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28 September 2018

BOOK: Gary WATT, Ed., A Cultural History of Law - Volumes 1-6 (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). ISBN 9781474212854, £355.50


(Source: Bloomsbury)

Bloomsbury is publishing a six volumes cultural history of law coming November. The books can be pre-ordered here

ABOUT THE BOOK

How have legal ideas and institutions affected Western culture? And how has the law itself been shaped by its cultural context?

In a work spanning 4,500 years, these questions are addressed by 57 experts, each contributing an authoritative study of a theme applied to a period in history. Supported by detailed case material and over 230 illustrations, the volumes examine trends and nuances of the culture of law in Western societies from antiquity to the present. Individual volume editors ensure the cohesion of the whole, and to make it as easy as possible to use, chapter titles are identical across each of the volumes. This gives the choice of reading about a specific period in one of the volumes, or following a theme across history by reading the relevant chapter in each of the six.

The six volumes cover: 1 - Antiquity (2500 BCE-500 CE); 2 - Middle Ages (500-1500); 3 - Early Modern Age (1500-1680); 4 - Age of Enlightenment (1680-1820); 5 - Age of Reform (1820-1920); 6 - Modern Age (1920-present).

Themes (and chapter titles) are: Justice; Constitution; Codes; Agreements; Arguments; Property and Possession; Wrongs; and the Legal Profession.

The total page extent for the pack is approximately 1200 pages. Each volume opens with a Series Preface, an Introduction and Notes on Contributors and concludes with Notes, Bibliography and an Index.

The Cultural Histories Series

A Cultural History of Law is part of the Cultural Histories Series. Titles are available both as printed hardcover sets for libraries needing just one subject or preferring a one-off purchase and tangible reference for their shelves, or as part of a fully searchable digital library available to institutions by annual subscription or on perpetual access (see www.bloomsburyculturalhistory.com).

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Gary Watt is a Professor of Law at the University of Warwick, and one of the General Editors of Law and Humanities. He was named UK 'Law Teacher of the Year' 2009.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Volume 1: A Cultural History of Law in Antiquity
Edited by Julen Etxabe, University of Helsinki, Finland

Volume 2: A Cultural History of Law in the Middle Ages
Edited by Emanuele Conte, Roma Tre University, Italy and EHESS, Paris, France and Laurent Mayali, University of California at Berkeley, USA

Volume 3: A Cultural History of Law in the Early Modern Age
Edited by Peter Goodrich, Cardozo School of Law, New York, USA

Volume 4: A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Enlightenment
Edited by Rebecca Probert, University of Exeter, UK and John Snape, University of Warwick, UK

Volume 5: A Cultural History of Law in the Age of Reform
Edited by Ian Ward, Newcastle University, UK

Volume 6: A Cultural History of Law in the Modern Age
Edited by Richard K Sherwin, New York University Law School, USA and Danielle Celermajer, University of Sydney, Australia

More information here

27 September 2018

CALL FOR PAPERS : The League of Nations Decentred – Law, Crises and Legacies – Melbourne Law School (DEADLINE: 30 November 2018)


(Source: Wikipedia)

We learned of a Call for Papers for a conference, to be held at Melbourne Law School in July 2019, on the League of Nations.

Conveners: Luís Bogliolo, Kathryn Greenman, Anne Orford, and Ntina Tzouvala.

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal (Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Almost a hundred years after the creation of the League of Nations, it is still commonly remembered as a failure in a period of chaos and disorder. Recently, however, a growing literature has begun a reappraisal of this historiography, looking at the role of the League of Nations beyond its frustrations and disillusionments in collective security. This new surge of critical studies has led to a more complex and multifaceted understanding of the League, exploring its legacies and impacts at a time of renewed economic crises and of deepening conflicting visions of international order. In the centenary of its foundation, we are taking this further by looking at the League of Nations with a view from the South. Our aim is to decentre the League and to explore competing visions of international order, law and institutions that resonate in our contemporary world.

This conference will bring together scholars working in law, history, international relations, and political theory to think critically about the League of Nations, law, institutions, practices, ideologies and technologies in relation to or with a view from the South. Paper proposals related to the conference theme are now invited. Possible topics for papers include:

  • The League of Nations and the regulation of international violence
  • Sovereignty, empires, and the shifting boundaries of international authority
  • Intervention (military, economic, political) in the context of the League
  • Anti-colonialism, the rise of transnational social movements (socialism, feminism, national liberation)
  • Competing internationalisms and visions of international order
  • The rise of fascism and Nazism
  • Petitioning, oversight, publicity and new arenas of international politics
  • Humanitarianism, humanitarian assistance and governance
  • Adjudication, arbitration, and the Permanent Court of International Justice
  • The relationship between the League of Nations and contemporary or succeeding international institutions
  • The Mandates system
  • Indigenous peoples and the League of Nations
  • Codification and the role of international law
  • Major crises of the League of Nations (eg Ethiopia, Manchuria)
  • Economic and social regulation and authority
Abstracts of no more than 350 words should be submitted to Dr Ntina Tzouvala (konstantina.tzouvala@unimelb.edu.au) by the 30th of November 2018.

