Legal studies have always been an important component of academic programmes at the University of Pécs. In fact, university education in Pécs started in 1367 with the teaching of canon law. In the period between 1950-1971 the Faculty of Law was the only faculty that secured the continuity of the University after World War II. In 2008 the Faculty celebrated the 85th anniversary of the modern law school in Pécs. The Faculty has long-standing international relations, e. g. with the universities of Marburg, Bayreuth, Vienna, Graz, InHolland University in the Netherlands and the London Southbank University.
The Faculty has established co-operative relations with law faculties in countries in our wider region (e.g. Cluj-Napoca, Novi Sad, Rijeka, and Wroclaw) which involve teacher and student mobility and short study visits. The successful CEEPUS (Central European Exchange Programme for University Studies) applications of the Faculty in the academic years of 2005/2006 and 2008/2009 lead to setting up the first CEEPUS network operating in the area of law in Central Eastern Europe. In the first case, the objective was to study the relationship between three legal systems: international law, European Union law and domestic laws; in the second case the objective is to study the situation of minorities in the Central European region. This co-operation resulted in special forms of joint education and training programmes such as the joint master’s degree programme in Cluj-Napoca, an experimental tandem-seminar launched in the framework of BA-level education and various summer universities.
The Faculty, together with the Faculty of Law of the Babes-Bolyai University of Cluj-Napoca, launched a jointly organised master's programme (accredited in Romania) with instruction provided in Cluj-Napoca. The language of instruction is Hungarian, and the teaching staff comes partly from Pécs and partly from the Babes-Bolyai University.
The Faculty is a member of the European organisations ERA and ELFA. The international relations of most of our academic departments have also become increasingly stronger.
The Department of Criminal Procedure Law initiated the establishment of the Central European Criminal Cooperation, involving about a dozen foreign criminal departments and institutes from Central Europe.
The Faculty has established relations outside Europe as well: upon the initiative of certain departments, several visiting professors form North-American universities have delivered lectures and seminars at the Faculty, and cooperation with Chinese (e.g. the East China University of Political Science and Law) and African (e.g. the Kenyatta University) partners too.
The Centre for European Research and Education of the Faculty also has an extensive and active international academic network. The Centre has been (and is) involved in a high number of European Union funded teaching and research projects. The Centre publishes the open access e-journal entitled Pécs Journal of International and European Law.
Interest in learning English has increased considerably and the number of courses offered in foreign languages is also constantly growing. The postgraduate and PhD courses offered at the Faculty of Law enjoy increasing popularity; the PhD-programme is also offered in English as well. The European Documentation Centre and the United Nations Depository Library were established in 1995 originally at the Department of International Law and currently belong to the Law Library of the Regional Library and Knowledge Centre; these collections serve as important sources of information for students, researchers and businesses in the Transdanubian region.
The Law Library in the Regional Library and Knowledge Centre is in general also more than prepared to cater to the needs of foreign students, with a siginificant collection of jorunals, books and databases available in English.
The ERASMUS+ programme provides our teachers and students with new possibilities. The number of our Erasmus partner universities and, as a result, the number of those taking part in the mobility programme is increasing year by year, at present the Faculty has 54 Erasmus partner universities all over Europe. It also enables us to welcome students and teachers from abroad as part of this EU-funded academic mobility scheme.
