Seminars
Supervision of Master's Theses
Prof. Thouvenin supervises Master's theses as part of seminars. The seminars are announced in the course catalogue and on the chair's website, and can be booked via the seminar registration tool.
Master's theses may only be written with a scope of 12 ECTS credits. In addition to submitting the written thesis, students are required to give a presentation during the seminar. This presentation is graded and forms part of the overall assessment of the Master's thesis.
ECTS Credits
Seminar on Information and Communication Law – Spring Semester 2026
Pressing Issues in Digital Law
The production, dissemination, and use of information, data, and digital goods has become a central economic and societal process. Current legal frameworks must respond to these new challenges—partly through interpretation and application of existing rules, and partly through adaptation of the legal system.
In this seminar, we examine how the law addresses various challenges posed by digitalisation. The focus lies on perspectives from intellectual property and competition law (Cartel Act and Unfair Competition Act), as well as data protection and personality rights, including questions around the regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Students are free to choose the topic of their Master's thesis within the scope of the seminar theme. Possible topics include: the use of copyrighted works for training AI models, regulations on the portability of personal data and the necessity of access to factual data, regulation of social media platforms, the spread of disinformation and deep fakes, influencer marketing practices, platform market power, and the safety and liability of AI products.
Key Dates
Preliminary Meeting: The preliminary meeting and topic allocation will take place on 3 November 2025 at 2:00 PM in Room SOC-E-008, Digital Society Initiative (DSI), Rämistrasse 69.
Thesis Submission Deadline: 3 May 2026 via email to lst.thouvenin@ius.uzh.ch
Thesis Length: 75,000–90,000 characters, including spaces and footnotes
Seminar Format: The seminar will be held as a block seminar on 7 and 8 May 2026 at the University of Ferrara. It is organised in cooperation with Prof. Alfred Früh (University of Basel) and students from the University of Basel.
Travel and Accommodation: Students are responsible for organising their own travel and accommodation.
Guidelines for Writing Master's and Seminar Papers
Basic Rules for Legal Academic Writing
Please refer to the information provided in the following document:
Guidelines Legal Writing (PDF, 170 KB)
Formatting Requirements
The following formatting specifications must be strictly adhered to:
Line spacing: 1.5 lines
Right margin: 4 cm
Justification: Block text with hyphenation
Paper size: A4
Submission of Thesis
The thesis must be submitted to the Chair by the agreed deadline via email (Lst.thouvenin@ius.uzh.ch) in electronic format (PDF and Word).