More information here

LECTURE SERIES: Société d’histoire du droit – Programme pour l’année universitaire 2018-2019 (Paris)


We learned that the Société d’histoire du droit announced the speakers for its 2018-2019 lecture series.

The list can be found here.

More information here

26 September 2018

BOOK: Albert RIGAUDIÈRE, Histoire du droit et des institutions dans la France médiévale et moderne, 5th ed. (Paris: Economica, 2018). ISBN 978-2717869705, 57.00 €


(Source: Economica)

Economica has just published a new edition (5th) of Albert Rigaudière’s Histoire du droit et des institutions dans la France médiévale et moderne

ABOUT THE BOOK

Cette Histoire du droit et des institutions de la France médiévale et moderne vise à décrire, en quatre temps, comment s’est lentement construit le système juridique et institutionnel français. Droit et institutions s’y croisent en permanence pour montrer que la lente découverte du legs politique et juridique romain dans un Occident médiéval déstabilisé au lendemain des invasions a largement servi la renaissance de l’État. Mais il serait faux d’en rester à cette image stéréotypée d’un modèle institutionnel imposé par la romanité, tant les traditions germaniques, la pratique ecclésiale, l’apport du droit féodal, l’action des princes et des rois, tout comme la force de persuasion de leurs conseillers et de leurs légistes, ont admirablement contribué à façonner l’État royal. Un État constamment construit sur les droits et le Droit, autour d’un maillage d’institutions aux facettes perpétuellement mouvantes et toujours plus finement ciselées par les orfèvres du politique.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Albert RIGAUDIÈRE, membre de l’Institut (Académie des inscriptions et belles lettres) est professeur émérite de l’Université Paris II Panthéon-Assas. Médiéviste, ses travaux portent principalement sur l’histoire de l’État, de la ville, de la fiscalité et des sources du droit.

More information here

BOOK: Brian R. CHEFFINS, The Public Company Tranformed (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). ISBN 9780190640323, $85.00


(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press is publishing a book on the history of the public company in the USA during the 20th century

ABOUT THE BOOK

For decades, the public company has played a dominant role in the American economy. Since the middle of the 20th century, the nature of the public company has changed considerably. The transformation has been a fascinating one, marked by scandals, political controversy, wide swings in investor and public sentiment, mismanagement, entrepreneurial verve, noisy corporate "raiders" and various other larger-than-life personalities. Nevertheless, amidst a voluminous literature on corporations, a systematic historical analysis of the changes that have occurred is lacking. The Public Company Transformed correspondingly analyzes how the public company has been recast from the mid-20th century through to the present day, with particular emphasis on senior corporate executives and the constraints affecting the choices available to them. The chronological point of departure is the managerial capitalism era, which prevailed in large American corporations following World War II. The book explores managerial capitalism's rise, its 1950s and 1960s heyday, and its fall in the 1970s and 1980s. It describes the American public companies and executives that enjoyed prosperity during the 1990s, and the reversal of fortunes in the 2000s precipitated by corporate scandals and the financial crisis of 2008. The book also considers the regulation of public companies in detail, and discusses developments in shareholder activism, company boards, chief executives, and concerns about oligopoly. The volume concludes by offering conjectures on the future of the public corporation, and suggests that predictions of the demise of the public company have been exaggerated.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Brian R. Cheffins has been since 1998 the S.J. Berwin Professor of Corporate Law at Cambridge University. He has held visiting appointments at Columbia, Duke, Harvard, Oxford, Stanford, the University of British Columbia and the University of Western Ontario. Professor Cheffins has written widely in the areas of corporate law, corporate governance and business history.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

List of Figure
List of Tables
Chapter One: Introduction
Chapter Two: Managerial Capitalism
Chapter Three -- The 1970s: Managerial Capitalism Sustained But "Something Happened"
Chapter Four -- The 1980s: Managerial Capitalism Taken Over
Chapter Five -- The 1990s: Gloom to Euphoria and Back
Chapter Six: The 2000s: The Decade From Hell
Chapter Seven: The Future of the Public Company
Index

More information here


CALL FOR PAPERS: “The History of Legal Aid in the Premodern and Modern World” – 18-19 March 2019, University of Turku (DEADLINE 18 November 2018)



We learned of a call for papers for a conference on legal aid in the premodern and modern world at the University of Turku. Here the call: 

The idea of providing legal assistance to the poor has long roots. In the medieval world, it was often linked to theological notions of charitas and was one form of aiding personae miserabilis. The topic of legal aid was discussed in many writings since the early Middle Ages, and distinctions were made e.g. between deserving and undeserving poor. Many ecclesiastical and secular rulers felt the need for providing such assistance officially and positions of advocate for the poor (advocatus pauperum) were established.

