CONFERENCE VIDEOS: "État, pouvoirs et contestations politiques dans les colonies françaises et britanniques d’Amérique (vers 1640-vers 1780)" (Le Mans: Association des historiens modernistes des universités françaises, 9 NOV 2018)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Programme (with video links):

Jean-Marie Constant, Université du Mans : « Nouvelles perspectives de recherches et d’interprétations concernant la Fronde ».Gauthier Aubert, Université de Rennes : « Les révoltes du Papier timbré et des Bonnets Rouges (1675) »Stéphane Haffemayer, Université de Rouen : « La révolution anglaise des années 1640 et les mutations de la communication politique ».Stéphane Jettot, Sorbonne Université : « Algernon Sidney et Lord Bolingbroke : deux figures emblématiques du renouveau de l’histoire politique britannique (1640-1780) ».Edmond Dziembowski, Université de Besançon : « Du Country Party au radicalisme (vers 1670-vers 1780): anatomie de la contestation politique en Grande-Bretagne. »Paul Vo-Ha, Université Paris I : « Les soldats protestants dans l’armée royale à l’heure de la Révocation ».Pierre Serna, Université Paris I : « Ni Etats, ni pouvoirs : une Révolution de 140 ans ».

(Source: ESILHIL Blog)

PROGRAMME: British Legal History Conference 2019: Comparative Legal History (University of St Andrews, 10-13 July 2019)

(Source: BLHC2019.uk)

We learned that registration for the British Legal History Conference 2019 is now open. The draft programme has also been released and can be found here

More information at the conference website

BOOK: Jean-Pierre MOISSET, L’Etat, l’argent et les cultes de 1958 à 1987 : contribution à l’histoire de la laïcité française (Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2018). ISBN 978-2-7535-7488-5, €26.00

(Source: PUR)

Presses Universitaires de Rennes has published a book on organized religion and French law between 1958-1987.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Entre 1958 et 1987, le droit français s’est enrichi de mesures favorables aux intérêts des cultes. Quelle histoire se cache derrière ces nouvelles dispositions légales ? Comment la Ve République a-t-elle construit un cadre qui sert les intérêts des cultes tout en respectant l’interdiction de leur financement public posée en 1905 ? Cet ouvrage montre que des responsables catholiques ont su trouver une oreille attentive auprès de décideurs politiques appartenant aux différentes familles de la droite. Chemin faisant, le rapprochement de l’État et des religions organisé par la loi Debré (1959) sur le terrain scolaire a été complété sur le plan cultuel par une série de dispositifs qui restent d’actualité.

Publié avec le soutien de l’IFSEC Aquitaine et du CEMMC de l’université Bordeaux Montaigne.

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jean-Pierre Moisset, agrégé d’histoire, exerce à l’université Bordeaux Montaigne comme maître de conférences HDR en histoire contemporaine. Ses recherches portent sur l’Église catholique ainsi que sur la laïcité aux XIXe-XXe siècles, principalement sous l’angle des réalités matérielles. Il est l’auteur d’une Histoire du catholicisme (Flammarion, 2006).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Une nouvelle conjoncture laïque (1958)

• Aspects d’une France nouvelle
• Certitudes et inquiétudes religieuses
• La dynamique laïque en marche
• Le ministère de Gaulle (1er juin 1958-8 janvier 1959)

Des dispositifs favorables aux intérêts catholiques (1959-1963)

• Deux préoccupations précoces : le culte et l’enseignement
• Le Comité national des constructions d’églises
• La garantie publique des emprunts à finalité cultuelle
• La déductibilité fiscale des dons en faveur des édifices cultuels

Une méthode interconfessionnelle payante (1964-1969)

• « L’implantation des lieux de culte dans l’aménagement du territoirenbsp;»
• De nouvelles facilités administratives et fiscales pour les cultes
• Application et extension de la garantie des emprunts par l’État
• De l’élan aux remises en cause

Le renouvellement des enjeux laïques (1970-1978)

• Turbulences religieuses et normalisation urbaine
• Le temps des conquêtes : suite et fin ?
• Un nouveau défi : la Sécurité sociale des cultes

Le parti des institutions religieuses (1979-1987)

• Une Sécurité sociale sur mesure
• Une retraite défavorable aux « exnbsp;»
• « Sectes »nbsp;», dissidences et label cultuel
• L’instauration d’un mécénat cultuel

More information here

BOOK: Jean-Guy TALAMONI, Le Républicanisme corse - Sources, institutions, imaginaire (Ajaccio: Albiana, 2018). ISBN 9782824109299, €14.00

(Source: Albiana)

Albiana has published a book on the Republic of Corsica.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Dans le présent essai, relevant de l’histoire de la culture et des idées, l’auteur propose d’aborder la formation d’un « républicanisme corse » à l’âge de l’indépendance de la Corse (1755-1769). Il s’agit là d’une page de l’histoire de l’île souvent dédaignée voire déniée, parfois simplement méconnue des spécialistes ou des Corses eux-mêmes. 

Pourtant, l’expérience inouïe de la promulgation de la première constitution démocratique de l’âge contemporain (1755) aurait pu, aurait dû éveiller l’intérêt de chacun. En effet, pionnière à l’âge des révolutions (1776 en Amérique, 1789 en France), la mise en oeuvre de principes prônés par les philosophes des Lumières avait de quoi ébranler les consciences. Et justifier la consécration de ses hérauts. Il n’en fut presque rien… 

Droit du peuple à résister et à décider de son destin, institution d’une démocratie (gouvernement établi « pour le bonheur de la nation », chambres de délibérations des lois et de contrôle des politiques, etc.), laïcité (mise à distance du spirituel dans les affaires de la cité et droits des minorités religieuses), confirmation du droit de vote des femmes (lorsqu’elles étaient à la tête de la famille), établissement d’un État de droit (justice publique et ordre social), lutte contre l’ignorance et l’obscurantisme (ouverture d’une université) font notamment partie des innovations remarquables de l’État mis sur pied par Pasquale Paoli et ses compagnons de route. 

