Michiel Roels receives TPR Award

GIPLI-FWO predoc scholar Michiel Roels wins another award. After receiving the award of Algemene Praktische Rechtsverzameling (APR) for best master's thesis in March 2025, the contribution that he developed based on his thesis has now also been honoured with the award of the 62nd volume of het Tijdschrift voor Privaatrecht (TPR). This makes Michiel the youngest winner of the award since its conception.

The award-winning article is situated in civil liability law: Michiel's second favourite area of law, alongside intellectual property law. It examines the doctrinal basis of Belgian liability for the equality of citizens for public burdens (abbreviated GBOL liability in Dutch). GBOL liability indicates the liability of the government for abnormal burdens arising from its legitimate actions and affecting a limited group of citizens or institutions. In Belgian legal doctrine, this form of liability is traditionally understood as strict liability. However, based on a comparative legal analysis with the Netherlands, Michiel proves that it is more accurate to describe GBOL liability as fault-based liability for violation of the constitutional principle of equality. The article was written in Dutch, but was amended with extended summaries in English, French, German and Spanish.

The TPR Award is granted annually to one promising lawyer under the age of 35 who has published an outstanding contribution with a comparative-law focus in the previous year's volume of the journal. The award comes with an attractive financial reward, as well as an invitation to present the contribution at a special event in the spring of 2026. More information is to follow.

Further reading

• Download the winning contribution on Wolter Kluwer's Jura platform
• Read more about the TPR Award and its laureats (Dutch only)

Comment on LinkedIn