Fashion's PLACE - Private (International) Law and Circular Economy

• Applicant: Dr. Antonia Sommerfeld
• Subject Area: Private Law ; Principles of Law and Jurisprudence
• Term: since 2025
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 566576759

Many current practices in the global fashion industry are highly unsustainable, creating huge amounts of waste and overuse of natural resources. Trends towards fast- and ultra-fast fashion (FF) exacerbate these problems. Latest concerns voiced by the EU Commission and the US (Reuters 2025), planning to take action against Shein and Temu business models emphasise the urgency and scale of the crisis generated by FF products. There is near consensus that transformation is needed. Circular economy (CE) models appear to have potential for the sector to foster sustainability without eliminating economic gains. Remarkably, though law is crucial for the transition, legal research in these fields is almost entirely lacking. A particularly glaring gap concerns private law (PL) including its international perspective in Private International Law (PIL). The circular economy rests on contracts and property, core private law institutions waiting to be scrutinized. This project provides an analysis of the legal landscape for such a circularity transition. It explores the PL and PIL components of legal design for CE in global value chains (GVC) along the journey of textiles - from the places of production, via the market places of consumption, to the places of disposal. Integrating empirical, analytical, comparative, interdisciplinary and doctrinal approaches, this study will provide a diagnosis of the PL/PIL impact on the case study of the fashion industry to contribute to a prognosis towards a more sustainable future for GVCs. This, in turn, will enable transformative rethinking of PL/PIL for a CE. The proposed study is the first of its kind in this field of crucial practical and theoretical importance. It builds on earlier studies of the PIs and Co-Is. Michaels/Ruiz Abou-Nigm/van Loon (eds.) (2021) established the role of PIL for sustainable development, including sustainable consumption and production. Ruiz Abou-Nigm and Sommerfeld (2024) provided the first in-depth analysis of circular fashion and legal design.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Partner Organisation: Arts and Humanities Research Council
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Ralf Michaels
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Michael Hennessy Picard; Professorin Verónica Ruiz Abou-Nigm, Ph.D.