Personal statement
My main research interests and specialisation lie in European, national and comparative labour and employment law. I am currently working on the relationship between historical studies and labour law in order to understand the development of labour/employment laws and their role in society. I was awarded a Leverhulme Research Fellowship in 2021 for a project entitled ‘Revealing the Importance of Ideas: The Intellectual History of Labour Law’. The project compares the different debates taking place on worker representation on company boards in German and British intellectual circles at a critical historical juncture in the 1940s. It uses these debates as a case study to trace the movement of legal ideas across national boundaries, and to explore alternative narratives which have escaped legal attention. The eventual aim of the project is to provide a better understanding of the intellectual history of labour laws which should facilitate a deeper and more nuanced understanding of labour laws’ origins and their distinctiveness.
I have published widely in the field of (European) labour law including a monograph entitled New Labour Laws in Old Member States (CUP, 2017). The book was reviewed in (2020) Edinburgh Law Review, (2018) 47(2) Industrial Law Journal and (2018) 43(3) European Law Review. My contribution to the field of labour and employment relations research was acknowledged in 2018 when I was a runner up of the International Labor and Employment Relations Associations’ (ILERA) Luis Aparicio Prize for emerging scholars.
I teach EU law, labour law, commercial law and Scots contract law, and have previously also taught delict (tort).
I am the book review editor for the Industrial Law Journal, a case and comment editor for the Juridical Review (the Law Journal of the Scottish Universities) and an editor of Green's Employment Law Bulletin. I am on the Research Committe of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, the management board of the Scottish Universities Legal Network on Europe (SULNE) and am one of the lead academics in the Civil Society Brexit Project, funded by the Legal Education Foundation until 2022, which helps civil society organisations in Scotland to prepare for Brexit consequences for themselves or their service users.
Professional activities
- Industrial Law Society Annual Conference
- Invited speaker
- 17/9/2016
- R. Zahn, ‘After the referendum and before Brexit… Where now for workers’ rights in the EU?’, European Law Blog, 28 June 2016 available at http://europeanlawblog.eu/?p=3248.
- Blogger
- 28/6/2016
- Invited talk to the Creation of Reality Group on 'The Origins of Codetermination: Tracing the British Influence'
- Contributor
- 24/3/2016
- Shaping Future Directions in EU Labour Law
- Participant
- 1/7/2015
- Labour Law Research Network Conference
- Speaker
- 25/6/2015
- London Labour Law Discussion Group
- Invited speaker
- 4/11/2014
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Projects
- Empowering civil society in Scotland to engage in Brexit-related constitutional change
- ZAHN, Rebecca (Co-investigator) Busby, Nicole (Co-investigator) Fletcher, Maria (Co-investigator)
- 01-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2022
- Exiled influences on German codetermination
- ZAHN, Rebecca (Principal Investigator)
- 01-Jan-2019 - 31-Jan-2020
- Civil Society and Brexit
- Busby, Nicole (Principal Investigator) ZAHN, Rebecca (Principal Investigator)
- This joint venture between Human Rights Consortium Scotland (HRCS; a network of Scottish civil society organisations) and Scottish Universities Legal Network for Europe (SULNE) will deliver a programme of events, trainings, briefings, and information alerts tailored to the needs of civil society organisations in Scotland.
By bringing together the civil society contacts, networking, capacity building and collaborative approach of HRCS, with the legal and educational expertise of SULNE and its capacity for knowledge generation, this project will empower the Scottish third sector to engage with the process of the “EU (Withdrawal) Bill” at Westminster and in Scotland and the wider Brexit discussions. The advice generated will be politically neutral and unbiased. Findings from the project will be used to inform published research output. Impact of the project and related output on participating civil society organisations and on the third sector generally will be mapped and recorded as the project progresses.
- 03-Jan-2017 - 28-Jan-2019
- The Future of Teaching EU Law in Scottish Law Schools post-Brexit
- ZAHN, Rebecca (Principal Investigator)
- This one-day workshop, funded by the Society of Legal Scholars, discusses the impact of Brexit on the Scots Law curriculum and, in particular, on the future of EU law teaching in Scottish Law Schools. The workshop has a strong regional focus and involvement. It brings together academics from all seven Scottish Law Schools involved in teaching core EU law classes; legal practitioners from the largest Scottish law firms; the Law Society of Scotland; Universities Scotland; and, representatives from publishers in order to consider curriculum reform after Brexit. The workshop is organised by Professor Nicole Busby and Dr Rebecca Zahn in collaboration with the Scottish Universities Legal Network on Europe (SULNE). SULNE was formed following the UK’s EU referendum to provide a one-stop shop for legal advice, opinion and education for all stakeholders who are engaged in difficult policy choices concerning Brexit. SULNE is led by a team from the Universities of Strathclyde, Glasgow and Edinburgh consisting of: Prof. Jo Shaw, Prof. Noreen Burrows, Prof. Nicole Busby, Ms Maria Fletcher, Dr Rebecca Zahn and Dr Tobias Lock. Representatives from Scotland’s law schools are represented on a steering committee.
- 01-Jan-2017 - 31-Jan-2017
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