Merane, Jakob

Biography

Jakob is a Ph.D. Student at the Center for Law & Economics. He holds a Bachelor of Law (summa cum laude) and a Master of Law with Specialization in Transnational Law (summa cum laude) from the external page University of Basel with study visits at external page Humboldt-University of Berlin and the external page University of Zurich. He concluded both his studies and the bar exam with the highest honors. He worked as a tutor in Constitutional Law and Criminal Law and as a student assistant at the faculty of law in Basel. He also holds a Certificate of Advanced Studies in Applied Statistics from ETH Zurich. In 2023, he spent a semester as a Visiting Researcher at external page Harvard Law School.  

In addition to his academic activities, Jakob was a board member of the Swiss Section of Amnesty International and involved with other non-profit organizations. During his studies, he co-founded external page Open Auditorium ("Offener Hörsaal"), an association that enables refugee students to continue their studies in Switzerland. Before joining ETH, Jakob worked as a Junior Associate for a leading corporate law firm in Zurich in the Competition and Regulatory practice group. He also advised private clients as a Legal Associate in a small law firm.

Research Overview

Jakob's research focuses on new innovative approaches to enforce small claims. As part of his doctoral research, he develops automated tools to detect and enforce privacy violations on the internet. Furthermore, he researches regulatory responses to emerging digital technologies. He is particularly interested in the following areas:

• Antitrust & Competition Law
• Computational Law
• Empirical Legal Research
• Privacy Law
• Private Law: Remedies and Procedures

Publications

• external page Automating Website Registration for Studying GDPR Compliance (with Karel Kubíček, Ahmed Bouhoula & David Basin), The Web Conference (WWW 2024).
  
• external page Enforcement Bots im Strafrecht: automatisierte Verdachtsbegründung und Beweissammlung durch Softwareagenten im Netz (with Sylvia Meyer), Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Strafrecht 4/2023, 425-445.
  
• external page Bundesgerichtsurteile nutzen: Das Swiss Federal Supreme Court Dataset (SCD) (with Florian Geering), Jusletter, 18 September 2023.
  
• external page Swiss Federal Supreme Court Dataset (SCD) (with Florian Geering), Zenodo, 2023.
  
• external page Checking Websites’ GDPR Consent Compliance for Marketing Emails (with Karel Kubíček, Carlos Cotrini, Alexander Stremitzer, Stefan Bechtold & David Basin), Proceedings on Privacy Enhancing Technologies, 2022(2), 282-303.
  
• external page Computergestützte Ermittlung der Geschlechterverteilung im bundesgerichtlichen Verfahren, Schweizerische Juristen-Zeitung, 10/2021, 511. 
• external page Der Presserat zieht klare Trennlinien im digitalen Zeitalter, medialex, 08/2020, 7.
• external page Künstliche Intelligenz – Rechtliche Leitplanken und neue Haftungsrisiken (with Alexander Stremitzer), Recht relevant. für Verwaltungsräte, 6/2020.