Orientation
Subject to confirmation, orientation will be held on Sunday, June 1, 2025, before the first day of classes on June 2. Please meet in front of the law school, Université Jean Moulin Lyon 3, 15 Quai Claude Bernard, Time TBA. From there, we will walk to a nearby café.
The University
LSU’s Summer in Lyon program is held at Jean Moulin Université Lyon 3. Located in the heart of Lyon, the classrooms are within walking distance from most student residences. Students have access to Wi-Fi while at school, and there is also a café on the first floor of the building where they can grab a bite to eat or an espresso.
The curriculum is subject to change before the beginning of the first session. More information will be provided as the semester goes on. Below is a Class Schedule for reference on how the program is normally set up:
Dates: June 1-20, 2025
Orientation on June 1, Exams on June 20
2025 Schedule (to be determined)
| Time | Course | Faculty |
| TBD | Comparative Data Protection Law | Prof. Pailler |
| TBD | Comparative Tort Law | Prof. Banakas |
| TBD | Human Rights and the Environment | Prof. Bryner |
Course Titles and Description
Human Rights and the Environment (2 credits)
Professor Nicholas Bryner, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, LSU
In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution recognizing “the right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment as a human right.” This course explores the relationship and overlap between international human rights law and environmental law.
The course begins with a basic overview of key concepts in human rights law and a brief history of the development of international environmental law. After this introduction, the course examines the question of how environmental harms impact traditionally recognized human rights. It then turns to the converse question of how the enjoyment of civil, political, economic, social, and cultural human rights influence environmental protection. Students will consider whether, from a policy and legal perspective, it makes sense to approach environmental issues with a human rights framework, as well as what difference it makes to recognize, as the majority of countries in the world now do, a human right to a healthy environment.
Comparative Data Protection Law (1 Credit)
Professor Ludovic Pailler, University Jean Moulin, Lyon, France
The course aims to provide an introduction to data protection law from a comparative and practical perspective. Students will be invited to identify and address the major issues in relation to technological innovation (AI) and economic growth, which depend on the free flow of data across borders. The course will highlight the different institutional and legal models of data protection that exist, especially in the US and the EU, the level of protection they provide, and how they should be articulated to enable data flow. The reality and extent of EU Law’s influence on foreign data protection laws (Brazil, Japan for example) will be highlighted. Finally, the need for a global data protection law will be discussed.
Comparative Tort Law (1 Credit)
Professor Emeritus Stathis Banakas, University of East Anglia, United Kingdom
A comparative study of important topical issues of Tort liability. The common law of Tort (American and English) will be compared with the Law of extracontractual civil liability of Civil law systems (French, German, Italian, Spanish). After an Introduction into the General Principles and Functions of Tort Liability in today’s World the course will look at the following issues: liability for personal injury, liability for artificial intelligence, liability for automated vehicle, liability for economic loss, liability for violations of privacy and personality rights, liability for wrongful birth, strict liability and remedies (compensation; punitive damages).
Faculty
Prof. Nicholas Bryner
Professor Bryner was an Emmett/Frankel Fellow in Environmental Law and Policy at the UCLA School of Law for 2016-18. He served as Visiting Associate Professor and Environmental Law Fellow at George Washington University Law School (August 2014-June 2016) where he co-taught courses on environmental and natural resources law.
Bryner received his B.A. magna cum laude in Political Science from the University of Utah, with minors in Latin American Studies and Chemistry. He also earned joint degrees (J.D. / M.A.) in law and Latin American and Hemispheric Studies from The George Washington University Law School and Elliott School of International Affairs. At GW, Bryner was elected to the Order of Coif, received the Pro Bono Service Award and the Patton Boggs Foundation Public Policy Fellowship, and was a Presidential Merit Scholar. In addition, he served as an Articles Editor for The George Washington Law Review.
