JOURNAL: "Vergentis, Innocent III and his time. From 'absolute' papal monarchy to the Fourth Lateran Council" (n. 2, 2016)

Innocent III and his time. From 'absolute' papal monarchy to the Fourth Lateran Council, Vergentis, Revista de Investigación de la Catedra Internacional Conjunta Inocencio III, n. 2, 2016

all information here

CONFERENCE & CFP: "Justice, Mercy and Law: from revenge to forgiveness in the History of Law" (Murcia, December 13-16, 2016)

WHAT Justice, Mercy and Law: from revenge to forgiveness in the History of Law, Conference and Call for papers

WHEN December 13-16, 2016

WHERE Catedra Inocentio III, Murcia, Spain

 The main purpose of the Law has been to accomplish the Justice. However, the administration of the Justice has not always met the current models of the public justice, but it has greatly changed over the centuries. Likewise, the Justice has been understood in many ways, with predominance of the points of view that tend to comprehend it in a retributive way. On the other hand, the Justice has been understood as a way of repentance and expiation of the criminal sin, sometimes turned into a religious sin. 

For such purposes, we call on interested researchers to submit papers related to the figure of Innocent III from the standpoint of law in general, Canon Law, Philosophy, Theology, History of Institutions, Roman Law, Comparative Law, Art History, History, Sociology, Historiography and any other discipline that can shed light on the subject proposed, being the following: 

Program

 1. Public Justice 

a. Organization of the Justice in continental Europe. 

b. The legal process: Civil Justice and Ecclesiastical Justice. 

c. The imposition and compliance of the sentence. 

2. Private Justice 

a. Private revenge. 

b. Revenge for honor. 

c. Public consequences of the Private Justice. 

3. Forgiveness and Mercy 

a. Forgiveness as a way of discharging the criminal responsibility. 

b. The sentence as the penance for the sinner defendant. 

c. The mercy for the criminal/sinner. 

SYMPOSIUM on James Lorimer ïn the European Journal of International Law XXVII (2016), No. 2

(image source: Oxford Journals)

The European Journal of International Law, organ of the European Society of International Law, published its most recent issue, containing a symposium on Scottish international lawyer James Lorimer (1818-1890).

Articles:

Stephen Tierney & Neil Walker, "Through a Glass, Darkly: Reflections on James Lorimer’s International Law" (409-413) (PDF)
Martti Koskenniemi, "Race, Hierarchy and International Law: Lorimer’s Legal Science" (415-429)  (PDF)
Gerry Simpson, "James Lorimer and the Character of Sovereigns: The Institutes as 21st Century Treatise" (431-446) (PDF)
Karen Knop, "Lorimer’s Private Citizens of the World" (447-475) (PDF)
Stephen C. Neff, "Heresy in Action: James Lorimer's Dissident Views on War and Neutrality" (PDF)

More information at Oxford Journals.

ADVANCE ARTICLE: James MULDOON, "Grotius and English Charters". Grotiana 2016 (Brill Books and Journals Online)

(image source: Brill)

Brill Books and Journals Online published an advance article of this year's Grotiana by prof. em. dr. James Muldoon (Rutgers University).

Abstract:

When examined collectively the trade and colonization charters that Tudor and Stuart monarchs issued demonstrate a developing English conception of world order based on trade monopolies and not on ecclesiastical premises or on the Grotian notion of freedom of the seas. There were therefore three early modern conceptions of how an international order might be created, not one, all of which affected European trade with the Americas and Asia. They all began with the assumption that the discovery of the several new worlds required developing rules of engagement to reduce if not to eliminate conflict among the European nations engaged in overseas exploration, settlement, and trade. As Koen Stapelbroek has pointed out, understanding the role of legal notions in the actual historical creation and gradually evolving function of a new kind of commercial-political entity, requires a distinctly non-doctrinal focus.

More information here.

JOURNAL: Law and History Review XXXIV (2016), No. 3 (Aug)

(image source: Cambridge Journals)

The Law and History Review published its third issue of 2016.

Table of contents:
In this Issue (Elisabeth Dale) (v-vi)


New Light on the Sedition Act of 1798: The Missing Half of the Prosecutions (Wendell Bird) (541-614) (PDF)

Merchant Courts, Arbitration, and the Politics of Commercial Litigation in the Eighteenth-Century British Empire (Christian R. Burset) (615-647) (PDF)

Accommodating Nazi Tyranny? The Wrong Turn of the Social Democratic Legal Philosopher Gustav Radbruch After the War (Douglas G. Morris) (649-688) (PDF)

Judicial Independence in British North America, 1825–67: Constitutional Principles, Colonial Finances, and the Perils of Democracy (Jim Phillips) (689-742) (PDF)

Fragmenting the Nation: Divisible Sovereignty and Travancore's Quest for Federal Independence )(Sarath Pillai) (743-782) (PDF)

The “Rare Infliction”: the Abolition of Flogging in the Indian Army, circa 1835–1920 (783-818) (Radhika Singha)

Book reviews:
Daniel R. Coquillette and Bruce A. Kimball, On the Battlefield of Merit: Harvard Law School, the First Century, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Pp. 688. $39.95 cloth (ISBN 978-0674967663) (Andrew Porwancher)