In the modern world, new challenges, such as industrialisation and urbanisation, emerged creating an ever-growing demand for legal aid and its proper organisation. In France, legislation on legal aid (l’assistance judiciaire) was passed in 1851, with many other countries reforming legal aid in the following decades, as well. However, the actual organisation of legal assistance to the poor took varying forms from country to country. Some made it the charitable responsibility of lawyers to provide legal aid pro bono, others created special legal aid offices, while elsewhere the state or the communality paid lawyers to take on legal aid cases, and sometimes legal aid was created through the initiatives of women’s associations, religious organisations or trade unions. In many places, the 1970s witnessed another surge of legal aid reform.

This conference aims to bring together the various aspects of legal aid around the world and throughout history, highlighting common features and individual particularities.

Papers could discuss e.g.:
-the discussion of legal aid in jurisprudence
-what the rationale for providing legal aid was
-how and at who’s initiative legal aid was organised
-who legal aid lawyers were
-the relations between legal aid lawyers and other lawyers
-the participation of laymen in legal aid offices
-legal aid given by others than lawyers, e.g. social workers
-notions of access to justice
-what qualifications applied to those eligible for legal aid
-what kind of cases were handled
-developments in legislation
-legal advice given in newspapers and magazines


Confirmed keynote lectures will be given by Prof. Felice Batlan (Chicago-Kent College of Law, Illinois Institute of Technology) and Dr. Hiroki Kawamura (University of Frankfurt).

Deadline for paper proposals with abstracts (max. 400 words) is 18 November 2018. For further information, as well as sending paper proposals, please contact Dr. Marianne Vasara-Aaltonen (marianne.vasara-aaltonen[at]utu.fi).

COLLOQUIUM: Histoire de la République : réflexions sur les sensibilités républicaines (18 October 2018, Paris)


(Source: Hi-D)

Via Hi-D, we learned of a colloquium on French republicanism

Table ronde de l’Institut d’Histoire du Droit
Jeudi 18 octobre 2018 à partir de 14h
Salle du Conseil de la Faculté de droit, d’économie et de gestion
Sous la direction scientifique de M. Thomas BRANTHÔME, maître de conférences et membre de l’Institut d’Histoire du Droit

Programme complet à télécharger ICI

Discutants :
M. Jacques de SAINT-VICTOR, professeur d’histoire du droit à l’Université de Paris-XIII, co-auteur de L’Histoire de la République
M. Alain LAQUIÈZE, professeur de droit public à l’Université Paris Descartes
Mme Anne ULRICH-GIROLLET, maître de conférences à l’Université de Bourgogne
M. Patrice ROLLAND, professeur émérite de droit public à l’Université Paris-Est Val-de-Marne
Président de séance : 
M. Thomas BRANTHÔME, maître de conférences à l’Université Paris Descartes, organisateur de la table ronde, auteur de L’Histoire de la République

Présentation :
Cette table ronde propose une discussion sur la question du républicanisme français et ses soubassements historiques, juridiques et intellectuels. Longtemps considéré comme ayant pris naissance au XVIe siècle à la suite des écrits de Machiavel (le « moment machiavélien ») avant de devenir une « idée » au XVIII consacrée en France par des régimes républicains, le républicanisme moderne se voyait attribuer jusqu’alors un certain tracé homogène. Le projet de cette table ronde est de soumettre à ses participants une double remise en cause de ce tracé. Remise en cause temporelle d’une part en ce que la discussion soulèvera l’hypothèse d’une genèse plus ancienne à rechercher dans un espace-temps situé entre le XIIIe et le XVe siècle qui voit le modèle de la « république des anciens » être réétudié dans le sillage de redécouverte de la philosophie d’Aristote. Analytique d’autre part, car à partir du XVIIe siècle va se développer dans l’hexagone une idée républicaine «à la française », idée polymorphe, complexe et évolutive qui ne va pas se contenter de creuser un sillon unique mais ouvrir sur des branches et des traditions multiples que l’on pourra envisager en quatre « sensibilités » (conservatrice, libérale, jacobine et plébéienne).

(Source : Hi-D)

25 September 2018

CALL FOR PAPERS: Colonial Institutions and the Uses of Law in Early Modern South Asia – Radboud Universiteit Indian Ocean World in the 18th Century Workshop Series (DEADLINE: 21 October 2018)



We learned of a call for papers for a workshop on law in relation to 17th and 18th century colonial institutions. Here the call:

28 January 2019, Radboud University Nijmegen (Netherlands)
Organized by: Dries Lyna, Luc Bulten (both Radboud University Nijmegen) and Leonard Hodges (King’s College London)
In partnership with Alicia Schrikker (Leiden University) & International Institute for Asian Studies
Discussant: Nandini Chatterjee (University of Exeter)

Law has long been recognised as one of the most important fields for understanding the creation and maintenance of the colonial state in South Asia. Historians have shown how both criminal and civil law were a means for subjugating and governing colonised populations, as legal codes and property regimes served to maintain the social order and legitimise the extractive capacity of the colonial state. Recent research shifted away from this top-down perspective, and close attention to the actions of indigenous litigants has revealed how local populations used colonial legal systems to serve their own interests, with a great deal of present-day work focusing on legal pluralism. Yet the vast majority of this literature has addressed the question of law and colonialism in South Asia through the lens of the British colonial experience, privileging a particular path with all its subsequent implications for how we conceptualise the trajectory of South Asian history. In addition, the strong focus on British 19th-century institutions seems to have blurred the possible influence of their early modern (or even pre-colonial) predecessors.  

