Ernesto Vargas Weil

Key information

PhD title: Stability and Change in Property Law: the numerus clausus of property rights. A Comparative perspective.
LLB University of Chile, 2009 (summa cum laude)
MPP University of Chile, 2012 (summa cum laude, awarded as best student of the class)
LLM New York University, 2014 (Beca Chile Scholarship, NYU International Finance and Development Fellowship)
ernesto.vargas.18@ucl.ac.uk

Ernesto joined the UCL Faculty of Laws as a PhD student in September 2018. His research is a comparative study on the doctrinal structures that allow English and German property law to adapt itself to changing economic needs and is supported by a Peter Birks Memorial Scholarship, and has been awarded the Joseph Hume Scholarship for 2021/22. Ernesto holds a position as Assistant Professor at the Private Law Department of the University of Chile, where he has taught on contracts, property and natural resources law. He is admitted to practice in Chile and has relevant professional experience advising and litigating on domestic and international contracts, property law, mining law, green energy and infrastructure. In 2014 he interned as an NYU International Finance and Development Fellow at the International Institute for the Unification of Private Law, UNIDROIT (Rome, Italy), researching on the application of uniform law in Latin America. He has also been an invited professor at the University Adolfo Ibáñez (Santiago, Chile) and a member of the young lawyers committee of the Chilean Bar Association. He is currently the general editor of the Chilean Blog of Comparative Law. At UCL, he is currently a Teaching Fellow of the Property I Class for LLB’s and has also mentored LLM students writing Independent Research Essays. His main interests are comparative law, property law, contract law, natural resources, law and economics, law and society, legal theory and classic liberalism.

Research Supervisors

Areas of Expertise

Comparative law, contracts, property law, international sales law (CISG), natural resources, law & economics, public policies.

Research Interests

Comparative law, property law, contract law, natural resources, law and economics, law and society, legal theory and classic liberalism

UCL Associations/Academic and Professional Memberships

Teaching Fellow (Property I), UCL
Assistant Professor, Private Law Department, University of Chile
Editorial Board, UCL Journal of Law and Jurisprudence
Chilean Bar Association (Colegio de Abogados de Chile)

Professional Experience

Partner at Quinzio & Anriquez Novoa, previously Anriquez Novoa (2015-2018)
Associate at Anriquez Novoa (2010-2013)
Associate at Philippi, Yrarrázaval, Pulido & Brunner, now PPU Legal (2007-2009)

Public Engagements & Media Coverage

In English:

Blog Entrance: Assembling Social Rights: What Chile’s constitutional assembly can learn from Weimar and Bonn,Verfassungsblog, 4th March, 2021
Blog Entrance: With a twenty-year delay, Cinderella has finally arrived at the ball, Chilean Blog of Comparative Law, 28th October 2020
Blog entrance: Property without trust: rise and fall of the Chilean pension system?, Property Law Blog, University of Oxford, 16th August, 2020
Blog entrance: What the process of unification and harmonization of private substantive law can learn from the 2016 IBA Annual Conference, Transnational Notes, New York University Center for Transnational Litigation, Arbitration and Commercial Law, 25th October, 2016.

In Spanish:

Opinion column: Lo que la asamblea constituyente puede aprender de Weimar y Bonn, El Mercurio, 20th May, 2021
Letter to the editor: Ley de Arriendos (“The Law of Leases”), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, 25th November, 2020
Blog Entrance: Otra vez la silla musical: los arrendamientos comerciales frente a la segunda ola del covid-19 (“The musical chair again: commercial leases facing the second wave of Covid-19”), El Mercurio Legal, 20th November, 2020
Blog Entrance: El impacto de la crisis del Covid-19 en el derecho chileno: un drama en tres actos (“The impact of the Covid-19 Crisis in Chilean Law: drama in three acts”, CIPER , 25th July, 2020
Letter to the editor: Imprevisión: el juez vs. la ley (“Frustration: judges v legislators”), La Tercera, Santiago, Chile 30th May, 2020
Letter to the editor: Imprevisión en el Código Civil (“Frustration in the Civil Code”) (letter to the editor), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, 13th May, 2020
Letter to the editor: Caso fortuito y la silla musical (“Imposibility and the musical chair game”), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, 24th April, 2020
Blog Entrance: El caso fortuito laboral frente a la crisis sanitaria: una perspectiva civil (“Labour Law Impossibility confronting the pandemic: a private law perspective”), El Mercurio Legal, 27th March, 2020.
Opinion essay: Trasplantes jurídicos en Chile: desafíos y oportunidades (“Legal transplants in Chile: challenges and opportunities”), Revista del Abogado, December 2019.
Letter to the editor: Trust y fondos de pensiones (“Trusts and pension funds”), El Mercurio, El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, October 2, 2019.
Letter to the editor: Propiedad sobre fondos de pensiones (“Property over pension funds”), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, September 29, 2019.
Letter to the editor: Liberalismo(s) (“Liberalism(s)”), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, June 27, 2019
Letter to the editor: Secreto professional (“The client-attorney privilege”), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, February 8, 2019.
Letter to the editor: Clave para el progreso (“Key for progress”), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, October 1, 2018.
Opinion essay: Función, espíritu y tradición del colegio de abogados (“Function, spirit and tradition of the Chilean Bar”), Revista del Abogado, September 2017.
Letter to the editor: Ética, derecho y mercado (“Ethics, law and market”), El Mercurio, Santiago Chile, November 10, 2015.
Letter to the editor: La Constitución y el derecho de propiedad (“The Constitution and the right of private property”), La Tercera, Santiago, Chile, October 1, 2015.
Letter to the editor: Educación y libertad de enseñanza (“Education and freedom of education”), La Tercera, Santiago, Chile, May 15, 2013.
Letter to editor (with Alvaro Anriquez): Responsabilidad de abogados (“The responsibility of lawyers”), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, June 5, 2012.
Letter to editor: La nueva "cuestión social" (“The new ‘social issue’”), El Mercurio, Santiago, Chile, August 8, 2011.

Publications