Dans l’Europe du XVIIIe siècle, la Révolution corse ne passa pourtant pas inaperçue. Elle fut défendue par les plus éclairés, mais dressa irrémédiablement les absolutistes contre elle. 

Il lui en coûta cher… On finit par oublier qu’un républicanisme corse avait existé avant même que la République ne renaisse ailleurs. Un républicanisme spécifique dont les éléments essentiels demeurent aujourd’hui pleinement d’actualité. 

 ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jean-Guy Talamoni est avocat, président de l’assemblée de Corse depuis 2015, enseignant-chercheur à l’université de Corse. Il a publié de nombreux ouvrages dédiés à la culture corse et la politique et, dans le domaine de l’histoire culturelle de son île, Littérature et politique en Corse – Imaginaire national, société et action publique (Albiana, 2013).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table des matières

Introduction

La première des trois révolutions

Liberté et égalité

Notions abstraites ou pratiques d’équilibre

La place de la tradition

Un républicanisme spécifique

Une modernité étonnante

Une actualité brûlante

Du « roman » à « l’imaginaire historique complexe »

Recherche et action publique

Une contribution au républicanisme du XXIe siècle ?

Première partie : Sources

La pensée politique corse, des théologiens d’Orezza à Napoléon Bonaparte

Aux origines de la tradition politique corse

La consulte des théologiens d’Orezza

L’influence de l’école de Salamanque

Pasquale Paoli et les fondements théoriques du paolisme

Antonio Genovesi : le maître de Paoli

Giambattista Vico : le maître du maître

La double source de la politique paolienne

La pensée politique corse chez Napoléon Bonaparte

Paoli dans les pas de Machiavel : un perfectionnement du « républicanisme classique »

Les républiques italiennes d’origine médiévale

L’inspiration machiavélienne de Paoli

La pratique politique machiavélienne de Paoli

« Diviser pour régner », une devise ni machiavélienne ni paolienne

Une justice par l’exemple

Un « rédempteur », seul au pouvoir

Un républicanisme corse

Deuxième partie : Institutions

Innovations du constitutionnalisme paolien : le préambule de 1755

Le préambule de 1755

La liberté

La démocratie

Le concept de nation

La notion de « Constitution »

Le droit au bonheur

Le droit des peuples à disposer d’eux-mêmes

Sécularisation et laïcité dans la tradition républicaine corse

Séparation de l’ordre ecclésial et de l’ordre politique

Séparation pratique de l’Église et de l’État

L’influence corse dans la politique napoléonienne

Actualité de la conception insulaire de la laïcité

La question de l’éducation dans la littérature politique corse du XVIIIe siècle

La Révolution corse et la question de l’éducation

La question éducative dans la formation de Paoli

Antonio Genovesi

Giambattista Vico

La place de la politique éducative dans l’État

Troisième partie : Imaginaire

« Nouvelle Corse » de Napoléon Bonaparte : l’imaginaire national corse sous la plume du futur empereur

LeVir Nemoris de Nobili-Savelli

Âge d’or et désastre

Le serment

De Nobili-Savelli à Bonaparte

Le souvenir de la « tyrannie » génoise

Annexe : Fac-similé de la Constitution de 1755

More information here

BOOK: K.J. KESSELRING, Making Murder Public: Homicide in Early Modern England, 1480-1680 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). ISBN 9780198835622, £60.00

(Source: OUP)

Next month, Oxford University Press is publishing a book on homicide in Early Modern England.  

ABOUT THE BOOK

Homicide has a history. In early modern England, that history saw two especially notable developments: one, the emergence in the sixteenth century of a formal distinction between murder and manslaughter, made meaningful through a lighter punishment than death for the latter, and two, a significant reduction in the rates of homicides individuals perpetrated on each other.

Making Murder Public explores connections between these two changes. It demonstrates the value in distinguishing between murder and manslaughter, or at least in seeing how that distinction came to matter in a period which also witnessed dramatic drops in the occurrence of homicidal violence. Focused on the 'politics of murder', Making Murder Public examines how homicide became more effectively criminalized between 1480 and 1680, with chapters devoted to coroners' inquests, appeals and private compensation, duels and private vengeance, and print and public punishment. The English had begun moving away from treating homicide as an offence subject to private settlements or vengeance long before other Europeans, at least from the twelfth century. What happened in the early modern period was, in some ways, a continuation of processes long underway, but intensified and refocused by developments from 1480 to 1680.

Making Murder Public argues that homicide became fully 'public' in these years, with killings seen to violate a 'king's peace' that people increasingly conflated with or subordinated to the 'public peace' or 'public justice.'