This one-day workshop seeks to complicate teleological readings of law and its relationship to colonial institutions and state-making by drawing on contexts beyond and before British domination in the subcontinent. By evoking the ‘uses of law’ we hope to capture both the constraints and opportunities the creation of colonial institutions posed for a wide range of people, whether colonial administrators, local elites, merchants, farmers or widows.

Central questions in this workshop are:

-        How did pluralistic settings affect the development of colonial institutions, and in what ways did these institutions appropriate and transform indigenous legalities?
-        How might local actors have sought to contest or benefit from particular colonial institutions?
-        And to what extent is it possible to capture indigenous agency when meditated through colonial institutions?

We therefore invite researchers to consider law in relation to 17th- and 18th-century colonial institutions, broadly defined, including courts of law, trading companies, religious missions and tax administrations. We welcome proposals from both junior and senior scholars with different geographical backgrounds, and comparative studies are certainly encouraged. Abstracts (max. 300 words) should be sent to southasianlawradboud@gmail.com before October 22, 2018. Decisions on acceptance of presentations will be communicated no later than October 29, 2018. For more information, contact one of the workshop’s organisers.

BOOK: Dylan LINO, Constitutional Recognition - First Peoples and the Australian Settler S tate (Leichardt: The Federation Press, 2018). ISBN 9781760021818, $45.00


(Source: Federation Press)

The Federation Press has published a book on indigenous constitutional recognition in Australia.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When Australians today debate how to achieve a just postcolonial relationship with the First Peoples of the continent, they typically do so using the language of ‘constitutional recognition’. The idea of constitutional recognition has become the subject of community forums and nationwide inquiries, street protests and prime ministerial speeches. Dylan Lino’s book provides the first comprehensive study of Indigenous constitutional recognition in Australia.

Offering more than a legal analysis, Lino places the idea of constitutional recognition into a broader historical and theoretical perspective. After recounting the history of Australian debates on Indigenous recognition, the book presents an account that views constitutional recognition in terms of Indigenous peoples’ struggles to have their identities respected within the settler constitutional order. When studied in this way, constitutional recognition emerges not as a postcolonial endpoint but as an ongoing process of renegotiating the basic Indigenous–settler political relationship.

With First Peoples continuing to press for the recognition of their sovereignty and peoplehood, this book will be a definitive reference point for scholars, advocates, policy-makers and the interested 
public.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dylan Lino is a Lecturer at the University of Western Australia Law School. His research focuses on the rights of Indigenous peoples, constitutional law and theory, and legal history. He holds degrees in Arts and Law (with Honours) from the University of New South Wales, a Master of Laws from Harvard University and a PhD from Melbourne Law School. In 2017, Dylan worked as a legal adviser to the Commonwealth Government’s Referendum Council, whose work led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword by Professor Megan Davis, Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous, UNSW
Acknowledgments 
1.  Introduction
2. The Constitutional Politics of Indigenous Recognition in Australia, 1979–2018
3.  Conceptualising Constitutional Recognition
4.  Constitutionalising Indigenous Recognition
5.  The Incompleteness of Indigenous Constitutional Recognition: Learning from 1967
6.  Indigenous Constitutional Recognition and Racial Discrimination: Learning from 1975
7.  Constitutionally Recognising Indigenous Peoplehood: Towards Indigenous–Settler Federalism
8.  Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

More information here

24 September 2018

JOURNAL: American Journal of Legal History Vol. 58 (2018), Issue 3


(Source: AJLH)

The American Journal of Legal History published its 3rd issue of the year. Here the table of contents:

Articles

Revisiting the Critiques of Those Who Upheld the Fugitive Slave Acts in the 1840s and ‘50s
Peter Karsten 291
The Law Wars in Massachusetts, 1830-1860: How a Band of Upstart Radical Lawyers Defeated the Forces of Law and Order, and Struck a Blow for Freedom and Equality Under Law
Alexandra D. Lahav and R. Kent Newmyer 326
‘‘O Amherst, Where is Thy Shame?’’: Republican Opposition to Federalist Policies in a New England Town
Susan J. Siggelakis and Nicholas Mignanelli 360
Judicial Intervention in Early Corporate Governance Disputes: Vice-Chancellor Shadwell’s Lost Judgment in Mozley v Alston (1847)
Victoria Barnes 394

