in Europe: Private International Law Legislative Framework, National Courts and the Court of Justice of the European Union (EUPILLAR), JUST/2013/JCIV/AG/4635, funded by the European Commission, Civil Justice Programme (Position held: Researcher).
• 2012- 2013: Cross-Border Litigation in Europe (series of workshops), EU Private International Law Research Network, funded by the European Commission, Jean Monnet Scheme (Position held: National Coordinator for Turkey).
  

Teaching Responsibilities

Undergraduate:

• LS2532 Private International Law
• LS401Q/LX401Q Private International Law of Commercial Law Honours
• LS451U/LS451U International Trade Law Honours (Course Coordinator)

Postgraduate:

• LS508A International Trade and Finance Law
• LS502K Comparative Contract Law for International Transactions
• LS5909 Professional Skills: International Trade Negotiation (Course Coordinator)
• LS503D/LS553D Financing of International Sales (online) (Course Coordinator)
• LS503B/LS553B International Sale of Goods (online)
• LS5811 Law, Business, Security: Petroleum Data Management

 Previously: 

• LS1520 Contract
• LS2032 Public International Law
• LS2536 Introduction to Comparative Law
• LS502Q Private International Law- Jurisdiction, Recognition & Enforcement
• LS5098 World Trade Organisation: GATT
• LS553A Core Principles of WTO Law (online) (Course Coordinator)