Terri L. Snyder, The Power to Die: Slavery and Suicide in British North America, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015. Pp. xiv, 240. $45.00 cloth (ISBN 978-0-226-28056-1).(Sally E. Hadden)

Lisa Tetrault, The Myth of Seneca Falls: Memory and the Women's Suffrage Movement, 1848–1898, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2014. Pp. 296. $34.95 cloth (ISBN 978-1-4696-1427-4) (Lisa Hogan)

Nancy Woloch, A Class By Herself: Protective Laws for Women Workers, 1890s–1990s, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015. Pp. ix, 337. $39.50 cloth (ISBN 978-0691-002590) (Amy G. Richter)

Susan Pedersen, The Guardians: The League of Nations and the Crisis of Empire, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. Pp. 592. $34.95 cloth (ISBN 9780199730032) (Umut Özsu)

BOOK: Thomas MOHR, Guardian of the Treaty The Privy Council Appeal and Irish Sovereignty. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2016, 222 p. ISBN 978-1-84682-587-3

(image source: Irish Legal History Society)

The Irish Legal History society announces the forthcoming publication of Guardian of the Treaty, a work by Thomas Mohr (University College Dublin) on appeals to the Privy Council and Irish Sovereignty.

Abstract:

The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council was the final appellate court of the British Empire. In 1935 the Irish Free State was recognized as the first part of the Empire to abolish the appeal to the Privy Council. This book examines the controversial Irish appeal to the Privy Council in the wider context of the history of the British Empire in the early 20th century. In particular, it analyses Irish resistance to the imposition of the appeal in 1922 and the attempts to abolish it at the Imperial conferences of the 1920s and 1930s. This book also outlines the means by which Irish governments attempted to block Privy Council appeals. It examines the reality of claims that the Privy Council appeal offered a means of safeguarding the rights of the Protestant minority within the Irish Free State. Finally, it reveals British intentions that the Privy Council act as the guardian and enforcer of the settlement embodied in the 1921 Anglo Irish Treaty. The conclusion to this work explains why the Privy Council was unsuccessful in protecting this settlement.

On the author:

Thomas Mohr is a lecturer at the School of Law, University College Dublin. He is honorary secretary of the Irish Legal History Society.

The book can be ordered for € 45 with the Four Courts Press.

BOOK: "The Age of Dignity. Human Rights and Constitutionalism in Europe" by Catherine Dupré

The Age of Dignity. Human Rights and Constitutionalism in Europe, by Catherine Dupré
all information here

Human dignity is one of the most challenging and exciting ideas for lawyers and political philosophers in the twenty-first century. Even though it is rapidly emerging as a core concept across legal systems, and is the first foundational value of the European Union and its overarching human rights commitment under the Lisbon Treaty, human dignity is still little understood and often mistrusted. Based on extensive comparative and cross-disciplinary research, this path-breaking monograph provides an innovative and critical investigation of human dignity's origins, development and above all its potential at the heart of European constitutionalism today. Grounding its analysis in the connections among human dignity, human rights, constitutional law and democracy, this book argues that human dignity's varied and increasing uses point to a deep transformation of European constitutionalism. At its heart are the construction and protection of constitutional time, and the multi-dimensional definition of humanity as human beings, citizens and workers. Anchored in a detailed comparative study of case law, including the two European supranational courts and domestic constitutional courts, especially those of Germany, the UK, France and Hungary, this monograph argues for a new understanding of European constitutionalism as a form of humanism.

About the Author

Catherine Dupré is Senior Lecturer at the University of Exeter.

BOOK: "The Law Book: From Hammurabi to the International Criminal Court, 250 Milestones in the History of Law" by Michael H. Roffer (2015)

The Law Book: From Hammurabi to the International Criminal Court, 250 Milestones in the History of Law, by Michael H. Roffer 

Michael H. Roffer explores 250 of the most fundamental, far-reaching and often-controversial cases, laws, and trials that have profoundly changed our world—for good or bad.  Offering authoritative context to ancient documents as well as today’s hot-button issues, The Law Book presents a comprehensive look at the rules by which we live our lives.

It covers such diverse topics as the Code of Hammurabi, The Ten Commandments, The Trial of Socrates, the Bill of Rights, women’s suffrage, the insanity defense and more.

Organized chronologically, the entries each consist of a short essay and a stunning full-color image, while the “Notes and Further Reading” section provides resources for more in-depth study.  Justice may be blind, but this collection brings the rich history of the law to light.

Michael H. Roffer is associate librarian for reader services and professor of Legal research at New York Law School

BOOK: "Before Anarchy: Hobbes and His Critics in Modern International Thought" by Theodore Christov (2016)

Before Anarchy: Hobbes and His Critics in Modern International Thought, by Theodore Christov

all information here

How did the 'Hobbesian state of nature' and the 'discourse of anarchy' - separated by three centuries - come to be seen as virtually synonymous? Before Anarchy offers a novel account of Hobbes's interpersonal and international state of nature and rejects two dominant views. In one, international relations is a warlike Hobbesian anarchy, and in the other, state sovereignty eradicates the state of nature. In combining the contextualist method in the history of political thought and the historiographical method in international relations theory, Before Anarchy traces Hobbes's analogy between natural men and sovereign states and its reception by Pufendorf, Rousseau and Vattel in showing their intellectual convergence with Hobbes. Far from defending a 'realist' international theory, the leading political thinkers of early modernity were precursors of the most enlightened liberal theory of international society today. By demolishing twentieth-century anachronisms, Before Anarchy bridges the divide between political theory, international relations and intellectual history.

