Biography
Solène Rowan is a Professor of Private Law at the University of Oxford and an Honorary Professor at the ANU College of Law. She held at the ANU a Futures Scheme Funding Award for world-leading high-performing mid-career researchers to enhance their research between 2019 and 2021. She specialises in contract, tort, commercial and comparative law and is the author of the award-winning monograph, Remedies for Breach of Contract: a Comparative Analysis of the Protection of Performance (OUP 2012), which won the SLS Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship (first prize) and the Inner Temple New Author's Book Prize for Outstanding Authorship (runner-up), and is based on a PhD thesis that was awarded the Yorke Prize (for theses of distinction) by the University of Cambridge. She read law as an undergraduate at King's College London and Paris I (Panthéon-Sorbonne) and undertook LLM and doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge.
Prior to joining the University of Oxford and the ANU, Solène was an Associate Professor at the London School of Economics and Political Science (2012-2018) and a Fellow and College Lecturer in Law at Queens' College, Cambridge (2008-2012). She has held visiting lectureships at the universities of Paris II (Panthéon-Assas) and Osaka Gakuin, and was a Jean Monnet Fellow at Keio University, Tokyo. She is a non-practising solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales, having trained at Herbert Smith in London and Shanghai. Her work has recently been cited by the Scottish Law Commission, the Court of Appeal of Singapore, and the Court of Appeal of Ireland.
Appointments
Honorary Academic Fellow of the Inner Temple, 2017-2020
Significant research publications
Books
- The New French Law of Contract (OUP, 2022)
- Remedies for Breach of Contract: A Comparative Analysis of the Protection of Performance (OUP, 2012)
- Winner of the Society of Legal Scholars Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship 2012 (first prize)
- Runner-up, 2015 New Author's Inner Temple Book Prize
- Based on a thesis that was awarded the Yorke Prize of the University of Cambridge in 2009.
Articles, book chapters, case notes, book reviews
- 'Abuse of Rights in English Contract Law: Hidden in Plain Sight?' (forthcoming - accepted for publication in the Modern Law Review) (9,950 words excluding footnotes)
- 'Comparative Observations on Punishment in Private Law' in E Bant, J Goudkamp, J Patterson and W Courtney (ed) Punishment and Private Law (Hart, 2021) pp 63-82
- 'Problems of Contractual Interpretation: English and French Law Compared' [2020] Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly 273-296
- 'Review of A Burrows, Remedies for Torts, Breach of Contract, and Equitable Wrongs (4th edn 2019 OUP)’, (2020) 83 Modern Law Review 1101-1104
- 'The Reform of French Contrat Law: the Struggle for Coherency' in TT Arving and J Steele (ed) Contract Law and the Legislature (Hart, 2020) pp 219-236
- 'The "Legitimate Interest in Performance" in the Law on Penalties' [2019] Cambridge Law Journal 1-27
- Book Review of Comparative Law in Practice: Contract Law in a Mid-Channel Jurisdiction by D Fairgrieve (Hart, 2016) (2018) 67 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 474-475
- 'La Résolution du Contrat Pour Inexécution' in J Cartwright and S Whittaker (eds) La Réécriture du Code Civl. Le Droit Français des Contrats après la Réforme de 2016 Société de Législation Comparée (2018), pp 337-359
- Book Review of An Introduction to the English Law of Contract for the Civil Lawyer by John Cartwright (Hart Publishing: 2017) (2018) Revue Trimestrielle de Droit Civil 932-934
- 'Cost of Cure Damages and the Relevance of the Injured Promisee's Intention to Cure' [2017] Cambridge Law Journal 616-641
- 'Termination for Contractual Non-Performance' in J Cartwright and S Whittaker (eds) The Code Napoléon Rewritten: French Contract Law after the 2016 Reforms (Hart, 2017) pp 317-338
- 'The new French law of contract' (2017) 66 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 805-831
- 'Resisting Termination: Some Comparative Observations' in A Dyson, J Goudkamp, F Wilmot-Smith (eds) Defences in Contract (Hart, 2017) pp 163-186
- 'Conditions – Art 5.3.1-5.3.5' in S Vogenauer (ed), Commentary on the UNIDROIT Principles of International Commercial Contracts (OUP, 2015) pp 688-714
- 'Moral Damages – Report on French Law' in V Palmer (ed), The Recovery of Non-Pecuniary Loss in European Contract Law (CUP, 2015)
- 'Fault and Breach of Contract: a Comparative Analysis' (2011) 22(4) European Business Law Revie 467-493
- 'Reflections on the Introduction of Punitive Damages for Breach of Contract' (2010) 30 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 495-517
- 'For the Recognition of Remedial Terms Agreed Inter Partes' (2010) 126 Law Quarterly Review 448-475
- 'La Nouvelle Limite Posée à l'Exécution Forcée en Nature par l'Avant-Projet de la Chancellerie' (2010) Revue de l'Université Panthéon-Assas 81-84
- 'L'Introduction des Dommages et Intérêts Punitifs en Droit Français : Etude Comparative' in John Cartwright, Stefan Vogenauer, Simon Whittaker Regards Comparatistes sur l'Avant-Projet de Reforme du Droit des Obligations et de la Prescription (Société de Législation Comparée, 2010) pp 353-374
- 'Comparative Observations on the Introduction of Punitive Damages in French Law' in J Cartwright, S Whittaker & S Vogenauer (Ed), Reforming the French Law of Obligations (Hart, 2009), pp 325-344
- 'Protecting Contractual Expectations: an Australian Perspective' [2009] Cambridge Law Journal 276- 278
- 'Mitigation of Damage: A French Perspective' (2006) 55 International & Comparative Law Quarterly 205-218