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

K.J. Kesselring, Professor of History, Dalhousie University

K.J. Kesselring is Professor of History at Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia. She is the author of a series of articles and essays on homicide and criminal forfeiture, and books on Mercy and Authority in the Tudor State and The Northern Rebellion of 1569. She has also edited or co-edited collections on The Trial of Charles I, Married Women and the Law: Coverture in England and the Common Law World (with Tim Stretton), and Crossing Borders: Boundaries and Margins in Medieval and Early Modern Britain (with Sara M. Butler).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations and Conventions

1: Introduction

2: 'In Corona Populi': Early Modern Coroners and their Inquests

3: 'An Image of Deadly Feud': Recompense, Revenge, and the Appeal of Homicide

4: 'That Saucy Paradox': The Politics of Duelling in Early Modern England

5: 'For Publick Satisfaction': Punishment, Print, Plays, and Public Vengenance

Conclusion

Appendix I: The Records and the Database

Bibliography

More information here

ESIL IGHIL Pre-Conference Workshop: The Rule of Law in Historical Perspective, ESIL Research Forum Göttingen, 3 APR 2019

(image source: Georg August Universität Göttingen)

Denise Wohlwend (University of Firbourg (CH)), The Rule of Law in the Debates of the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly – Reflections on the Evolution and Universality of the Concept
Abstract:

The rule of law provides that people should be ruled by the law. Despite its prominence in today’s legal and political discourse on a global scale, the exact content of the rule of law remains contested. Legal scholars commonly distinguish between formal and substantive conceptions of the rule of law, which are often associated with positivistic and naturalistic accounts of law, respectively. Within the United Nations (UN), an “autonomous notion” of the rule of law has been emerging since the 2000s. Importantly, in 2005 the UN member states recognized the rule of law as one of the organization’s “core values and principles”, as well as “the need for universal adherence to and implementation of the rule of law at both the national and international levels”. In 2006, the UN General Assembly decided by resolution A/RES/61/39 to include in the provisional agenda of its sixty-second session the item “The rule of law at the national and international levels”. Since then, it has debated the topic, selecting different subtopics, through its Sixth Committee. This has resulted in the adoption of annual resolutions reaffirming the UN member states’ commitment to the rule of law at the national and international levels. Despite multiple references to the rule of law contained in UN documents, it is not entirely clear what the rule of law at both the national and international levels amounts to within the UN. The UN member states disagree about its exact content. True, frequent reference has been made to the definition of the rule of law put forward by the UN Secretary-General in his 2004 Report “The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies”. Moreover, it has been held that over the years, the member states of the UN have settled on this conception of the rule of law. However, so far, a comprehensive analysis of the debates about the rule of law at the national and international levels within the Sixth Committee is missing. In this paper, I aim to fill this gap. I intend to analyze the discussions about the rule of law at the national and international levels conducted by the representatives of UN member states within the Sixth Committee, from 2006 until today. I examine (1) whether the expressed views reflect the conventional distinction between formal and substantive conceptions of the rule of law, and (2) whether a single or common conception of the rule of law may be deemed to have emerged. I shall then use the findings of the analysis as a starting point for a more general reflection on the issue of the universality of the concept of the rule of law. In short, the rule of law can be deemed universal as long as there are common elements that make it the same concept, in spite of differences in its parochial interpretation. Conversely, if there are no such elements, the universal character of the rule of law may be questioned. Of course, a consideration of the universality of the rule of law concept requires a clarification of the (possible) meaning(s) of universality. Moreover, in the paper, I shall also deal with the question of whether, and if so how, the issue of the universality of the concept of the rule of law is connected to positivistic and naturalistic approaches to the concept of law.

Premislaw Tacik (Jagellionian University, Krakow),
The Evolution of the Rule of Law in the Framework of the European Convention on Human Rights
Abstract:

The presentation aims to reconstruct the outline of history of how the concept of the rule of law was understood and applied in the regime of the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly in regard to ECtHR’s and EComHR’s jurisprudence. Even though the maintenance of the rule of law is one of the goals of the Council of Europe and part of the ECHR’s preamble, historically it was not understood as a source of directly enforceable rights. As stated by the ECtHR in an early judgement in Golder v. the UK, it was, however, a point of reference in interpretation of particular rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention, particularly when their limitations were at stake. Through this linkage, the ECtHR made some cautious steps to make the rule of law a living and effective concept. It influenced the establishment of standards concerning the quality of laws limiting rights and freedoms (as in Tourancheau et July v. France case) and shaped the understanding of the position of the judiciary under the ECHR. In the latter regard, the ECtHR for a long time displayed a restrained approach and gave a significant leeway to the states in regulating the status and nomination of judges. Nonetheless, in the recent years a different trend might be observed. It seems that the ECtHR developed the standards of the rule of law in the response to the illiberal backlash. The Baka v. Hungary case might be interpreted as a milestone in this regard: the ECtHR declared the violation of Art. 6 § 1 ECHR consisting in terminating the status of a judge via targeted legislation, by which Hungarian authorities wanted to prevent the president of the Hungarian Supreme Court to continue his term. In this ruling, the concept of the rule of law links the standards of the independence of the judiciary – now influenced by soft law of the CoE – with requirements of proper legislation. Moreover, by breathing a new life into Article 18 in the Merabishvili v. Georgia case the ECtHR seems to notice that the rule of law must be defended by preventing the states from executing their illegitimate goals in restricting rights and freedoms. All in all, it might be argued that the approach to the rule of law under the ECHR is in dynamic transformation: the Court seems to pass from restrained interpretation to active support of the rule of law in confrontation with the rise of illiberalism.