• Bridges political theory, international relations and intellectual history, therefore it will appeal to scholars who work in hybrid disciplines
• Readers can trace all various uses of the state of nature as group-based rather than individualistic because of the book's new reading of the Hobbesian state of nature
• Challenges the rigid opposition between nature and sovereignty

WORKSHOP & CFP: "Law in A Changing Society" (Tel Aviv, November 21-23 2016)

WHAT Law in A Changing Society, the 4th Annual TAU Workshop for Junior Scholars, Workshop & Call for papers

WHEN November 21-23 2016

WHERE Tel-Aviv University, Faculty of Law

The workshop will explore the interface between legal change and social change: the ways in which law adapts itself to a changing society and the ways in which law changes society; how it reacts to technological, scientific advancements and globalization, how it supports and facilitates new institutions, and when and why it fails to do so. 

Relevant papers may discuss a variety of specific legal fields, as well as historical and theoretical questions.

Junior scholars are welcome (doctoral candidates, VAPs, writing fellows and recent graduates of doctoral programs) from universities and research institutions throughout the world to submit abstracts engaging with the general theme of the workshop. 

For details on submission, a further exploration of the theme of the workshop and funding possibilities please see the Call For Papers.

NOTICE: "Prizes in memory of Tullio Ascarelli and Domenico Maffei" (February 28, 2019)

WHAT Prizes in memory of Tullio Ascarelli and Domenico Maffei, one in Legal History and one in Commercial Law

WHEN deadline February 28 , 2019

WHERE Italy

for any information: premioascarelli@gmail.com

COLLOQUIUM & CFP: “Ius dicere in a globalized world” (Naples, June 15-17 2017)

WHAT Ius dicere in a globalized world, XXIV Biennial Colloquium of the Italian Association of Comparative Law, Colloquium & Call for Papers

WHEN Naples, June 15-17, 2017

WHERE Suor Orsola Benincasa University, Naples

Call for papers

The colloquium intends to put the focus, from a comparative perspective, on some of the following topics: 1. Can one agree on the statement that in the Western world the notion of jurisdiction is considerably fragmented and is no longer limited to the national State (or expression of public sovereignty) courts, and is dispersed in a multiplicity of experiences? Private jurisdictions (such as ADR, arbitration, sport courts etc.); and trans-national jurisdictions, set by international treaties, or by lex mercatoria).

2. What do we mean today, in the western world, by “jurisdiction”? What are its essential features? Can the resolution of disputes still be considered the main function of courts of law or should the traditional model of jurisdiction be enriched to encompass the new role of courts in many social settings (e.g. transitional justice and its emphasis on reconciliation)? Should one look essentially at the formal elements [such as independence of the decisionmaker(s) and adversary procedures], or at the functional role [e.g. adjudication which imitates traditional court jurisdiction], or a legal-realist approach [jurisdiction is what is perceived as such]?

3. To what extent can/are Western models exportable/transposable in non-Western contexts? To what extent have Western models of jurisdiction imported ideas from non-Western traditions?

4. The traditional notion of rule-of-law is strongly related to the control by the courts and the enforceability of their decisions. Should the notion be adapted to a changing reality?

5. What is the effect of the fragmentation of jurisdiction on the traditional court system? Are there consequences on the traditional (in continental Europe) distinction between civil, criminal and administrative jurisdictions?

6. What, if any, are the effects, both theoretical and practical, on the apportionment of powers and functions with regard also to the branches of the legislative and government? Is jurisdiction encroaching on Parliament and Government?

7. What are the implications of those forms of jurisdiction directly challenging the role of national States, e.g. those connected to international investment treaties (Investor-state dispute settlement)? Do they represent a conditioning of State prerogatives able to weigh upon State obligations towards their citizens?

8. Increasingly contemporary societies are concerned with the administrative costs related to providing access to justice, and jurisdictional procedures are seen as a service dependent on budget allocations. What are the emerging models, and to what extent are they circulating and hybridized? Is a global market for judicial services feasible? Are “digital jurisdictions” an appropriate alternative?

9. Can numbers and statistics help us to compare jurisdictions and jurisdictional models? And how?

10. Jurisdiction is intimately associated with effectiveness: can/should one compare/classify models according to the degree of compliance, whether spontaneous or forced?

BOOK: "Anonymous Speech. Literature, Law and Politics" by Eric Barendt (July 2016)

Anonymous Speech. Literature, Law and Politics, by Eric Barendt

all information here

Anonymous Speech: Literature, Law and Politics discusses the different contexts in which people write anonymously or with the use of a pseudonym: novels and literary reviews, newspapers and political periodicals, graffiti, and now on the Internet. The book criticises the arguments made for a strong constitutional right to anonymous speech, though it agrees that there is a good case for anonymity in some circumstances, notably for whistle-blowing. One chapter examines the general treatment of anonymous speech and writing in English law, while another is devoted to the protection of journalists’ sources, where the law upholds a freedom to communicate anonymously through the media. A separate chapter looks at anonymous Internet communication, particularly on social media, and analyses the difficulties faced by the victims of threats and defamatory allegations on the Net when the speaker has used a pseudonym. In its final chapter the book compares the universally accepted argument for the secret ballot with the more controversial case for anonymous speech.

