Dr. habil. Oskar Peterlini, PhD
Constitutional Law Scholar and Political Scientist

Oskar Peterlini studied in Modena and Innsbruck, specialised in New York, and earned his doctorate in Social and Economic Sciences at the University of Innsbruck with a thesis in constitutional law. He obtained his habilitation in Political Science at the University of Rostock.

In 1978, he was elected as the youngest member of the South Tyrolean Parliament and was re-elected for more than two decades. His political work focused in particular on youth and family policy, as well as environmental and animal protection. As Chair of the Finance and Economic Affairs Committee, he advocated a liberal economy with social safeguards. As President of the Regional Council of Trentino-South Tyrol (Südtirol), he developed the pension project Pensplan/Laborfonds, which he later built into an innovative institution for supplementary pensions.

In 2001, he was asked to return to political office. In the challenging Senate constituency of Bozen-Unterland, he was elected to the Italian Parliament with cross-community support and served for twelve years. As Chair of the Autonomy Group and a member of the Constitutional Affairs Committee, he worked on the further development of South Tyrol’s autonomy, on issues of peace policy, and on key reforms, including vocational pathways to the Matura, the transfer of state hydropower concessions to the province, and the implementation of the Alpine Convention.

He was appointed lecturer in 2011 and has been fully dedicated to academic teaching since 2013. He currently teaches Constitutional Law in Bolzano (Bozen) and subjects in political science in Brixen (Bressanone). Students particularly benefit from the clear and practice-oriented way in which theoretical concepts are conveyed through his extensive experience within the institutions.

He is the author of over one hundred academic publications on constitutional law, electoral law, autonomy law, minority protection, and pension systems.

As a visiting professor, he has been active in the academic field at numerous renowned universities, including La Sapienza in Rome, Innsbruck, Vienna, Budapest, Oradea, as well as in Hong Kong and Macao, where he has contributed to international research projects on autonomy. Since 2022, he has also been teaching courses at the University of Rostock.

https://unibz.academia.edu/OskarPeterlini

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Peterlini