Alan Nissel, Capitalism and the Evolution of State Responsibility: How US Law became Binding upon New States and, Ultimately, Everyone Else
Abstract:

Since the late nineteenth century, Anglo-American lawyers have employed domestic standards of property protection to hold Latin American governments responsibility for injuries suffered by Western aliens. Barely hidden behind this rule of law mask was a capitalist structure of economic expectations that favored Western over local individuals. The doctrine of state responsibility emerged, historians explain, as a mechanism for fostering the peaceful resolution of international claims. The idea was that arguing over legal norms – by professional lawyers in third party courts and tribunals – was certainly preferable to diplomatic and military alternatives. There is data to point to that indicates a happy correlation: the establishment of state responsibility has coincided with the rise of international arbitration and the demise of force interventions. This result has convinced many that international law, despite its lack of any police force, can finally be described as positive law. Because there are legal consequences for international breaches, international law must be binding. Today, state responsibility is the sacred cow of international lawyers, assuring us of the reality of their cause. However, the doctrine of state responsibility is not just a legal norm of peaceful dispute resolution; neither is it is simply a neutral procedure of international arbitration. It is a framework of capitalist values that was imposed by Anglo-American diplomats to provide better than local protection to their nationals residing in Latin America. The evolution of state responsibility is a story of Anglo-American triumph in the international debates over the international minimum standard of care and about the normative basis for recognizing States, of admitting nations to international organizations and of identifying them as international personalities. The historic success of State responsibility is, thus, not just a rule of law narrative; it is continued evidence of how Western imperial values underpins the primary enforcement regime of international law: State responsibility.

Ryan Mitchell (Chinese University of Hong Kong), International Rule of Law and the Problem of Legal Sanction: War and the Zwangsordnung
Abstract:

The project of using international law to prohibit wars of aggression grew steadily in importance from the Hague Conference era through World War One, culminating with the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. While there has been much recent discussion of the Pact, and debates about its role in originating the crime of aggression (most recently consolidated via the Kampala Amendments to the Rome Statute), there has been less detailed examination of the specific contemporary debates as to the legal validity of the Pact's norm seeking to prohibit aggression. The views of prominent legal scholars of the time can be distinguished into three main contending positions, each of which then had significant influences upon the subsequent theory and practice of public international law. These three perspectives can be summarized as positing either that 1) the Pact independently abolished the validity of all wars per the principle pacta sunt servanda or as an element of customary international law (the view of Quincy Wright, Hersch Lauterpacht, and others); 2) the Pact had no meaningful legal effect due to its broad exceptions and reservations, as well as the fundamental impossibility of restricting states’ traditional rights to wage war (Carl Schmitt's view); or 3) the existing jus ad bellum could not in fact be revised by the Pact per se, but only by an international organization exercising an effective monopoly on the legitimate use of force (Kelsen's view). This paper explains the evidence, methodology, and theoretical implications of each of these perspectives, including the context of the scholars and states who were their respective advocates. It concludes by endorsing the third view, exemplified by Hans Kelsen in his critical analysis of legal prohibitions of war, arguing that the mere disavowal by states of their rights to wage war (as reflected in the Pact) does not equate to a legal prohibition of war under international law unless there is a centralized sanctioning authority enforcing that prohibition, as was introduced under the UN Charter in 1945. This view, while conservative in some ways, also provides the foundation for Kelsen's related claim that international law as a "Zwangsordnung," or sanction-based order, is potentially as robust and enforceable a system of legal norms as is any domestic legal system.

Andre Nunes Chaib (MPI Luxemburg), The Various Sides of a Coin: Ideas of Rule of Law in the Ideology of International Adjudication
Abstract:

International courts have been both the object of praise and criticism throughout their existence. It is also well-known that their creation, as well as the use of international arbitration, was also always replenished with controversies. Nevertheless, despite controversies, international courts and international arbitration made their way into the life of states and individuals during the last century and had come to be accepted as important institutions in international life. Much of the backlash and the critique on international adjudication nowadays come from a tension existing between the various ideologies pervading the imaginary that informs the work of international courts. This tension finds its origin in the historical debates at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century involving international lawyers and diplomats, mainly from Europe and the United States about the concept of the rule of law at the international law and what role should arbitration or permanent international courts should have in enforcing it. In light of these debates, this paper will look into the ideologies that informed these debates and how this tension – resulting in utopic positions but also in stark criticisms – created the legal and political imaginary for international adjudication until today. Much has been written and said about the role of US international lawyers, such as Elihu Root, in pushing forward the movement towards the creation of permanent international adjudicatory mechanisms and the resistance some of them faced by European international lawyers, fearful of what courts at the international level might do to their then still strong empires’ sovereignty. Although these two sides are revealing of a particular ideal of the international rule of law, it does not tell the whole story. Therefore, this paper hopes to shed light to other ideas coming from other parts of the world, which particularly during the Second Hague Conference in 1907, influenced and impacted the ideology of international adjudication and the ideal of international rule of law that was formed at that time and that remains pervasive to these days. Individuals, such as the Brazilian Ruy Barbosa, were known to have been staunch defenders of sovereign equality and offered specific ideas about the nature and function of a potential international court. This paper hopes to clarify these different positions that were put forward at that time by not only US or European lawyers, but also by individuals of the Global South. In doing so, it hopes to show how specific ideas regarding the international, advanced by cosmopolitan thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant, but also lawyers such as Andres Bello and Carlos Calvo were decisive in the formation of the ideology of modern international adjudication. Such an inquiry should also reveal the origins of the tensions existing nowadays regarding international adjudication and aid in the understanding of its criticism.

