Department of Law

Tanel Kerikmäe Professor of European Legal policy and Law & Technology Head of the Law Department tanel.kerikmae@taltech.ee (372) 620 4130 SOC-243 Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Tanel Kerikmäe is a well-known international lawyer and EU scholar who received his academic degrees in law and political science & governance from Tartu, Tallinn, Helsinki and educated himself also in Oxford, EUI, Turku, Cambridge, Strassbourg and Edinbburgh. He serves also as a director of TalTech Law School. 
Tanel is a board member of several high-ranked law journals (such as Baltic Yearbook of International Law), chief-editor of TalTech Journal of European Studies and an author of more than 150 articles and publications e.g. published by Ashgate, Martinus Nijhoff, Kluwer, Cambridge Press, Peter Lang, Lexis Nexis, Springer etc. He has been teaching in Nagoya university, Luzern university and RGSL and was invited speaker for high level forums in Brussels, Tokyo, Beijing, Budapest, Auckland, Meddelín, Phnom Penh and elsewhere. Tanel is elected foreign member of the National Academy of Legal Sciences of Ukraine and awarded with the titles of Doctor Honoris Causa at Jaroslav Mudryi National Law University and honorary professor at Ho Chi Minh City University of Law. 

Tanel Kerikmäe has been active as an expert related to legislative drafting, legal analysis and institutional reforms for public and private institutions, international organizations (UNESCO, WHO, EU institutions, ICF, Deloitte, Valdani Vicari & Associati, Sparks Legal Networks, Bolt. He has been EU key expert in Central Asia as a head of the component of constitutional law and has been involved to several law&tech related initiatives and development projects such as being a head of the research group preparing the legal strategy for Artificial Intelligence for Government Office. He has received letters of appreciation for cooperation by various institutions such as Estonian Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, Kharkiv National University of Internal Affairs, Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research, The European Law Students Association , Estonian Center of Eastern Partnership, International Association of Law Schools, Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Politics.

Thomas Hoffmann Professor of Private Law thomas.hoffmann@taltech.ee (372) 620 2427 SOC-327 Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Thomas Hoffmann is Professor of Private Law at TalTech Law School. He graduated (2005) and also obtained his Ph.D in law at the University of Heidelberg (2006). After his admission to the German bar in 2008 and obtaining an LL.M. in Polish business law from Jagiellonian University in Kraków (2009), he worked as Associated Lawyer in the real estate department of Noerr LLP in their offices in Kyiv and Berlin. Consecutively he became research fellow at the Institute of East European Law in Kiel, Germany (2009), where he had a special research focus on international insolvency law.

In 2011, prof. Hoffmann relocated to the University of Tartu (Estonia) to be appointed DAAD Lecturer in Law. He became Associate Professor at TalTech Law School at Tallinn University of Technology in 2016 and was elected Professor of Private law at the same institute in 2019.

Prof. Hoffmann’s research focusses on comparative private law, here especially on insolvency law, private international law, contracts in digital environments and consumer law. He also researches the genesis of Livonian law in early modern times. He provided comprehensive research on Estonian, German and international law to various stakeholders within numerous EC tenders.

Prof. Hoffmann keeps track with forensic issues by serving as Of Counsel for the law firm bnt Attorneys in CEE in Tallinn. 

Katrin Nyman-Metcalf Adjunct Professor of Communications Law katrin.nyman-metcalf@taltech.ee (372) 620 2424 SOC-328 Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Katrin Nyman-Metcalf is adjunct professor of Law and Technology and and also a Head of Research of the Estonian e-Governance Academy. In addition she is active as an international consultant primarily in the area information and communication technology law including freedom of expression, as well as e-governance. Projects include regular legal analysis of media and communications legislation for e.g. the OSCE and the European Commission; work on setting up regulatory systems and professional training especially for post-conflict societies; and support to e-governance.

Prof. Nyman-Metcalf´s PhD (1999) in Public International Law (the law of outer space) and her Master (1986) are from the University of Uppsala, Sweden. Her research interests include how law and technology meet with special emphasis on IT and communications as well as outer space; international – global and regional – decision-making and the changing structure of governance; implementation of human rights and the rule of law. She has published widely on all these as well as related topics. Professor Nyman-Metcalf speaks English, Estonian, French, German, Spanish and Swedish as well as basic Bosnian.  

Ondrej Hamulak Adjunct Professor ondrej.hamulak@upol.cz (372) 620 2430 SOC-243 Curriculum Vitae

Ondrej Hamulak is a adjunct professor at Jean Monnet Chair of European Law, Tallinn Law School, TTU and senior lecturer in EU law at Faculty of Law, Palacký University Olomouc (Czech Republic) and researcher at Institute of EU Law, Faculty of Law, Comenius University in Bratislava (Slovakia). Ondrej is also guest lecturer at Paneuropean University in Bratislava, Faculty of Law (Slovakia) and Faculty of Law, PJS University in Košice (Slovakia).
Ondrej is a graduate of Faculty of Law, Palacký University Olomouc. He completed his master studies in law (M.A., 2006); his doctoral degree (JUDr., 2010) and his Ph.D. studies (Ph.D., 2013) there. In recent years he underwent research visits and internships at Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London University (March 2014), Institute of European Law, Košice, Slovakia (October and November 2014) and Institute of European and Comparative Law, University of Oxford (Februrary 2015). He has been teaching EU law since 2006, lecturing in the courses: Constitutional Law of the European Union, EU Internal Market, Human Rights protection in the EU, Human Rights LAB, EU Justice and Home Affairs Law etc.

