Both in his publications and organizational work, Gessner made major contributions to the development of contemporary sociology of law. In 1988 as the then secretary of the Research Committee on Sociology of Law, he was instrumental in setting up the International Institute for the Sociology of Law. and was specifically involved in creating its International Master's Programme in Sociology of Law in 1990. His academic publications focus on conflict resolution through law, on legal cultures and on the importance of legal certainty in a globalized world. For his achievements, he received the Adam Podgòrecki price of the RCSL in 2013
Selected publications
Monographs
El otro derecho comparado. Ensayos sobre cultura y seguridad juridica en la era de la globalization. Traducción y edición Hector Fix-Fierro. Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico 2013.
European Legal Cultures, Aldershot: Dartmouth 1996.
Cost of Judicial Barriers for the Consumer in the Single Market, Commission of the European Union, Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications 1995.
Recht und Konflikt : eine soziologische Untersuchung privatrechtlicher Konflikte in Mexiko. Tübingen 1976: Mohr.
Der Richter im Staatenkonflikt: Eine Untersuchung am Beispiel des Völkerrechtsverkehrs der amerikanischen Republiken. Berlin 1969: Duncker u. Humblot.
Edited books
Contractual Certainty in International Trade – Empirical Studies and Theoretical Debates on Institutional Support for Global Economic Exchanges, Oxford: Hart, 2009.
European Ways of Law – Towards a European Sociology of Law, Oxford: Hart, 2007. A Chinese translation has been published in 2009.
Globalization and Resistance – Law Reform in Asia since the Crisis, Oxford: Hart, 2007.
Rules and Networks – The Legal Culture of Global Business Transactions, Oxford: Hart, September 2001.
Emerging Legal Certainty: Empirical Studies on the Globalization of Law, Aldershot: Ashgate 1998.
Socio-Legal Research and Policy Studies. Law and Policy 1988, Vol. 10, Nos. 2 & 3.
Gegenkultur und Recht, Baden-Baden: Nomos, 1985.
Rechtsformen der Verflechtung von Staat und Wirtschaft, Jahrbuch für Rechtssoziologie und Rechtstheorie, Bd. 8, Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag 1982.
Umweltschutz und Rechtssoziologie, Bielefeld: Gieseking, 1978.
Gastarbeiter in Gesellschaft und Recht. München: Beck 1974 .
Recent articles
The Use of Social Science Information in Law - Comment on the British Inquiry Report, Sortuz. Oñati Journal of Emergent Socio-legal Studies Volume 6, Issue 1 pp. 29–45. Available at: http://opo.iisj.net/index.php/sortuz/article/view/486.
State/society Synergies in Western and Japanese Economic Law and Judicial Reform, in Dimitri Vanoverbeke, Jeroen Maesschalck, David Nelken and Stephan Parmentier, The Changing Role of Law in Japan: Empirical Studies in Culture, Society and Policy Making, Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2014, 35-49, available from https://ssrn.com/abstract=1912048
Weberian versus Pluralistic Legal Forces in the Global Political Economy, paper presented at the workshop Law, Contestation, and Power in the Global Political Economy, coordinated by Edward S. Cohen and A. Claire Cutler, Oñati Socio-Legal Series, v. 3 n. 4, http://opo.iisj.net/index.php/osls/issue/archive, also available from: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2272595
Enabling Global Business Transactions: Relational and Legal Mechanisms, in Glenn Morgan and Richard Whitley, Capitalisms and Capitalism in the Twenty-First Century, Oxford University Press, 2012, 146-165. Paperback edition 2014. Available from https://ssrn.com/abstract=1911883
Theories of Change – the Governance of Business Transactions in Globalizing Economies, in Volkmar Gessner, Contractual Certainty in International Trade – Empirical Studies and Theoretical Debates on Institutional Support for Global Economic Exchanges, Oxford, Hart, 2009, 175-213.
Towards a Theoretical Framework for Contractual Certainty in Global Trade, in Volkmar Gessner, Contractual Certainty in International Trade – Empirical Studies and Theoretical Debates on Institutional Support for Global Economic Exchanges, Oxford, Hart, 2009, 3-27.
Towards a Socio-Legal Theory of Contractual Risk, 36 Sociologia del Diritto 2009, 83-92. Available from https://ssrn.com/abstract=1918255
Legalization and the Varieties of Capitalism'', in Christoph Antons und Volkmar Gessner, Globalization and Resistance – Law Reform in Asia since the Crisis, Oxford, Hart, 2007, 27-51.