Book Reviews

David Barker, A History of Australian Legal Education
Mark Lunney 414
Dante Fedele, Naissance de la diplomatie moderne (XIIIe-XVIIe sie`cles).
L’ambassadeur au croisement du droit, de l’e´thique et de la politique
Frederik Dhondt 416
Shaunnagh Dorsett, Juridical Encounters: Maori and the Colonial Courts 1840–1852
Katherine Sanders 418
Guido Rossi, Insurance in Elizabethan England. The London Code
Dave De ruysscher 420
Mark Lunney, A History of Australian Tort Law 1901–1945: England’s Obedient Servant?
Henry Kha 423

More information here

21 September 2018

BOOK: Xavier PREVOST, Jacques Cujas (1522-1590) [Histoire littéraire de la France, t. 46] (Paris: Académie des inscriptions et des belles-lettres/de Boccard, 2018), 160 p. ISBN 9782877543705. € 40.

(image source: univ-droit)


Book abstract:
Jacques Cujas reste encore aujourd’hui l’un des plus célèbres jurisconsultes français, bien que son œuvre demeure trop largement méconnue. Né à Toulouse en 1522, il poursuit une riche et itinérante carrière de professeur de droit romain. Après avoir effectué l’intégralité de ses études dans sa ville natale, il est docteur-régent à Cahors (1554-1555), Bourges (1555-1557, 1559-1566 et 1575-1590), Valence (1558-1559 et 1567-1575) et Turin (1566-1567), et enseigne brièvement à Paris en 1576. Au cours de cette carrière ascensionnelle (qui s’achève par sa mort à Bourges le 4 octobre 1590), Cujas publie de nombreux ouvrages qui lui confèrent une très grande renommée et attirent à lui la foule des étudiants. Cette gloire est principalement due à la compréhension renouvelée des textes de droit romain résultant de l’application des savoirs humanistes à l’étude du droit. Figure de la Renaissance, Jacques Cujas apparaît, plus particulièrement, comme le principal représentant de la méthode historique au sein du courant de l’humanisme juridique.

More information with the publisher.

(source: univ-droit)

BOOK: David COHEN and Yuma TOTANI, The Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal - Law, History, and Jurisprudence (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). ISBN 9781107119703, £ 105.00



Cambridge University Press is publishing a new book on the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal next month.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Like its Nuremberg counterpart, the Tokyo trial was foundational in the field of international law. However, up to now, the persistent notion of 'victor's justice' in the existing historical literature has made it difficult to treat it as such. David Cohen and Yuma Totani seek to redress this by cutting through persistent orthodoxies and ideologies that have plagued the trial. Instead they present it simply as a judicial process, and in so doing reveal its enduring importance for international jurisprudence. A wide range of primary sources are considered, including court transcripts, court exhibits, the majority judgment, and five separate concurring and dissenting opinions. The authors also provide comparative analysis of the Allied trials at Nuremberg, resulting in a comprehensive and empirically grounded study of the trial. The Tokyo tribunal was a watershed moment in the history of the Asia-Pacific region. This ground breaking study reveals it is of continuing relevance today.

ABOUT THE AUTHORS

David CohenStanford University, California

David Cohen directs the WSD Handa Center for Human Rights and International Justice at Stanford University. Previously Cohen was at the War Crimes Studies Center at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for thirty-five years before moving the Center to Stanford University in 2013. He publishes on international criminal law, transitional justice, human rights, classics, and comparative legal history, while also directing human rights, rule of law, and accountability projects in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.
Yuma TotaniUniversity of Hawaii

Yuma Totani is a historian of modern Japan and presently teaches at the University of Hawaii. Her research interests are in World War II and war crimes trials in Asia and the Pacific. She is the author of The Tokyo War Crimes Trial (2008) and Justice in Asia and the Pacific Region, 1945–1952 (Cambridge, 2015). She has received various fellowships, including a National Fellowship from the Hoover Institution (2016), the Frederick Burkhardt Residential Fellowship (2012), and the Abe Fellowship (2011).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Part I. The Allied War Crimes Policy, the Indictment, and Court Proceedings:
1. The framework of the trial
2. Charges of crimes against peace
3. The Japanese system of government
4. Individual roles in the making of the war and the overall conspiracy
5. Counts on murder, conventional war crimes, and crimes against humanity
6. Accountability of war crimes
Part II. Law and Jurisprudence of the Judgments and Separate Opinions:
7. The majority judgment: crimes against peace
8. An alternative perspective on accountability for crimes against peace: the two Webb judgments
9. The majority judgment on war crimes
10. An alternative Tokyo judgment: the draft Webb judgment on war crimes
11. The dissenting opinions by Justices Bernard and Roeling
12. Pal's 'judgment', or dissenting opinion, on crimes against peace
13. Pal's treatment of war crimes charges
14. The concurring opinions of Justices Webb and Jaranilla
Conclusion.