The conveners of the Steering Committee for the ESIL Interest Group History of International Law:
Jan Lemnitzer (Southern Denmark)
Markus Beham (Passau)
Martin Clark (LSE)
Frederik Dhondt (Brussels/Antwerp)
Hossein Piran (US/Iran Claims Tribunal)

(source: ESILHIL Blog)

BOOK: Stephan WAGNER, Interzession naher Angehöriger - Eine Untersuchung in historischer und vergleichender Perspektive (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019). ISBN 978-3-16-155450-6, €85.00

(Source: Mohr Siebeck)

Mohr Siebeck has published a study containing a legal history of the concept of intercessio (creation of securities of credit by close relatives).

ABOUT THE BOOK

Published in German.

The creation of securities of credit (so-called intercessio) by close relatives imposes a difficult task on every legal system. Stephan Wagner's study analyses the development of the corresponding legal institutions in Continental and English law from a historical and comparative perspective.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephan Wagner ist Privatdozent an der Universität Regensburg und vertritt derzeit den Lehrstuhl für Bürgerliches Recht, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte und Juristische Zeitgeschichte, Handels- und Gesellschaftsrecht an der Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen.

More information here

BOOK: Natalia KROLIKOWSKA-JEDLINSKA, Law and Division of Power in the Crimean Khanate (1532-1774) (Leiden-New York: Brill, 2019). ISBN 978-90-04-38432-3, €102.00

(Source: Brill)

Brill has published a book on law in the Crimean Khanate.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Crimean Khanate was often treated as a semi-nomadic, watered-down version of the Golden Horde, or yet another vassal state of the Ottoman Empire. This book revises these views by exploring the Khanate’s political and legal systems, which combined well organized and well developed institutions, which were rooted in different traditions (Golden Horde, Islamic and Ottoman). Drawing on a wide range of sources, including the Crimean court registers from the reign of Murad Giray (1678-1683), the book examines the role of the khan, members of his council and other officials in the Crimean political and judicial systems as well as the practice of the Crimean sharia court during the reign of Murad Giray.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Natalia Królikowska-Jedlińska, Ph.D. (2010), University of Warsaw, is Assistant Professor at that university. She has published articles on the Crimean Khanate and the Northern Caucasus in the Early Modern Period.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

 The Chronological Scope of the Research

 Outline of the Book

Acknowledgments

List of Illustrations

List of Abbreviations

Note on Place Names, Proper Names, and Transliteration

Concordance of Frequently Mentioned Place Names

Glossary

Introduction

 Historiography of the Crimean Khanate

 Sources

1 Murad Giray and His Times

 1 The Context of the Crimean Khanate Ruled by Murad Giray

 2 Murad Giray as Viewed by Crimean Chroniclers

2 The Household, Deputies, and the Council of the Khan

 1 The Khan’s Household

 2 The Kalga

 3 The Nuraddin and His Officials

 4 The Khan’s Council

3 The Khan and the Nobles

 1 The Crimean Nobles to 1532

 2 The Crimean Nobles in the Years from 1532 to 1774

4 Provincial Kadıs and Their Courts

 1 The Kadı and Court Personnel

 2 The Limitations of the Judicial Power of the Kadı and His Subordinates

5 Law and Its Practice in the Khanate’s Sharia Courts

 1 The Law Applied in the Crimean Courts

 2 Litigants of the Sharia Courts: A Basic Statistical Analysis

Conclusion: A Fragile Balance

Appendices

Appendix I: Transliteration, Translation, and Facsimile of the Order Issued by Khan Canibeg Giray

Appendix II: Transliteration, Translation, and Facsimile of a Case Brought to the Council of Murad Giray

Appendix III: Summaries of the Cases Judged at the Khan’s Council (1678–82)

Appendix IV: List of the Officials Recorded in the Crimean Sicils during the Reign of Murad Giray

Selected Bibliography

Index

More information here

JOURNAL: International Affairs, Vol. 95 (No.1), 2019

The latest issue of the journal International Affairs is dedicated to “World Politics 100 Years After the Paris Peace Conference”.

Contents:

World Politics 100 Years After the Paris Peace Conference

Margaret MacMillan, Anand Menon, & Patrick Quinton-Brown, Introduction: world politics 100 years after the Paris peace conference
First paragraph:

One hundred years ago the Treaty of Versailles, the centrepiece of a set of treaties and agreements collectively known as the Paris peace settlements, was signed in the glittering Hall of Mirrors in the former home of France's Sun King. For some, the war those settlements brought to an end was a distinct period in international relations, one dominated for the preceding century by a European state system that had endured since the Middle Ages

Barry Eichengreen, Versailles: the economic legacy
Abstract:

From the standpoint of international economic relations, the key implications of the Versailles Treaty were as follows. Signatories committed their countries to reconstructing a free and open multilateral trading system such as had existed before the First World War. Other economic institutions and arrangements, as distinct from the trading system, were noteworthy only to the extent that they worked towards this paramount goal. Moreover, in so far as those other arrangements, starting with the gold standard and international financial relations, had been integral to the success of the prewar trading system, there was a presumption that they too should be reconstructed along prewar lines. This approach was subject to multiple conflicts and contradictions. It did not take account of how the economic world had changed, creating a mismatch between prewar institutions and postwar circumstances. It enshrined—indeed, it gave legal content to—the conventional wisdom that to the victor go the economic spoils by imposing that self-same reparations burden on Germany and the other defeated Central Powers. It highlighted the conflicted nature of American attitudes towards management of the international economic system. And it did not give the Soviet Union, ultimately to emerge as the second of the twentieth century's two Great Powers, a seat at the table. While seeking to avoid exaggerating the parallels, I argue that the structure of international economic relations in the wake of the Cold War resembles in important respects the structure of those relations after the First World War.