This is the first comprehensive study of anonymous speech to examine critically the arguments for and against anonymity. These arguments were vigorously canvassed in the nineteenth century – largely in the context of literary reviewing – and are now of enormous importance for communication on the Internet.

About the Author

Eric Barendt is Emeritus Professor of Media Law at University College London.

BOOK: "The Constitution of the United Kingdom. A Contextual Analysis" by Peter Leyland (June 2016)

The Constitution of the United Kingdom. A Contextual Analysis, by Peter Leyland, third edition

all information here

This acclaimed book provides a topical and contextual outline of the principles,doctrines and institutions that underpin the United Kingdom constitution. The third edition of The Constitution of the United Kingdom has been comprehensively revised and updated to take account of recent constitutional developments and debates. This includes: the revised framework for devolution following the 2014 referendum in Scotland, the constitutional ramifications of the realignment of UK politics reflected in the result of the 2015 general election and the debate over the possible replacement of the Human Rights Act 1998 with a British Bill of Rights. 

The chapters are written in sufficient detail for anyone coming to the subject for the first time to develop a clear and informed view of how the constitution is arranged and how it operates. The main themes include: discussion of the history, sources and conventions of the constitution; later chapters deal with: constitutional principles, the role of the Crown, Parliament and the electoral system, government and the executive, the constitutional role of courts including the protection of human rights, the territorial distribution of power between central, devolved and local government, and the European Union dimension. In addition, the book offers analysis of the evolution of the uncodified UK constitution, its strengths and perceived weaknesses, and of reforms aimed at its modernisation.

About the Author

Peter Leyland is Professor of Public Law at SOAS, University of London and Emeritus of London Metropolitan University.

BOOK: "The Constitution of Romania. A Contextual Analysis" by Bianca Selejan-Gutan (2016)

The Constitution of Romania. A Contextual Analysis, by Bianca Selejan-Gutan

all information here

In December 1989, Romania became the last Eastern European communist country to break with its communist dictatorship, the most powerful in the region at the time. It has struggled ever since to overcome the transition to democracy and to become a ‘full-time’ member of the Western democratic community of states. This book provides a contextual analysis of the Romanian constitutional system, with references to the country’s troubled constitutional history and to the way in which legal transplantation has been used. The Constitution’s grey areas, as well as the gap between the written constitution and the living one, will also be explained through the prism of recent events that cast a negative shadow upon the democratic nature of the Romanian constitutional system. 

The first chapters present a brief historical overview and an introduction to Romanian constitutional culture, as well as to the principles and general features of the 1991 Constitution. The chapters which follow explain the functioning of the institutions and their interrelations—Parliament, the President, the Government and the courts. The Constitutional Court has a special place in the book, as do local government and the protection of fundamental rights. The last chapter refers to the mechanisms and challenges of constitutional change and development.

About the Author

Bianca Selejan-Gutan, PhD, is Professor of Constitutional Law and Human Rights Law at the Faculty of Law, 'Lucian Blaga' University of Sibiu.

BOOK: "The 1989 Revolution in East Germany and its impact on United Germany’s Constitutional Law" by Stephan Jaggi (June 2016)

The 1989 Revolution in East Germany and its impact on United Germany’s Constitutional Law. The Forgotten Revolution?, by Stephan Jaggi

all information here

The book promotes a completely new understanding of constitutional lawmaking in Germany. A thorough analysis of the 1989 Revolution in the GDR demonstrates that it is wrong to reduce the Revolution’s meaning to bringing about German unification and an unconditional adoption of West German constitutional law by the new states. Instead, the author shows that the Revolution had its own constitutional agenda, at least parts of which were transferred to unified Germany, where mostly the Federal Constitutional Court integrated them into the West German constitutional order. Case analyses reveal that unified Germany’s constitutional law is a co-production between East German revolutionaries and the old Federal Republic.

About the Author

Stephan Jaggi is Associate Professor of US, German, and Comparative Constitutional Law at Peking University School of Transnational Law.

June 2016     9781509908011     256 pp.  

BOOK: "EU Competition Law. An analytical guide to the leading cases" by Ariel Ezrachi (September 2016)

Fifth edition of the EU Competition Law. An analytical guide to the leading cases, by Ariel Ezrachi

This book is designed as a working tool for the study and practice of European Competition Law. It is an enlarged and updated fifth edition of the highly practical guide to the leading cases of European Competition Law. This new edition also contains detailed coverage of State Aid law. Each chapter begins with an introduction which outlines the relevant laws, regulations and guidelines for each of the topics, setting the analytical foundations for the case entries. Within this framework, cases are reviewed in summary form, accompanied by analysis and commentary. This seminal text is essential reading for competition law students and practitioners. 

About the Author

Ariel Ezrachi is the Slaughter and May Professor of Competition Law at the University of Oxford and the Director of the Oxford Centre for Competition Law and Policy. He is a Fellow and Tutor in Law at Pembroke College, Oxford. 

