Fernando Loureiro Bastos
Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon
President of the Institute for Legal Co-operation

For almost thirty years, the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon (FDUL) has carried out a wide range of cooperation activities with university institutions in other Portuguese-speaking countries and territories: Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Goa, Guinea-Bissau, Macau, Mozambique and East Timor.

These activities began in the 1990s with FDUL lecturers teaching undergraduate courses in the law faculties of these countries. They have since extended to the joint organisation of postgraduate, master’s and, more recently, doctoral courses, and are complemented by support for the legal libraries of these institutions and the publication of scientific works on the law of Portuguese-speaking countries, including those included in the Collection of African Law Studies and the Ius Commune online library.

To this end, FDUL has already signed more than thirty protocols with foreign higher education institutions. Over the last three decades, several thousand students have benefited, both abroad and in Portugal, under the terms of these protocols, from teaching by FDUL lecturers, or by lecturers coordinated by them, within the scope of Legal Co-operation, in courses created and supported by this Faculty.

The average number of students is approximately one thousand per year, spread across the three study programmes and other courses and initiatives. The number of lecturers who take part in FDUL’s Legal Co-operation activities every year exceeds fifty, representing all the scientific areas of Law, including not only lecturers on short-term missions to teach postgraduate courses, but also others on permanent assignments in these countries.

This co-operation activity has contributed to maintaining and deepening Portugal’s relations with the countries involved and, in particular, their law schools, with significant repercussions on scientific production, legislative solutions and the interpretation and application of the law carried out by the courts and the public administration.

All these initiatives are underpinned by a strong sense of solidarity on the part of those involved. They are aimed first and foremost at the scientific and pedagogical consolidation of the institutions of the Portuguese-speaking countries with which FDUL co-operates; but more than that, at creating a communion of knowledge between the jurists of these countries. In short: the formation and consolidation of a Portuguese-speaking Legal Community, capable not only of preserving and deepening the cultural ties that have historically bound the peoples of these countries, but also of giving Lusophony the international profile it deserves.

Hugo Ramos Alves

Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Lisbon
Scientific Advisor at the Faculty of Law of Bissau

The Bissau Faculty of Law is a Bissau-Guinean public law institution, created in November 1990, and has become a leading figure in higher education in Guinea-Bissau.

The creation of the Faculty embodies the co-operation agreement signed between Portugal and Guinea-Bissau, aimed at creating a law degree taught under conditions similar to those offered by Portuguese institutions. In scientific terms, the co-operation agreement provides for co-ordination by the Faculty of Law in Lisbon, which is financially supported by the Portuguese public co-operation services.

The Faculty has been in continuous operation since 1990, with the exception of the military conflict in Guinea-Bissau between 1998 and 1999, which led to its closure due to force majeure.

Since its foundation, the Faculty of Law in Bissau has had the support of a Portuguese teaching staff from the Faculty of Law in Lisbon. Given that the Cooperation Protocol also provided for the creation of a national teaching staff, several Master’s and PhD scholarships were awarded and several postgraduate courses were taught, so that the Faculty gradually gained autonomy in the training and constitution of its teaching staff. While initially there were 6 teachers from the Faculty of Law in Lisbon, there is currently only 1 (the Faculty’s Scientific Adviser). It is worth noting that there are around 40 teachers, 5 of whom have a PhD and 35 of whom have a Master’s degree, and that these numbers are expected to increase in the near future as several teachers complete their Master’s and PhD programmes. This constant improvement in the training of the national teaching staff, as well as the rigour and demand placed on the process of admission to the Faculty (an average of 40 students are admitted each year), and the respective teaching, have earned the Faculty an excellent reputation in the community.

This reputation and socio-cultural and economic impact is also fostered and enhanced by the activity of the Study Centre, created by order of 26 November 1990, whose purpose is to carry out studies and research projects, namely the drafting of legislation, many of which have contributed to the modernisation of Guinea-Bissau’s legal system, but also to the dissemination to the various legal operators of the most modern doctrinal trends, along with the new instruments of international praxis , especially with regard to the harmonisation of commercial law in Africa, under the aegis of OHADA.

I currently serve as Scientific Advisor to the Faculty of Law in Bissau, but I have previously supervised Bissau-Guinean doctoral students and was a member of several Master’s degree juries for faculty members at the Faculty. Prior to taking up my current post, I taught a module on a postgraduate course in Bissau and was able to see for myself the reputation of the Faculty and its impact on legal operators and the general public, as well as the constant curiosity for more knowledge, which the Bissau Law Faculty will certainly continue to satisfy.