Glenda Sluga, Remembering 1919: international organizations and the future of international order
Abstract:

Several of the world's intergovernmental organizations have now existed for longer than many nation-states. The centenary of the peacemaking that ended the First World War offers the opportunity of making good policy use of new histories that inform us about the shifting horizon of international expectations, the social dimensions of international thinking and international political cultures, their nation-state roots, and the sum of this relatively marginalized international past. The aim of this article is to draw together the various strands of the new historical work undertaken in the last decade in order to orientate 1919 as a moment that launched the world into a century of often profound discussion about international organizations as necessary instruments of multilateralism. This discussion sometimes dwindled, and it did not prevent wars. However, it had significant impacts: from the spectrum of ideas it brought to bear on the question of how to solve the world's most serious problems, to the practices of international governance it helped introduce. As importantly, the international order shaped in 1919 created unprecedented political spaces for representing the diverse interests of the world's populations, even the stateless. At crucial moments in the twentieth century, world-scale solutions to world-scale problems gave people ideas—even when the window of opportunity was small. If this history is good for anything, I argue that it might be for orientating our present in relation to that international past, and how we begin to imagine the future of the international order, as we know it.

Oona A. Hathaway & Scott J. Shapiro, International law and its transformation through the outlawry of war
Abstract:

The First World War was the last great war of what we have called the ‘old world order’—the legal regime that European states adopted in the seventeenth century and spent the next three centuries imposing on the rest of the globe. This order formed the basis of what scholars call ‘classical international law’. But this body of rules differed starkly from the ones that govern today: the old world order did not just sanction war, it relied on and rewarded it. States were permitted to wage war to right any legal wrong, and the right of the victors to extract territory and treasure from the losers was legally guaranteed. That all began to change when the nations of the world decided to outlaw war in the 1928 Kellogg–Briand treaty. As a result, the rules governing international behaviour have transformed radically—indeed, they are the polar opposite of what they once were. This article describes the decision to outlaw war and the transformation it unleashed in the world order generally, and in international law specifically. We argue that a simple but perplexing fact—that modern international law prohibits states from using force to enforce international law—is key to understanding international law and state behavior in the modern era.

Joseph S. Nye, Jr, The rise and fall of American hegemony from Wilson to Trump
Abstract:

A century ago, Woodrow Wilson changed America's place in the world when he sent two million men to fight in Europe, but America withdrew into isolationism in the 1930s. After the Second World War, Harry Truman and others created a framework of permanent alliances and multilateral institutions that became known as the ‘liberal international order’ or ‘Pax Americana’. Those terms have become obsolete as descriptions of the US place in the world, but the need for the largest countries to provide public goods remains. An open international order covers political–military affairs; economic relations; ecological relations; and human rights. It remains to be seen to what degree these depend on each other and what will remain as the 1945 package is unpacked. Wilson's legacy of developing international institutions continues to make sense. Leadership is not the same as domination, and it will need to be shared. There have always been degrees of leadership and degrees of influence during the seven decades of American pre-eminence after 1945. Now with less preponderance and a more complex world, American exceptionalism in terms of its economic and military power should focus on sharing the provision of global public goods, particularly those that require ‘power with’ others. Wilson's century old insights about international institutions and a rules-based order will remain crucial, but America's place in that world may be threatened more by the rise of populist politics at home than the rise of other powers abroad.

Jane Burbank & Frederick Cooper, Empires after 1919: old, new, transformed
Abstract:

1919 was not the death knell of empires: it opened new imperial possibilities. The empires of the losers were destroyed; victors added new territories and a new element—the mandate—to their repertoires; Japan was recognized as a major imperial actor; the Soviet Union constituted a new form of empire; Germany, chafing at its exclusion from the world of empires, created the Third Reich; the US, after promoting a new international order, developed its own way of exercising power at a distance. This article describes the varied trajectories of empires in the decades after the First World War. It notes changes in discourse and international institutions after 1919, but argues against fitting 1919 into a linear narrative of ‘empire to nation-state’. Self-determination proved a problematic concept both where it was implemented and where it was not. The forced breakup of the Ottoman Empire led to conflicts that have yet to be resolved. Anti-colonial movements fought oppression, but often sought alternatives to both old-style empires and the territorial state. Colonial empires were able to contain challenges, refine their methods of rule and claim international legitimacy. It took another catastrophe for colonial empires to be fundamentally threatened—by a war that was more the result of the reconfiguration of empires after 1919 than of their decline. The Japanese takeover of southeast Asia began the unraveling of European empires after 1945. Even then, political possibilities that reach well beyond the national continued to shape our world.

Lawrence Freedman, The rise and fall of Great Power wars

Abstract:

The Great War now stands as the prime example of the folly of war, an exercise in futility that was terrible in its slaughter. Yet this did not mark the end of Great Power wars. The victors believed that Germany should be penalized for its role in starting the war but this created a new set of grievances that Hitler played upon. In addition, while the norm of self-determination was an attempt to address grievances before they led to violence, the breakup of the old continental empires after 1919 was accompanied by great violence. Something similar happened as a result of the irresistible processes of decolonization after 1945. The growth of civil wars is one reason why the Great War was not the war to end all wars. As the potential gains from war declined the costs increased. The First World War picked up and accentuated tendencies in military practice, particularly when it came to targeting civilians, which had been in play before 1914. These then set the terms for the next war to be even more destructive. This was particularly true as aircraft were introduced into war as being most suitable for use against urban populations. Although this was not confirmed by the practice of air power during the Second World War, which did not achieve the anticipated strategic effects, the concluding introduction of nuclear weapons and the immediate surrender of Japan did lead to a decisive change in perceptions of the costs of Great Power war.

