Jacques de Werra is ordinary professor of law of obligations and intellectual property law at the Faculty of Law and Director of the Centre for Digital Law.
He was Vice-Rector of the University of Geneva (July 2015 – July 2019) where he was in charge of the transversal project « Digital University ». He thus piloted the institutional digital strategy, which led to the adoption of the University’s digital strategy and accompanying action plan (end 2018).
He obtained a doctorate in law from the University of Lausanne in 1997, the writing of the thesis having been completed during a research stay at the Max-Planck-Institut für Geistiges Eigentum, Wettbewerbs- und Steuerrecht in Munich financed by a scholarship from the Deutsche Vereinigung für gewerblichen Rechtsschutz und Urheberrecht e.V.
After being admitted to the Bar of the Canton of Geneva in 1999, he completed a study (LL.M.) and research stay as a visiting scholar at Columbia Law School in New York with the support of a scholarship from the Fonds national de la recherche scientifique and was admitted to the New York Bar (2002).
Jacques de Werra teaches, publishes and conducts research in his fields of activity. He is thus active in intellectual property law and digital law. He coordinates the Summer School on Intellectual Property Law co-organized with the World Intellectual Property Organization since 2011 and launched a summer school in Internet Law in 2014, which will continue as a « Digital Law Summer school » from 2020 (www.digitallaw-geneva.ch).
Jacques de Werra has been a visiting professor at several leading foreign universities (Stanford Law School, Catholic University of Louvain, City University of Hong Kong, University of Nagoya). He was Faculty Fellow and Associate Faculty at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University (2012-2014).