More information here

20 September 2018

BOOK: Maartje M. ABBENHUIS, The Hague Conferences and International Politics, 1898-1915 (London: Bloomsbury, 2018). ISBN 9781350061347, $102.60


(Source: Bloomsbury)

Bloomsbury has just published a book on the history of the two Hague peace conferences of 1899 and 1907 (and the third conference of 1915 that was never held).

ABOUT THE BOOK

Beginning with the extraordinary rescript by Tsar Nicholas II in August 1898 calling the world's governments to a disarmament conference, this book charts the history of the two Hague peace conferences of 1899 and 1907 – and the third conference of 1915 that was never held – using diplomatic correspondence, newspaper reports, contemporary publications and the papers of internationalist organizations and peace activists.

Focusing on the international media frenzy that developed around them, Maartje Abbenhuis provides a new angle on the conferences. Highlighting the conventions that they brought about, she demonstrates how The Hague set the tone for international politics in the years leading up to the First World War, permeating media reports and shaping the views and activities of key organizations such as the inter-parliamentary union, the international council of women and the Institut de droit international (Institute of International Law).

Based on extensive archival research in the Netherlands, Great Britain, Switzerland and the United States alongside contemporary publications in a range of languages, this book considers the history of the Hague conferences in a new way, and presents a powerful case for the importance of The Hague conferences in shaping twentieth century international politics.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maartje Abbenhuis is Associate Professor in Modern European History at the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She has published widely on the history of neutrality and internationalism, including The Art of Staying Neutral: The Netherlands in the First World War (2006) and An Age of Neutrals: Great Power Politics 1815–1914 (2014).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
1. How the 19th Century Shaped the Hague Conferences
2. The Tsar, the Rescript and the World
3. A Coram Publies: Planning for the First Hague Conference, 1899
4. It is Not Enough! The First Hague Conference, 1899
5. Civilisation at War, 1899 - 1906
6. A Holy Duty: Activists for The Hague
7. When the World Showed Up: Global Diplomacy at the Second Hague Conference, 1907
8. The Hague: Capital of the World
9. The Work of Civilisation: The Third Hague Conference and the First World War
Conclusion
Notes
Index

More information here

ADVANCE ARTICLE: Justyna WUBS-MROZEWICZ, 'Neutrality before Grotius: A City, a State and Seven Salt Ships in the Baltic (1564-1567)', Journal of Early Modern History

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:
The article argues on the basis of a case from the 1560s in Danzig that prior to the formulation of the legal concept of neutrality by Hugo Grotius, there was a practice of neutrality. It was expressed in various terms and manners. This practice pertained to both cities and states, and the case discloses the first documented instance when the Netherlands explicitly strove for neutrality also by legal means. The choice for neutrality was rooted in political and economic interests and as such had advantages, but it was also fraught with difficulties. The analysis shows that the actual extent of neutrality depended on the acceptance (or lack thereof) of the warring parties. Also, by excluding the possibilities of the use of violence or economic means of pressure like blockades, neutrals were limited to diplomacy and law during conflicts. This lay the ground for the development of a legal concept of neutrality

More information with Brill.

BOOK: Massimo PANEBIANCO, Introduzione alla codicistica del Jus Gentium Europaeum. Codice Lünig-Leibniz-Dumont [Jus Gentium Europaeum. Collana di studi comunitari; 18] (Napoli: Editoriale Scientifica, 2016), XII + 276 p. ISBN 978-88-6342-936-7, € 24

(image source: Editoriale Scientifica)

Book abstract:
L'Europa del '700 è una delle mille forme dell'Europa possibile: Europa dei codici, Europa codicistica, Europa della scrittura diplomatica. Si vedrà come il presente volume si ispira alle recenti tendenze dedicate allo studio geo-politico della "grande storia" del diritto internazionale, ai fini della descrizione degli spazi continentali di area vasta. Tale ricerca ha esaminato il periodo più alto della codificazione europea del diritto internazionale della prima metà del '700 e si è fondata su un moderno "codice triplo" risultante dalla combinazione di altrettanti classici della codificazione dello jus gentium europeo. Il cd. Codice "Lünig-Leibniz-Dumont" proviene dalla scuola austro-germanica del '700 europeo, contenente in tutto o in parte la storia internazionale dei singoli Stati europei nei rapporti fra di loro e con gli altri Stati del mondo dall'antico al moderno (Italia compresa). L'autore di questo libro si rivolge ai lettori, come al pubblico benevole di una sala concerti d'Europa del '700 e si augura che i tre codici diplomatici qui esaminati siano come un unico "concerto triplo". Anche tali codici sono "icone" della storia passata e servono a portare fino a noi la voce dei secoli, bene impressa nel loro testo.
More information here.
Rechtsgeschichte 28 (2018) contains a review by Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina (Zürich).

