Peter Kamminga

Peter Kamminga, Ph.D., LL.M. is an Associate Professor at VU Amsterdam. He graduated from Groningen University, wrote his Ph.D. at Tilburg University and did his postdoc at Harvard Law School Program on Negotiation where he is currently a fellow. He also has affiliations at UC Hastings College of the Law and was an affiliated scholar at the Gould Negotiation Center at Stanford University.

Before embarking upon his academic career he practiced law as in-house counsel and as legal advisor at de Brauw Blackstone Westbroek (one of the Netherlands’ leading law firms) where he was advising on arbitration cases and large complex disputes. Since he started in academia he worked on various contract-research projects for clients as the Dutch Ministry of Justice, the European Commission, victims’ rights organizations, the insurance industry, and clients and contractors in the construction industry.

Next to his academic work, he mediates and consults both in the US and in Europe in the areas of contractual relations and dispute resolution. He collaborates with one of the US preeminent mediators, Judge Weinstein (Ret.) and has successfully mediated dozens of multi-million dollar complex, multi-party civil disputes.

In his current research Kamminga takes a multi-disciplinairy, and increasingly empirical approach to complex legal contracting. He includes research perspectives that contribute to effectively dealing with legal problems, drawing from legal theory as well as social psychologal, economic, and organizational theories.

He focuses on the role of the legal environment in complex relations and its effects on peoples and organizations collaboration behavior. Questions central to his research are for instance: To what extent do current governance structures such as regulations, contracts or codes of conduct facilitate collaboration? How can legal governance structures support collaboration and conflict management between organizations and individuals more optimally? From this perspective he studies — both theoretically and empirically — how rule making procedures, conflict resolution mechanisms, contracts and lawyers influence (business) relationships.

Multi-party contractual relations in large projects or large disputes have his particular interest. Examples of cases he has been studying and working on are multiparty personal injury claims cases, construction and infrastructure contracting and disputes, as well as multi-party securities cases. His research often has found its way to practice in the form of innovative contracts or codes of conducts for personal injury claim handling. His current academic work focuses on questions of contract design, contract behavior and effective procurement methods for private and public projects.

Education

• Master Universiteit Maastricht
• The University of Göttingen
• Master of Laws (equivalent J.D./ LLB and LL.M.) Rijksuniversiteit Groningen

Companies

• JAMS mediator and arbitrator JAMS (2020)
• Co Founder and director Global Infrastructure Institute (2014)
• Affiliated faculty (Program on Negotiation) Harvard Law School (2011)
• Associate Professor VU University Amsterdam (2010)
• Business Mediator and Arbitrator Kamminga Mediation (2005)
• Dispute Resolution Expert Weinstein Melnick Team (2016 — 2021)
• Associated Scholar UC Hastings College of the Law (2007 — 2017)
• Legal Consultant International Institute of Cooperative Creation (2009 — 2015)
• Affiliated scholar (Gould Center) Stanford University (2007 — 2010)