Book details

Fifth Edition   |   September 2016   |   724pp   |   Pbk   |   9781509909834   |   

BOOK: Daniel LEE, Popular Sovereignty in Early Modern Constitutional Thought [Oxford Constitutional Theory]. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016, 361 p. ISBN 9780198745167

(image source: Oxford Scholarship Online)

The Legal History Blog signalled a book by Daniel Lee (UC Berkeley) on Popular Sovereignty in Early Modern Constitutional Thought.

Abstract:

Popular sovereignty—the doctrine that the public powers of the state originate in a concessive grant of power from ‘the people’—is perhaps the cardinal doctrine of modern constitutional theory. Its classic formulation is to be found in the major theoretical treatments of the modern state, such as in the treatises of Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau, and it functions as a model in the design of modern constitutions, by locating the source of such public power in a putative ‘We the People’ anterior to public institutions. This book explores the intellectual origins of this constitutional doctrine in later medieval and early modern legal thought. Key to the operation of this doctrine was the legal science of Roman law, long regarded as the principal source for modern legal reasoning in Western jurisprudence. Roman law had a profound impact on the major architects of popular sovereignty doctrine, such as Baldus de Ubaldis, François Hotman, Jean Bodin, Johannes Althusius, and Hugo Grotius. The book illustrates how these jurists strategically integrated the juridical language of obligations, property, personality, as well as the model of the Roman constitution, into their analysis, locating the right of sovereignty in the people at large, as the exclusive owners of state authority. In recovering the origins of popular sovereignty in this way, the book demonstrates the vital importance of Roman law as one of the major sources of modern constitutionalism.

 Table of contents:

Introduction: Popular Sovereignty, Constitutionalism, and the Civil Law
1 The Lex Regia: The Theory of Popular Sovereignty in the Roman Law Tradition
2 The Medieval Law of Peoples
3 Roman Law and the Renaissance State: Dominium, Jurisdiction, and the Humanist Theory of Princely Authority
4 Popular Resistance and Popular Sovereignty: Roman Law and the Monarchomach Doctrine of Popular Sovereignty
5 The Roman Law Foundations of Bodin’s Early Doctrine of Sovereignty
6 Jean Bodin, Popular Sovereignty, and Constitutional Government
7 Popular Sovereignty, Civil Association, and the Respublica: Johannes Althusius and the German Publicists
8 Popular Liberty, Princely Government, and the Roman Law in Hugo Grotius’ De Iure Belli ac Pacis
9 Popular Sovereignty and the Civil Law in Stuart Constitutional Thought Conclusion

More information on the publisher's website.

FELLOWSHIP: "JEV-Fellowship for European Administrative History" (MPI, 2017)

WHAT JEV-Fellowship for European Administrative History, Research Fellowship

WHEN January 2017

WHERE Max Planck Institut, Frankfurt

deadline September 2016

all information here

At the end of 2012 Prof. Dr. Erk Volkmar Heyen, who served as Professor of Public Law and European Administrative History at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Greifswald until his retirement and as editor of the Jahrbuch für europäische Verwaltungsgeschichte/Yearbook of European Administrative History (JEV), which ran from 1989 to 2008, endowed a research fellowship in the field of European Administrative History ("The JEV-Fellowship for European Administrative History"). The fellowship falls within the framework of the German University Foundation (Bonn, Germany). 

The scholarship is intended to benefit the next generation of scientific researchers, particularly doctoral and post-doctoral students, and exclusively to complete their research project in as brief a period as possible to a maximum of 12 months. The scholarship is based on the usual rates for doctoral fellowships of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Should a fellowship be awarded to a researcher outside Germany, local scholarship rates will be taken into consideration. Marital status will not be taken into account, nor will travel or overhead costs be reimbursed.  

The Board of the German University Foundation awards the fellowship based on the recommendation of a jury, which is based at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History (MPI) in Frankfurt.  

Early stage researchers from Germany and abroad are invited to apply. In accordance with the thematic and methodological spectrum covered by the JEV, the scholarship is open to all historical disciplines, provided the research project addresses an aspect of European administrative history from the sixteenth to the twentieth century. The relevance of the research topic should not be restricted to a particular national context. Comparative research questions are particularly welcome. 

First time applications for a scholarship commencing in January 2017 can be submitted until 30 September 2016. Applications in English or German should be sent in electronic form to: Priv.Doz. Dr. Peter Collin, collin@rg.mpg.de. The application, which must also indicate  the intended duration of the fellowship, should include: a tabular CV with details on the nature and course university education with copies of examination results and diplomas to be enclosed, a list of scientific publications, where applicable; a detailed description of the research project including a detailed outline, a detailed report on the current state of the project and writing progress, including the reasons for any delay in its completion; extensive excerpts from the manuscript; information on the project’s previous,  current and planned financing arrangements; a precise timetable to complete the manuscript within the duration of the fellowship. Furthermore, at least  one expert opinion on the research project and a personal reference from a university lecturer are to be submitted directly to the jury. 