Email: bryner@lsu.edu
Prof. Ludovic Pailler
Professor Ludovic Pailler joined the Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University Law Faculty in 2017 as an Associate Professor and was appointed Full Professor (Agrégé des facultés de droit) in 2019. He is currently Vice-Dean for undergraduate students and Director of the legal clinic. He was a visiting professor in several universities (Ain Shams, Egypt; Sao Paolo, Brasil; El Salvador, Argentina; French University in Armenia; Bucharest, Romania; Vientiane Laos).
Professor Ludovic Pailler earned his Ph.D. summa cum laude at the Limoges University (2015) and was awarded the René Cassin Prize. He is a member of several academic societies (Comité français de droit international privé; International Law Association; European Association of Private International Law) and is co-president of the Code and Law section of Société de législation comparée. His publications mainly relate to private international law, fundamental rights law, and data protection law. He authored two books, co-authored a digital law book and is preparing a private international law book. He edited two volumes of proceedings from an international symposium he organized, and took part to many conferences, particularly in France and Canada. He regularly publishes articles, notes and reviews in French and English.
Email: ludovic.pailler@univ-lyon3.fr
Prof. Stathis Banakas
Professor Stathis Banakas has a summa cum laude Law Degree from the University of Athens, Greece, and a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, England, where he was a Greek State Scholar. He is an Emeritus Professor of Comparative Law at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom. He is an Attorney at Law (Dikigoros), member of the Athens Bar (retired), and has a long association with the London Programme of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, as an Adjunct Professor (since 1986). He has taught for several years at the International Faculty of Comparative Law, Strasbourg (since 1993), at the Faculty of Law of the School of Business Studies (ESADE) University Ramon Llull, Barcelona (since 1999), the Bucerius law School in Hamburg (since 2005), and at the French Law Faculties of Bordeaux, Rennes, Tours and Bayonne. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne (March 2002), and at the Faculty of Law of the University of Savoie in Chambery (April-May 2002). Over a long academic career, he has held numerous other visiting teaching appointments at Universities in several European countries, North Africa, USA (including LSU in 2006) and Russia, and taught in summer Schools (including Duke, Tulane and, twice, LSU Summer schools). He is a member of the International Academy of Comparative law (Common Law Section) and the European Law Institute, member of the editorial Board of the Journal of Comparative law, Journal of Civil Law Studies, English law correspondent of the venerable Italian Law Journal ‘Rivista di Diritto Civile’, and Greek law adviser to the European Review of Contract Law.
Professor Banakas has convened and presented papers in numerous International Conferences, and he has directed several international projects of Academic Research Collaboration with Universities in other European countries, funded by the British Academy, National Governments and the British Council, and regularly represents the UK in European Working Groups on Harmonisation of European Tort law. He has been member of International evaluation panels of Law Schools in France and in Greece, and judge of research funding applications in Austria and Switzerland. He has taught at the French and German Judicial Academies and currently holds regular online seminars of English law and Legal Philosophy for German senior judges. His research in Tort Law has been cited with approval by the House of Lords in the UK, and other Supreme Courts in other common law countries including Australia and Canada, and the Federal Parliament of Germany. He has advised counsel in major International disputes and litigation on Comparative Contract law. He is published extensively in English, French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Greek and Turkish. His main research interests include Comparative and Global Law, Anglo-American Contract and Tort law, European and Global Private Law and its Harmonisation, French, German and Greek Civil law. and Law and Artificial Intelligence.
Email: E.Banakas@uea.ac.uk
Trip to the International Labour Organization (ILO)
Students will be visiting the ILO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. Students will take a bus to the ILO headquarters on July 4, where they will participate in discussions and simulations guided by ILO employees. More details will be available as the Lyon program gets closer.
Academic Policies
The program fully all policies of the LSU Law Center on all matters, including class attendance and grading. For more information, please consult the Summer in Lyon Program Official Brochure and the LSU Law Center Catalog. Visiting students admitted in the program: acceptance of any credit or grade for any course or activity taken in the program must be verified with your home school.
Program Director: Professor Nicholas Bryner, bryner@lsu.edu