(source: ESILHIL Blog)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Conference - The Making of a World Order: A Reappraisal of the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles, The American University of Paris (DEADLINE: 15 October 2018)


(Source: Wikipedia)

Via Hsozkult, we learned of a call for papers for a conference on the Paris Peace Conference and the Treaty of Versailles. Here the call:

Upon the occasion of the hundredth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and the Center for Critical Democracy Studies at The American University of Paris will hold two conferences in the Spring of 2019 in Paris and the Fall of 1919 in Cambridge, MA. Designed as a pair of facing conferences, the first will re-appraise the 1919 Paris Peace Conference from the vantage point of new historical evidence and recent scholarly focus on its global impact, while the second conference will look back upon 1919 from the perspective of their continuing contemporary relevance to both international relations and policy making. Both conferences will be deeply interdisciplinary, including featured speakers and panelists from history, international relations, public policy and diplomacy, in an effort to approach the Paris Peace Conference from multiple, international perspectives.

Call for Papers for the Paris 2019 Conference: May 23-25, 2019 (deadline for paper and panel submissions, October 15, 2018)

To commemorate the 100th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, the Paris conference will explore the Treaty, and the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 more broadly, from the perspective of a new world order it simultaneously did and did not make. In 1994, on the 75th Anniversary of the Versailles Treaty, leading scholars of European and international history gathered to reassess the Treaty of Versailles and its impact on the trajectory of twentieth-century history. The result was a path-breaking volume that both re-assessed the divergent aims of the different Great Powers at the Paris Peace Conference, as well as how the negotiations themselves laid the foundation for its own collapse twenty years later. But the volume remained largely Eurocentric—the rest of the world emerged in the volume as bit players on a European stage. In the past two decades, historians of modern Europe have pushed our understanding of the long nineteenth century toward new borders, asking novel questions and forcing us to recognize the power of movements, processes, trends, and influences on a planetary scale. Indeed, it was this “transformation of the modern world” (Osterhammel) during the global nineteenth-century that ran headlong into the cataclysmic events of the first “World” War. From 1914-1918, the world slipped into a massive military conflict on an unprecedented scale. In the immediate aftermath of the war, the task at hand was little less than constructing a new world order.

Building on the growing interest in World War I as a global conflict that extended far beyond the borders of Europe, the Paris 2019 conference will explore the global political ramifications of the treaties prepared at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. It is hard to overstate the importance of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference for redefining the place of the United States in the world, re-shaping the geo-political configurations of the Middle East, Asia and Europe, the new place of the South Pacific, the need to re-conceive of world relations with a new Soviet Russia, the massive impact on European colonies in Africa, the place of Latin America, and the construction of the League of Nations. Far from a mere cessation of hostilities, the peace treaties signed in 1919 and 1920 marked a massive transformation on local, national, continental and global scales.

Four renowned experts of the First World War have agreed to present keynote addresses at the conference: Margaret MacMillan (Oxford University), Priya Satia (Stanford University), Tze-ki Hon (City University of Hong Kong), and Adam Tooze (Columbia University).

Besides the four plenary speakers, the Paris 2019 Conference will invite panelists in multiple disciplines relating to all aspects of the 1919 Paris Peace Conference. Alongside historians, the conference seeks to include other perspectives from the social sciences and humanities, including, but not limited to, historical sociology, political anthropology, political science, economics, and literature. Since the conference focuses particularly on the global effects of 1919, the organizers encourage the participation of scholars whose area of focus is outside Europe. To this end, there will be some funding available for early-career scholars and those traveling long distances.

The Paris conference organizers will proceed immediately to a broad call for papers, and a simultaneous invitation to specialists in the field to participate. Possible Panel Themes may include:

- Migration and Minority Rights and the Paris Peace Conference
- The Paris Peace Conference and New International Intellectual Networks
- The Creation of New Regional and Inter-Regional Politics
- The Paris Peace Conference and the Rise of New International Organizations
- Sovereignty, Self-Determination, and De-Colonization
- The “New Woman” and the Paris Peace Conference
- The Paris Peace Conference, International Socialism, and the Specter of Communism

The intention of the organizers of the conference, in alignment with the mission of the Center for Critical Democracy Studies, is to weave the conference preparation and presentation into course work at the American University of Paris, making the Treaty the subject of its annual freshman seminar, Democracy Lab, and summer Democracy Institute. In addition, the Center publishes the Tocqueville Review, which will devote a special two-volume issue to the best papers of the conference.

The Paris Conference will take place on May 23-25, 2019.

Please submit paper or full-panel proposals (300 words) and a brief (2-page) cv to parispeace1919@aup.edu by October 15, 2018.