The MPI provides fellowship recipients with the opportunity to work in its library. Fellows are given the opportunity to present and discuss their research projects with members of the Institute. Upon expiration of the fellowship, the recipient is to submit a report on the status of the manuscript. The MPI provides for the publication of the manuscript in one of its book series, assuming it meets internal and scientific standards. The book is to acknowledge the support provided by the “JEV-Fellowship for European Administrative History” in the masthead or in the preface.

BOOK: "Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power" by Anna Su (2016)

Anna Su, Exporting Freedom: Religious Liberty and American Power

all information here

Religious freedom is widely recognized today as a basic human right, guaranteed by nearly all national constitutions. Exporting Freedom charts the rise of religious freedom as an ideal firmly enshrined in international law and shows how America’s promotion of the cause of individuals worldwide to freely practice their faith advanced its ascent as a global power. 

Anna Su traces America’s exportation of religious freedom in various laws and policies enacted over the course of the twentieth century, in diverse locations and under a variety of historical circumstances. Influenced by growing religious tolerance at home and inspired by a belief in the United States’ obligation to protect the persecuted beyond its borders, American officials drafted constitutions as part of military occupations—in the Philippines after the Spanish–American War, in Japan following World War II, and in Iraq after 2003. They also spearheaded efforts to reform the international legal order by pursuing Wilsonian principles in the League of Nations, drafting the United Nations Charter, and signing the Helsinki Accords during the Cold War. The fruits of these labors are evident in the religious freedom provisions in international legal instruments, regional human rights conventions, and national constitutions.

In examining the evolution of religious freedom from an expression of the civilizing impulse to the democratization of states and, finally, through the promotion of human rights, Su offers a new understanding of the significance of religion in international relations.

BOOK: "Marital Cruelty in Antebellum America" by Robin C. Sager (2016)

Robin C. Sager, Marital Cruelty in Antebellum America

all information here

In Marital Cruelty in Antebellum America, Robin C. Sager probes the struggles ofaggrieved spouses shedding light on the nature of marriage and violence in the United States in the decades prior to the Civil War. Analyzing over 1,500 divorce records that reveal intimate details of marriages in conflict in Virginia, Texas, and Wisconsin from 1840–1860, Sager offers a rare glimpse into the private lives of ordinary Americans shaken by accusations of cruelty. 

At a time when the standard for an ideal marriage held that both partners adequately perform their respective duties, hostility often arose from ongoing domestic struggles for power. Despite a rise in the then novel expectation of marriage as a companionate relationship, and even in the face of liberalized divorce grounds, marital conflicts often focused on violations of duty, not lack of love. Sager describes how, in this environment, cruelty was understood as a failure to fulfill expectations and as a weapon to brutally enforce more traditional interpretations of marital duty.  

Sager’s findings also challenge historical literature’s assumptions about the regional influences on violence, showing that married southerners were no more or less violent than their midwestern counterparts. Her work reveals how definitions and perceptions of cruelty varied according to the gender of victim and perpetrator. Correcting historical mischaracterizations of women’s violence as trivial, rare, or defensive, Sager finds antebellum wives both capable and willing to commit a wide variety of cruelties within their marriages. Her research provides details about the reality of nineteenth-century conjugal unions, including the deep unhappiness buried within them.

BOOK: "Governing the Sea in the Early Modern Era:Essays in Honor of Robert C. Ritchie" Peter C. Mancall and Carole Shammas (eds.) (2015)

Peter C. Mancall and Carole Shammas (eds.), Governing the Sea in the Early Modern Era:Essays in Honor of Robert C. Ritchie 

Early modern European governments clashed over laws governing the sea—an environment that featured watery borders, rampant piracy, the threat of free trade, and the large-scale transportation of human cargo. The essays in this volume explore how the exploitation of the oceans changed the institution of slavery, long-distance trade, property crime, the environment, literature, and memory, from medieval times to the nineteenth century.

here you can download the Table of Contents

Carole Shammas is Professor Emerita and John R. Hubbard Chair Emerita in History at the University of Southern California. Peter C. Mancall is Andrew W. Mellon Professor of the Humanities and Professor of History and Anthropology at the University of Southern California and director of the USC-Huntington Early Modern Studies Institute.

PAPERS on constitutional history by D. Hulsebosch (NYU)

(image source: SSRNblog)

Our colleagues at the Law & Humanities blog and the Legal History Blog signalled different new papers by prof. D. Hulsebosch (NYU School of Law).

1. "English Liberties Outside England: Floors, Doors, Windows, and Ceilings in the Legal Architecture of Empire" in: Lorna Hutson (ed.), Oxford History of English Law and Literature 1500-1700 (OUP, forthcoming)

Abstract:

We tend to think of global migration and the problem of which legal rights people enjoy as they cross borders as modern phenomena. They are not. The question of emigrant rights was one of the foundational issues in what can be called the constitution of the English empire at the beginning of transatlantic colonization in the seventeenth century. This essay analyzes one strand of this constitutionalism, a strand captured by the resonant term, ‘the liberties and privileges of Englishmen’. Almost every colonial grant – whether corporate charter, royal charter, or proprietary grant – for roughly two dozen imagined, projected, failed, and realized overseas ventures contained a clause stating that the emigrants would enjoy the liberties, privileges and immunities of English subjects. The clause was not invented for transatlantic colonization. Instead, it had medieval roots. Accordingly, royal drafters, colonial grantees, and settlers penned and read these guarantees against the background of traditional interpretations about what they meant. Soon, however, the language of English liberties and privileges escaped the founding documents, and contests over these keywords permeated legal debates on the meaning and effects of colonization. Just as the formula of English liberties and privileges became a cornerstone of England’s constitutional monarchy, it also became a foundation of the imperial constitution. As English people brought the formula west, they gave it new meanings, and then they returned with it to England and created entirely new problems. Liberties and privileges claims fell into five functional categories. First, the claim that colonists abroad and their descendants enjoyed English liberties functioned as an open door, allowing overseas colonists to return home to England and be treated as equal English subjects. Second, the king or his colonial deputies might make positive grants of English liberties to subjects in a royal territory outside England as an inducement for English subjects to migrate there. Here, the grant of English liberties and privileges functioned as a window, a transparent promise of familiar and cherished rights to encourage settlement. Third, already by the time of the English Civil War and more frequently by century’s end, the colonists themselves sometimes claimed English liberties, privileges, and immunities abroad as a floor below which governors could not push. Fourth, in the reverse of the second, the claim that overseas subjects had to be governed according to English standards, including English liberties and privileges, could function as a ceiling on colonial innovation. It was a ceiling measured by metropolitan officials, especially the Privy Council as it reviewed colonial statutes and judicial cases to ensure that they were, in the familiar language of colonial grants, ‘agreeable’ with and ‘not repugnant’ to the laws of England. Finally, colonial assumptions of English liberties functioned as a mirror through which colonists could see themselves as English, even when their colonial rights, such as their property rights, were viewed at home as peculiar. If for example a subject of the English king in an overseas dominion owned slaves in that dominion and wished to sojourn home, could he bring his slaves? Could he carry the rights of a Virginian or Jamaican with him to England and enjoy those rights there? Collapsing English and local liberties, slaveholders argued affirmatively. As Englishmen they should, they thought, be able to move around the empire with their property, including human property. 

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2. "Magna Carta for the World? The Merchants’ Chapter and Foreign Capital in the Early American Republic" (94 North Carolina Law Review) (paper presented as draft at the Magna Carta commemorative British Legal History Conference in Reading, 2015)

Abstract:

This Article examines the early modern revival and subtle transformation in what is here called the merchants’ chapter of Magna Carta and then analyzes how lawyers, judges, and government officeholders invoked it in the new American federal courts and in debates over congressional power. In the U.S. Supreme Court in the early 1790s, a British creditor and an American State debated the meaning and applicability of the merchants’ chapter, which guaranteed two rights to foreign merchants: free entry and exit during peacetime, without being subjected to arbitrary taxes; and, in wartime, the promise that their persons and goods would not be harmed or confiscated, unless their own king attacked and confiscated English merchants. In other words, no harm to enemy aliens, except as retaliation. Tit for tat.
The idea that reciprocity was a fundamental mechanism of international (and interpersonal) relations became something like a social science axiom in the early modern Enlightenment. Edward Coke claimed to find that mechanism in the merchants’ chapter and publicized it to lawyers throughout the emerging British Empire and beyond. Montesquieu lauded the English for protecting foreign commerce in their fundamental law, and Blackstone basked in that praise. American lawyers derived their understanding of the merchants’ chapter from these sources and then, in the early Republic, stretched the principle behind it to protect foreign capital, not just resident merchants. The vindication of old imperial debt contracts would signal to all international creditors that, in the United States, credit was safe. Federalists then invoked the chapter outside of the courts to resist Republican attempts to embargo commerce and sequester foreign credit. For Republicans, doux commerce had become the Achilles heel of the great Atlantic empires: their reliance on American trade could be used to gain diplomatic leverage without risking war. For Federalists, economic sanctions threatened not just their fiscal policy but their entire vision of an Atlantic world that increasingly insulated international capital from national politics. They all agreed, however, that the role of foreign capital in the American constitutional system was a central issue for the new and developing nation.

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3. "Exile, Choice, and Loyalism: Taking and Restoring Dignity in the American Revolution", to appear in Law and Social Inquiry (2016)

Abstract:

Taking a cue from Bernadette Atuahene’s concept of “dignity takings” and her insight that government expropriation inflicts more than economic injury, this essay analyzes how American revolutionaries defined political membership, penalized and expropriated British loyalists, and then allowed some to join the American polity in the decade after the Revolution. Many recovered their property, professions, and legal privileges. However, because most loyalists could choose to remain loyal or join the Revolution, they did not lose human dignity as Atuahene defines it. Case studies of two reintegrating lawyers, Richard Harison and William Rawle, explore loyalism, the loss of dignities that loyalists suffered, and some paths toward reintegration. Their appointment as federal attorneys helped make the government conversant in the common law, British statutes, and the law of nations, which in turn supported the Federalist goal of reintegrating the United States into the Atlantic World: achieving, in other words, national dignity.