Yuen Foong Khong, Power as prestige in world politics
Abstract:

Power is shifting from the West to the East. Asia is experiencing the initial throes of this shift, where the key protagonists are the United States, the established power or hegemon, and China, the rising challenger and peer competitor. This article argues that the ongoing geopolitical competition between the United States and China is best viewed as a competition over the hierarchy of prestige, with China seeking to replace the US as the most prestigious state in the international system within the next thirty years. Although the competition is a global one, with China having made significant economic–political inroads into Africa, Latin America and even Europe, Asia is where China must establish its prestige or ‘reputation for power’ in the first instance. China seeks the top seat in the hierarchy of prestige, and the US will do everything in its power to maintain its pole position, because the state with the greatest reputation for power gets to govern the region: it will attract more followers, regional powers will defer to and accommodate it, and it will play a decisive role in shaping the rules and institutions of international relations. In a word, the state at the top of the prestige hierarchy gets to translate its power into the political outcomes it desires with minimal resistance and maximum flexibility.

Rosemary Foot, Remembering the past to secure the present: Versailles legacies in a resurgent China
Abstract:

In the century since the signature of the Treaty of Versailles, China's international status and material condition have been fundamentally transformed. The People's Republic has become powerful in ways that probably would have astonished the leaders of the early Republic of China, first established in 1911. These changes do not mean, however, that there are not potent legacies from China's nineteenth-century and Versailles-era experiences. In particular, the Versailles agreement showed China that gaining full membership of the international society of states would not be easy, despite its having joined the Allied side in the war effort. China's failure to gain either restitution of the territory of Shandong or proper acknowledgement of its status as a legally sovereign state added to the Chinese distrust of the West and Japan born out of their exploitative activities in China. The subsequent May Fourth nationalist demonstration of 1919 was the first of many prominent displays of nationalist outrage, a sentiment that provided opportunities for exploitation by successive Chinese governments. The article shows how the trials associated with removing China's unequal status in international politics condition and, in some respects, deform Chinese attitudes towards international politics to this day. In particular, it asks why China's remarkable resurgence has not changed official Chinese perceptions of world order, the tenor of its relations with other states and its view of its own place in international society more fundamentally than has in fact been the case

Erik Jones & Anand Menon, Europe: between dream and reality?
Abstract:

European political development since the Treaty of Versailles has gone through four phases. The interwar period was a time of democratic weakness and ethnic conflict that culminated in the Second World War. What followed was a period of division and yet also integration, particularly in western Europe. Western Europeans sought to transcend the nation-state through the promotion of the rule of law. The end of the Cold War suggested the victory of this civilizing mission, but that suggestion was not entirely convincing—not because of the re-emergence of ethnic conflict, but because of the increasing tension between popular and representative democracy. The economic and financial crisis brought that tension to the surface and placed a great strain on the wider integration project. The challenge is how to interpret this arc in the narrative of European history. Was unification always a dream while division remains a reality?

Margaret MacMillan & Patrick Quinton-Brown, The uses of history in international society: from the Paris peace conference to the present
Abstract:

History has been used—and abused—for centuries. Yet the more familiar notion of ‘history's lessons’—a notion which tends to make most historians uncomfortable, and which surely demands thoroughgoing skepticism—is far from exhaustive of history's uses in the practice and study of international relations. One important and timely subject is the more constitutive role of history in international deliberations over the creation, fragmentation and transformation of nation-states. What follows is a historical comparison of the changing ways in which the past has been used to frame the terms and content of such debates. While we will be exploring the uses of history as a guide or teacher, we propose to examine more specifically and at greater length the growth and persistence of newer uses: first, to bolster claims to independence and territory; and second, in demanding restitution in the form of financial reparations, apologies and other social privileges. By examining the ways in which history was used 100 years ago at the end of the First World War and in recent episodes of the Cold War and post-Cold War eras, we hope to show continuities and differences. What specialists must appreciate is that history is being used and will continue to be used not only within the confines of the academy, but within international society itself, where it may serve as a foundation for arbitrating political disagreements. If anything, non-specialist and popular reliance on history has grown, possibly because other forms of authority have attenuated.

(Source: ILReports)

BOOK: Daniel STAHL, Hunt for Nazis : South America’s Dictatorships and the Prosecution of Nazi Crimes (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2018). ISBN 9789462985216, €104.99

(Source: Amsterdam University Press)

Amsterdam University Press has published a book on the prosecution of Nazis having fled to Latin America post World War II (English translation of the 2013 version in German).

ABOUT THE BOOK

Hunt for Nazis is the first comprehensive account of the post-1945 efforts to bring Nazi war criminals who had escaped to South America to justice. The author shows that the Nazi hunt -- which resulted in spectacular cases like the kidnapping of Adolf Eichmann -- should not only be understood as part of the afterlife of the Third Reich, but that it also became an integral aspect of dealing with repression at the hands of authoritarian regimes in South America. Dissidents and human rights activists assumed that the escaped Nazi perpetrators and collaborators continued to be involved in violent crimes in the service of these new dictatorships.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel Stahl is Research Associate at the Friedrich Schiller University Jena. For the German publication of Hunt for Nazis Daniel Stahl received the Opus Primum award of the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany's largest private research funder.

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BOOK: Antonio R. PARRA, The History of ICSID, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). ISBN 9780198834083, $38.95

(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press has recently published the paperback version of “The History of ICSID”

ABOUT THE BOOK

Now available in paperback, the second edition of The History of ICSID details the history and development of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) and its constituent treaty, the Convention on the Settlement of Investment Disputes between States and Nationals of Other States.