Summary of key dates:
October 15, 2018 Deadline for paper proposals
November, 2018 Final decisions on paper and panel proposals
January, 2018 Preliminary Program released
March, 2018 Final Program released
May 23-25, 2018 Conference

Kontakt
Albert Wu
awu@aup.edu / albert.wu@gmail.com
102 rue St. Dominique
75007 Paris

(Source: Hsozkult.de)

BOOK: Mario DAMEN, Jelle HAEMERS, and Alastair J. MANN (eds.), Political Representation: Communities, Ideas and Institutions in Europe, (c. 1200-c. 1690) (Leiden-New York: Brill, 2018). ISBN 9789004352414, €143.00


(Source: Brill)

Brill has published a new book containing many contributions on political representation in medieval and early modern Europe.  

ABOUT THE BOOK

Political Representation: Communities, Ideas and Institutions in Europe (c. 1200 - c. 1690), a scholarly collection on representation in medieval and early modern Europe, opens up the field of institutional and parliamentary history to new paradigms of representation across a wide geography and chronology – as testified by the volume’s studies on assemblies ranging from Burgundy and Brabant to Ireland and Italy. The focus is on three areas: institutional developments of representative institutions in Western Europe; the composition of these institutions concerning interest groups and individual participants; and the ideological environment of representatives in time and space. By analysing the balance between bottom-up and top-down approaches to the functioning of institutions of representation; by studying the actors behind the representative institutions linking prosopographical research with changes in political dialogue; and by exploring the ideological world of representation, this volume makes a key contribution to the historiography of pre-modern government and political culture. 

Contributors are María Asenjo-González, Wim Blockmans, Mario Damen, Coleman A. Dennehy, Jan Dumolyn, Marco Gentile, David Grummitt, Peter Hoppenbrouwers, Alastair J. Mann, Tim Neu, Ida Nijenhuis, Michael Penman, Graeme Small, Robert Stein and Marie Van Eeckenrode.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Dr Mario Damen is Senior Lecturer at the University of Amsterdam. He is especially interested in social, political and cultural history of the late medieval Low Countries and the princes, nobles and administrative elites of the Burgundian and Habsburg composite state. His publications includePrelaten, edelen en steden. De samenstelling van de Staten van Brabant in de vijftiende eeuw (2016) and ‘The knighthood in and around fifteenth century Brussels’, Journal of Medieval History 43, (2017). 

Dr Jelle Haemers is Senior Lecturer at the University of Leuven (KU Leuven). Apart from urban history his research interests encompass social and political conflicts in the late medieval town, notably in the Low Countries (1100-1550). Among others he published For the Common Good. State Power and Urban Revolts in the Reign of Mary of Burgundy, 1477-1482(2009). 

Dr Alastair Mann is Senior Lecturer at Stirling University, Scotland. He researches parliamentary history, the Restoration, and book history. He is co-editor of The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707 (2008-) and author of the biography James VII: duke and king of Scots (2014). 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements
List of Illustrations
Contributors and Editors 

An Introduction: Political Representation Communities, Ideas and Institutions in Europe (c. 1200–c.
1650)
  Mario Damen, Jelle Haemers and Alastair J. Mann


Part 1: Top-down or Bottom-up? Princes, Communities and Representation

Assemblies of Estates and Parliamentarism in Late Medieval Europe
 Peter Hoppenbrouwers
Political Representation and the Fiscal State in Late Medieval and Early Modern Castile
 María Asenjo-González
Forms of Political Representation in Late Medieval Northern Italy: Merits and Shortcomings of the City-State Paradigm (14th–early 16th Century)
 Marco Gentile
Representation in Later Medieval and Early Modern Ireland
 Coleman A. Dennehy
Speaking in the Name of: Collective Action, Claim-making, and the Development of Pre-modern Representative Institutions
 Tim Neu


Part 2: Prelates, Nobles and Patricians: The Composition of the Representative Institutions

“The King wishes and commands?” Reassessing Representative Assembly in Scotland, c.1286–1329
 Michael Penman
Officers of State and Representation in the Pre-modern Scottish Parliament
 Alastair J. Mann
The Nobility in the Estates of the Late Medieval Duchy of Brabant
 Mario Damen
Representation by Numbers: How Attendance and Experience Helped Holland to Control the Dutch States General (1626–1630)
 Ida Nijenhuis


Part 3: Controlling the State: Ideas and Discourses

10 The Antwerp Clerk Jan van Boendale and the Creation of a Brabantine Ideology
 Robert Stein
11 Rituals of Unanimity and Balance: Deliberation in 15th- to 16th-century Hainaut: A Fool’s Game?
 Marie Van Eeckenrode
12 Speech Acts and Political Communication in the Estates-General of Valois and Habsburg Burgundy c. 1370–1530: Towards a Shared Political Language
Jan Dumolyn and Graeme Small
13Parliament, War and the “Public Sphere” in Late Medieval England: The Experience of Lancastrian Kent
David Grummitt
14Who has a Say? The Conditions for the Emergence and Maintenance of Political Participation in Europe before 1800
Wim Blockmans
Conclusion: Reconsidering Political Representation in Europe, 1400–1700
Selective Bibliography
Index 

More information here