Between 2013 and 2016 Ondrej served as a vice-dean for public relations and development, Faculty of Law, Palacký University Olomouc. During his term he established the stabile PR and communication department. Between 2010 and 2016 Ondrej held a position of editor-in-chief of academic journal Acta Iuridica Olomucensia. Nowadays he is responsible as an editor-in-charge for academic journal –  International and Comparative Law Review.
Ondrej is a member of several scientific societies, e.g. Czech Society for European and Comparative Law - since 2008, Czech Society for International Law - since 2008 and Czech Association for European Studies - since 2009.

In his research Ondrej focuses on the relations and interactions between EU law and national law, the theoretical impacts of the membership in the EU on the state sovereignty, the legitimacy and rule of law within the EU, in particular system of protection of fundamental rights at supranational level. He worked on the several research and development projects with the relevant outcomes (2015: “The legal impacts of the financial crisis in the EU”, 2014: “The principle of tolerance in the functioning of the European Union – from a theoretical concept to practice”, 2012-2013: “EU Law before Czech Courts – Theory and Practice, 2011-2013: “Eastern Partnership and its prospects with a view of legal approximation, rule of law and human rights”).

Archil Chochia Senior Researcher archil.chochia@taltech.ee (372) 620 2431 SOC-242 Curriculum Vitae

Dr. Archil Chochiais a Senior Researcher at TalTech Law School of Tallinn University of Technology. Dr. Chochia obtained his doctoral degree from Tallinn University of Technology in 2013, while he has previously studied at Tbilisi State Medical University, as well as completed short study programmes at University of Scranton, University of California, Pepperdine University and Harvard University. He has more than 80 academic publications and he is a co-editor of the books“Political and Legal Perspectives of the EU Eastern Partnership Policy”(Springer, 2016),“Brexit: History, Reasoning and Perspectives” (Springer, 2018) and“Russian Federation in the Global Knowledge Warfare - Influence Operations in Europe and Its Neighborhood” (Springer, 2021). Archil is a managing editor ofTalTech Journal of European Studies. His research fields of interest are law and technology, ethical aspects of digitalization, alternative dispute resolution, EU integration, EU Neighbourhood Policy. Archil is a Senior Fellow of Weinstein International Foundation.

David Ramiro Troitino Senior Reseacher david.troitino@taltech.ee (372) 620 4127 SOC-339 Curriculum Vitae

David Ramiro Troitino started his studies at the University of Salamanca in Social History focus on development of societies. He obtained there also a PhD on European Union Studies, in a prestigious program led by outstanding scholars, members of the EU Wiseman Council. He also obtained two other bachelors in International Relations and Economics in TalTech, providing him with a multidisciplinary vision of his main topic of research, the European Union. David Ramiro Troitino has led several projects related to the EU and has obtained a Jean Monnet Module. Also has organized several conferences with former members of the European Parliament, one study visit to the European Parliament and one study visit to the European institutions in Brussels (Commission, council, EAAS, etc.) He has been teaching in the University of Salamanca, Spain and in several universities in Estonia (Tartu, Concordia, Audentes, TalTech). He has organize also several activities related to the European Union and publish papers with students in this field in the framework of a research group, including student trips to conferences to present papers.

Prof. Dr. Volker Skwarek Senior Researcher volker.skwarek@haw-hamburg.de (372) 620 4123 SOC-338 Curriculum Vitae

Prof. Volker Skwarek is Professor for Embedded Systems and head of the research and transfer centre for digital business processes at Hamburg University of Applied Sciences, Germany, and since 2020 Visiting Professor at TalTech Law School.

He leads the research group DLT³-Hamburg, focusing on scalable protocols and architectures for security in distributed (IoT-)systems. His previous assignments included management positions in major automotive companies, leading departments for electronics development and research & innovation. His research interests focus on ultra-low-power IoT-systems and their data security using Byzantine- and crash-fault-tolerant protocols. Apart from fundamental research topics on identities and trust in digital systems, software design patterns for legally binding smart contracts, trust transfer between blockchains and blockchain-enabled operating systems, he and his team work on practical applications for blockchain-sensor-connections in professional industrial environments.

Prof. Skwarek holds multiple patents, has published more than 30 peer-reviewed articles and co-authored 2 books. He is part of several reviewing boards of international blockchain and distributed ledger journals. Additionally, Prof. Skwarek holds 4 national and international prizes for research and education. Additionally, he is very active in national and international standardisation of blockchain and distributed ledger systems.