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CALL FOR PRE-ORDERS: Eric BOUSMAR, Philippe DESMETTE & Nicolas SIMON (eds.), To Legislate, to Govern and to Judge. Legal and Institutional History Miscellanea (9th-21st Century) offered to Jean-Marie Cauchies at the occasion of his 65th Birthday. Brussels: Saint-Louis University Press, 2016, 530 p. € 45 (pre-order before 30 Sep 2016)

(source: RMBLF)

(image source: Université Saint-Louis)

The CRHiDI (Centre for Legal and Institutional History) at the Université Saint-Louis in Brussels will publish a collective work entitled Légiférer, gouverner et juger. Mélanges d'histoire du droit et des institutions (IXe -XXIe  siècle)offerts à Jean-Marie Cauchies à l'occasion de ses 65 ans, which will be presented to prof. em. dr. Jean-Marie Cauchies (Royal Academy of Belgium) at the occasion of his retirement.

Table of contents:

Éric Bousmar, Philippe Desmette, Nicolas Simon, Introduction

Éric Bousmar, Philippe Desmette, Nicolas Simon, Du droit, des institutions et des hommes. Les itinéraires de Jean-Marie Cauchies (23-52)
Publications de Jean-Marie Cauchies (53-97)
Le moyen âge entre coutumes et droit édictal : Italie, Savoie, France d’oc et d’oïl (IXe-XVe siècle) 

Antonio Padoa-Schioppa, La giustizia ecclesiastica nei Sinodi lombardi dell’età carolingia (99-112)
Florian Mariage, Pouvoirs et institutions au village : décodage de quelques « chartes-lois » du Tournaisis (XIIIe siècle) (113-130)
Albert Rigaudière, Policer la ville et protéger la campagne. Nîmes 1353-1363 (131-166)
Gérard Guyon (†), L’apport des juges dans la formation et le développement du droit coutumier. L’exemple des coutumes médiévales bordelaises (167-182)
Franco Morenzoni, Quelques remarques à propos d’un manuscrit du Compendium statutorum generalis reformacionis Sabaudie de la Zentralbibliothek de Zurich (183-196)
Jean-Louis Gazzaniga, La pragmatique sanction attribuée à saint Louis (1268) dans le débat gallican (XVIe – XIXe siècle) (197-211)

Justice, gouvernement et législation dans les Pays-Bas espagnols (XVIe-XVIIe siècle) 

Monique Vleeschouwer-Van Melkebeek, Incestum commisit. Contrôle et répression des relations charnelles et des mariages incestueux par le tribunal de l’officialité de Tournai au début du XVIe siècle (213-228)
Emmanuël Falzone, Princeps conventionis lege obligetur. Le pouvoir du Prince et ses limites dans un consilium de Leoninus au comte d’Egmont (Conseil des Troubles, 1567-1568) (229-250)
Gustaaf Janssens, L’abolition du Conseil des Troubles du duc d’Albe, un conseil « communément haï » aux Pays-Bas (1573-1576) (251-280)
Hugo De Schepper, Une législation de circonstance aux Pays- Bas sous le gouvernement personnel d’Alexandre Farnèse, 1579-1589 (281-298) 

Nicolas SIMON, Une culture d’État ? Législation et prise de décision dans les Pays-Bas espagnols (1580-1610)  (299-315)

Réglementation et législation dans la monarchie française, des Pays-Bas au Canada (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle) 
Alain Wijffels, La loi dans le discours judiciaire : l’article 15 de l’Édit Perpétuel de 1611 dans le ressort du Parlement de Flandre (317-354)
Dominique Gaurier, Les préambules des ordonnances françaises aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles : propagande royale ou véritable programme législatif ? (355-372)
Serge Dauchy, Faisons deffenses de traitter ny donner aucunes boissons enyvrantes aux Sauvages. Politique coloniale et conflits de pouvoir en Nouvelle-France (1657-1668) (373-395)

Les Pays-Bas autrichiens et le royaume des Pays-Bas. Des Lumières aux Révolutions : Ancien Régime et renouveau des idées (XVIIIe-XIXe siècle)

Sébastien Dubois, La publication des ordonnances dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens. Souveraineté, légalité, publicité (397-412)
Claude Bruneel, Les ventes publiques en Brabant au XVIIIe siècle. Formes et procédures (413-428)
Maxime Tondeur, La population civile, acteur majeur de la chasse aux déserteurs : un aperçu de l’évolution de la législation sur l’aide à la désertion dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens (429-448)
Bernard Vandermeesch, Ces lois « qui ne sont pas des lois ». Doctrines et justifications ecclésiastiques contre le nouvel ordre législatif à la fin de l’Ancien Régime en Belgique (449-464)
Fred Stevens, Guillaume Ier, codificateur du royaume des Pays-Bas et la « renationalisation » du droit (1815-1831) (465-488)

Variations sur l’histoire du droit et son actualité
Paul De Win, La maison rasée. Regard historique sur les mesures et sanctions envers la demeure des contrevenants et malfaiteurs du moyen âge à nos jours (489-504)
Annette Ruelle, Le pèlerin et la norme. L’art de la formule dans l’ancien droit romain, ou l’invention de l’État de droit par le rite (505-526)
Jacques Krynen, Bien légiférer aujourd’hui. Lire Dupin, Bacon, Rebuffe et les autres… Promenade à reculons (527-544)

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Update 27 Dec 2016: This work has been published as volume 144 in the University's publication series (ISBN 9782802802235) and can be purchased for € 65. More information on the Université Saint-Louis Bruxelles homepage.