Kuschke Birgit

Biography

Professor Birgit Kuschke is an associate professor in the Department of Private Law, University of Pretoria. She obtained the degrees BLC (cum laude) in 1986 and LLB (cum laude) in 1988 from the University of Pretoria. She obtained an LLD degree in 2009 at the University of South Africa for her thesis titled “Insurance against Damage caused by Pollution.” She is an admitted attorney, notary and conveyancer of the High Court of South Africa, and an accredited Poslec SETA Education, Training and Development Practitioner. Professor Kuschke completed her articles in 1991 with Van der Merwe Du Toit (VDT) Attorneys in Pretoria. She was admitted as an attorney, notary and conveyancer of the High Court of South Africa in 1994 and practised for her own account from 1994 until 2005 in association with VDT in Pretoria, specialising in insurance, engineering, construction and professional services contracts. She was appointed as lecturer in the Department of Mercantile Law in 1991 and as senior lecturer in that Department in 1993. In 1999 she also assisted as the Commercial Manager of the I-Commerce division of Dimension Data until 2000. She was appointed as senior lecturer in the Department of Private Law in 2000 and promoted to associate professor in 2010. Preceding this she was nominatedby her peers in 2012 to act as a Corresponding Member for the drafting of the 2nd edition of the “Principles of European Insurance Contract Law” (‘PEICL Team’) that was published at the end of 2014. In 2015 Prof Kuschke was invited to serve as one of only 15 principal members (selected from 14 academic institutions in the EU, the US, Japan, Singapore, Brazil and South Africa) of the international Drafting Committee of the universal Principles of Reinsurance Contract Law (known as ‘PRICL’), under the auspices of the University of Zürich, Switzerland. The project is mainly funded by the Schweizerische Nationalfonds. The final report will be presented in 2018 for international release and publication. She has been a member of the International Association for Insurance Law (Association International du Droit Assurances or ‘AIDA’) since 1998, and serves as a Councillor on its Presidential Council since 2009. She is also on the Scientific Council and a member of two of its Working Groups: Member of the Working Party on Pollution, Products and New Technologies of the International Association for Insurance Law (1998 – to date) and Consumer Protection and Dispute Resolution Working Group (2010 – date). In this capacity, she has been involved in various research projects relating to the impact of risks posed by electromagnetic fields, environmental pollution, climate change, genetically modified organisms, the effect of genetic testing on the insurance industry, discrimination in insurance, mandatory insurance, dispute resolution and consumer related issues. In her capacity as a Legal Education, Training and Development Practitioner of LEAD accredited by Poslec SETA (in terms of the Skills Development Act 97 of 1998), she lectures Drafting of Contracts for candidate attorneys at the Law Schools presented under the auspices of the Law Society of South Africa (2003 – to date). Birgit presents the module Legal Aspects of Project Management in the Programme in Project management (PPM) presented by CE@UP (Continuing Education at UP) (since its inception in 1997 – to date). The book Lloyd’s Research Handbook on International Insurance Law and Regulation Burling & Lazarus (Eds) of which Professor Kuschke was one of the co-authors was awarded the British Insurance Law Association (‘BILA’) book prize for 2012/2013. She also won the prize for Law Lecturer of the year in 2004; 2005, 2007, 2011, 2012 (runner-up in 2003) and the Dean’s prize for designing and implementing the first subject in law to be presented electronically for distance education at the University of Pretoria in 2001.

Research Interest

Professor Kuschke specialises in insurance law; engineering and construction law; general law of contract; law of delict; environmental law and legal and commercial aspects relating to project management.