Antonio Parra, the first Deputy Secretary-General of ICSID, traces the immediate origins of the Convention, in the years 1955 to 1962, and gives a stage-by-stage narrative of the drafting of the Convention between 1962 and 1965. He recounts details of bringing the Convention into force in 1966 and the elaboration of the initial versions of the Regulations and Rules of ICSID adopted at the first meetings of its Administrative Council in 1967. The four periods 1968 to 1988, 1989 to 1999, 2000 to 2010, and 2011 to 2015 are covered in separate chapters which examine the expansion of the Centre's activities and changes made to the Regulations and Rules over the years. There are also overviews of the conciliation and arbitration cases submitted to ICSID in the respective periods, followed by discussions of selected cases and key issues within them. A concluding chapter discusses some of the broad themes and findings of the book, examines how ICSID might meet several large new challenges facing it, and outlines several possible further changes of its rules and procedures

The book offers unique insight into the establishment and design of ICSID, as well as into how the institution evolved and its relationship with the World Bank over the 50 years since the establishment of ICSID. It is essential reading for those involved in this field.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Antonio R. Parra, Consultant with the Corporate Secretariat of the World Bank

Antonio R. Parra served as the first Deputy Secretary-General of the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) from 1999 to 2005 and was Legal Adviser at ICSID from 1990 to 1999. His earlier positions include Senior Counsel, ICSID; Counsel, Office of the Senior Vice President and General Counsel, World Bank; Counsel, Policy and General Affairs, World Bank; Assistant Legal Counsel, OPEC Fund for International Development; and Research Staffer, OPEC Secretariat. At the World Bank's Legal Vice Presidency and ICSID, Mr Parra worked on the establishment of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency and the preparation of the World Bank Guidelines on the Treatment of Foreign Direct Investment. He is an Honorary Secretary-General of the International Council for Commercial Arbitration (having been Secretary General from 2004 to 2010) and a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction

2. Origins of the Convention

3. Broches's "Working Paper"

4. The Preliminary Draft of the Convention

5. Finalizing the Text of the Convention

6. Establishment and Launch of the Centre

7. ICSID's First Two Decades

8. Aspects of the Early Cases

9. ICSID from 1989 to 1999

10. ICSID from 2000 to 2010

11. "The Premier International Arbitration Facility in the World"

12. Conclusion

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BOOK: Andrea GAMBERINI, The Clash of Legitimacies - The State-Building Process in Late Medieval Lombardy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). ISBN 9780198824312, $84.00

(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press has published a book on state-building in late medieval Lombardy.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Clash of Legitimacies makes an innovative contribution to the history of the state-building process in late medieval Lombardy (during the 13th to 15th centuries), by illuminating myriad conflicts attending the legitimacy of power and authority at different levels of society. Through the analysis of the rhetorical forms and linguistic repertoires deployed by the many protagonists (not only the prince, but also the cities, communities, peasants, and political factions) to express their own ideals of shared political life, this volume reveals the depth of the conflicts in which opposing political actors were not only inspired by competing material interests--as in the traditional interpretation to be found in previous historiography--but also often were guided by differing concepts of authority.

From this comes a largely new image of the late medieval and early Renaissance state, one without a monopoly of force--as has been shown in many studies since the 1970s--and one that did not even have the monopoly of legitimacy. The limitations of attempts by governors to present the political principles that inspired their acts as shared and universally recognized are revealed by a historical analysis firmly intent on investigating the existence, in particular territorial or social ambits, of other political cultures which based obedience to authority on different, and frequently original, ideals.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrea Gamberini studied at the University of Milan, where he currently teaches as Professor of Medieval History. His research interests focus on Late Medieval Italy and follow four main strands: political history (with special attention to the state-building process), ecclesiastical history (mainly the episcopate), political languages between the 11th and 15th centuries, and social mobility in the Later Middle Ages.

During his career, Andrea has received several accolades and grants. He was the Fowler Hamilton Visiting Research Fellow at Christ Church, Oxford, in 2012-2013; a Visiting Professor at Kyoto University in 2010; a nominated fellow at IASH, University of Edinburgh in 2016; and a Visiting Fellow at Clare Hall, Cambridge, in 2012, after which he was elected Life Member.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
Part I: Towards the commune as state 
1. Northern Italy in the central Middle Ages. Some historical background
2. The city commune and the assumption of a public role
3. Experimentation and conceptualisation in the field of urban expansion and the construction of territory
4. The political cultures of the city and the territory: some early affinities
5. Some cornerstones of city and communal ideology
6. Between unitas and aequalitas: the ideology of representation
7. The ideologues of communal political culture
8. The experience of personal government between the factions and the Popolo: the persistence of the commune
9. Towards conflict. The political and juridical culture of the commune becomes hegemonic
10. The political cultures of the contado: aristocratic pre-eminence and the subordination of the rural dweller
11. Rural communes and the culture of practices
Part II: Towards the regional state 
1. New scenarios, old questions
2. The rise of Visconti power, between legitimation from below and a longing for majesty
3. The ideology of the regional state
4. Law as a field of tension
5. The duke and the culture of individual distinction
6. The territorial aristocracies: pressure from below, organisation from above
7. The foundations of seigneurial power in the countryside
8. Guelphs and Ghibellines: another idea of legitimacy
9. 'Pacta servanda sunt'. The political culture of contractualism
Concluding notes
Bibliography

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