REPORT: 2013 General Assembly of the ESCLH

Dear friends of the ESCLH,

you can read below a short report of the 2013 General Assembly of the ESCLH, which took place in Lund on August 19th.

ESCLH GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2013

Monday, 19th August 2013, 13.30-14.00

(The Pufendorf Auditorium, “Tryckeriet”, St. Gråbrödersgatan, Lund) 

Faculty of Law, Lund University

1. Introduction 

2. Financial situation and membership

At present, the journal and the biennial conference are the two major costs, in addition to the small website related costs. It may be that certain things not paid for now should be covered in the future, such as an honorarium for the webmaster or expenses for some Executive Council business. It may also be that we wish to do new thing, such as an event in the year without the conference. Until (but not including) the conference in 2016, the strategy will be to continue to cover the costs of the journal and significantly contribute to the conference. After that the best deal possible for our members will continue to be the aim.

A sustainable membership number would likely be in the region of 150 to 200 members and that would therefore be the target of the Society. The Executive Council has been engaged in a membership drive; the support of existing members in spreading news of the Society would be most welcome.

3. The Official Journal of the ESCLH

Comparative Legal History has been launched, its first issue coming out in July. The Society is grateful to its editorial board for their hard work. There will be a simple event in Lund in August 2013 to mark the launch of the journal, and a grander event to mark its first anniversary in Macerata in 2014.

4. Update on ongoing projects

i) Western Legal Traditions Project

The project progresses well, with another meeting in Maastricht soon. The group was possibly interested in further Roman law coverage, and would be open to suggestions of members or others who might be interested.

ii) Comparative Legal History Volume, Edward Elgar Publishing

The project, led by Setu, Olivier Moréteau and Kjell Å Modéer, will produce a handbook in Elgar series, entitled “Comparative Legal History”. The Executive Council voted in July to make it an official project of the Society.

iii) Van Caenegem Prize 

The prize, created in 2012, is to encourage the work of younger legal historians. The full rules are available on the Blog. Those rules specify that to be eligible the article has to have been published in Comparative Legal History, so ESCLH members under 38 are strongly encouraged to submit work.

5. The ESCLH Blog

The ESCLH blog continues to be one of the major sources of comparative legal history information on the web. The Executive Council is grateful to all those who have worked so hard on it, particularly its current webmaster (Stefania Gialdroni) and its founder (Seán Donlan). In the coming year we are enhancing the Blog further, with greater recognition for significant Blog posters and greater efforts to cover all the possible sources of Blog posts. Any thoughts or comments would be welcome to Dirk and Stefania.

6. 2016 ESCLH Conference

The Executive Council invites applications from Universities and other institutes of Higher Learning to host the ESCLH conference in 2016. Please send an initial proposal to Setu and Matt giving details of your institution and some initial details of what you would propose for the conference: these should include dates, details of travel and accommodation options and any measures you could include to grow the membership of the ESCLH further. It is expected that any institution bidding for the conference would have a number of ESCLH members by the time of sending its bid. Applications will be considered as they arrive, so the sooner an application is received, the better. The final deadline is 30th October. If desired, information contact can be made with any member of the Executive Council before making a full proposal.