CONFERENCE: Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law: Challenges Ahead (Potsdam, 6-7 SEP 2019); DEADLINE 31 MAR 2019

AHRI Conference 2019

Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law:
Challenges Ahead

– Call for papers –

(image source: Potsdam Uni)

As the largest inter-disciplinary and general research conference on human rights, the AHRI 2019 Conference (6^th-7^th September 2019 in Potsdam, Germany) welcomes both individual papers and panels exploring the themes set out below. The 70th anniversary of the Geneva Conventions of 1949 gave rise to the leading overall theme

“Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law:
Challenges Ahead”,

but proposals do not need to be limited to that because the AHRI research conference will be a general platform for discussing new human rights research issues.

The six primary tracks allow to deal with a broad variety of questions linked to the overall theme of the conference. Preference will be given to strong proposals falling within one of the following tracks, under which several panels will be organised.

The following list is not exhaustive, but more illustrative in character. Additional topics or proposals are therefore welcome. We appreciate contributions to these topics not only from a legal perspective, but also from philosophical, political, sociological and other viewpoints.

1.    Historical Development

This track wants to make use of a historical perspective on the two bodies of law. How did they evolve over time and influence each other, and which actors influenced the development under which circumstances?

1)       Namibia and beyond: the applicability of IHL and IHRL in colonial situations: past, present and current repercussions 

2)       Cross-fertilization revisited: the history of the impact of IHRL on IHL and vice versa

3)       Actors of the historical development of IHRL and IHL compared: States, international organizations and beyond

2.      General Questions

In this track, we welcome submissions discussing implications on the doctrine of international law. Do we face a fragmentation with consequences for the interpretation of the bodies of law? Or, on the contrary, will a common framework emerge?

1)       IHL and IHRL: two fundamentally divergent epistemological communities – are we still speaking the same language?

2)       Interpreting IHL and IHRL norms: do the same methods apply?

3)       Extraterritorial application of human rights obligations: any limits left?

4)       Applying IHL over time: the case of long-term situations of belligerent occupation

5)       Status of forces agreements and human rights obligations of the receiving State

6)       Developing monitoring mechanisms in IHL: what lessons are to be learnt from IHRL?

7)       Legal obligations for non-state actors: can IHL and IHRL learn from each other?

3.    Institutions: Who provides substantial interpretations of the applicable law?

Human rights bodies and courts tend to favour an extensive interpretation of human rights and, increasingly, give interpretations of international law from such an extended human rights perspective. What are the consequences for IHL and the traditionally driving forces in that area, the ICRC and States, as well as for the ICC?

1)       Politicized application of IHL? – the case of the Human Rights Council

2)       Issues of IHL before regional human rights courts

3)       Human treaty bodies and IHL

4)       Impact of IHRL on the jurisprudence of the ICC

5)       ICRC and IHRL

4.    Specific Situations

International and non-international armed conflicts, as well as peace operations may threaten human rights and thus lead to specific challenges for international human rights law. Informational warfare and cyber activities did add a new dimension.

1)       Unmanned weapons, artificial intelligence and IHRL

2)       Naval blockades and social and economic rights

3)       Peace-keeping operations and human rights obligations

4)       Information warfare and human rights obligations

5)       Cultural and religious identities during armed conflicts

5.    Specific Groups and Rights

This track welcomes submissions looking at the implications of situations of armed conflicts for vulnerable groups such as women or children, refugees or detainees. A second focus may shed light on specific human rights such as freedom of religion and freedom of information that may be infringed during armed conflicts or situations of occupation.

1)       Detainees in non-international armed conflicts

2)       CEDAW and women in situations of armed conflict

3)       CRC and children in situations of armed conflict

4)       Situations of armed conflict and disappearances: what obligations do apply under IHL and under human rights law?

5)       Refugees and (internally) displaced persons in situations of armed conflict

6)       Freedom of information and the press and freedom of assembly in armed conflict

6.    Jus Post Bellum

Peace processes do not end once a peace agreement has been signed. Post-conflict situations need specific investments in order to achieve a lasting peace. Are there implications on the human rights of all groups of the population? In this section, we might also deal with questions of transitional justice.

1)       Reaching peace: an inherent limitation of human rights obligations?

2)       Protecting vulnerable ethnic groups and minorities in post-conflict situations

3)       Dealing with persons responsible for human rights and IHL violations: do the same standards apply?

4)       What remedies for IHL violations lessons learnt from IHRL?

Abstracts are to be submitted until 31^st of March 2019 via the following link: https://www.conftool.com/ahri2019/. Further information available at: https://www.uni-potsdam.de/ahri2019.html.

BOOK: Roeland GOORTS, War, State and Society in Liège. How a Small State of the Holy Roman Empire Survived the Nine Years' War (1688-1697) [Avisos de Flandes; 17] (Leuven: Leuven University Press, 2019), 418 p. ISBN 9789462701311, € 65

Book abstract:

War, State and Society in Liège is a fascinating case study of the consequences of war in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and touches upon wider issues in early modern history, such as small power diplomacy in the seventeenth century and during the Nine Years’ War.
For centuries, the small semi-independent Holy Roman Principality of Liège succeeded in preserving a non-belligerent role in European conflicts. During the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697), however, Liège’s leaders had to abolish the practice of neutrality. For the first time in its early modern history, the Prince-Bishopric had to raise a regular army, reconstruct ruined defence structures, and supply army contributions in both money and material.
The issues under discussion in War, State and Society in Liège offer the reader insight into how Liège politically protected its powerful institutions and how the local elite tried to influence the interplay between domestic and external diplomatic relationships.

More with the publisher.

(source: Standen en Landen/Anciens Pays et Assemblées d'États)

SPECIAL ISSUE: Symposium "Legal History and Comparative Law: A Dialogue in Times of the Transnationalization of Law and Legal Scholarship" (American Journal of Comparative Law LXVI (2018), Issue 4)

(image source: Oxford Journals)

Preface (Thomas Duve)
Abstract:

Comparative law and legal history are witnessing a remarkable moment of reorientation in their methods and perhaps even in their disciplinary identities. Historically linked to and emerging from a shared paradigm of historical jurisprudence, both disciplines have developed their own institutions, canons of knowledge, mechanisms of communication, and academic practices over the last century. Both flourished under the juridical nationalism of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and this national paradigm has shaped their analytical framework and categories. Both disciplines are now also facing similar challenges due to the transnationalization of their object and of their institutional structures, but also due to the broad recognition of the importance of context and traditions. Consequently, both are increasingly situating their research on a global horizon, and both are endeavoring to decentralize their approaches and to expose themselves to new notions of law and justice.1 This situation suggests that there should be renewed dialogue between the two disciplines, but it also leads us to question what shape such a dialogue might take. What can they learn from each other?

Merging Comparative Law and Legal History: Towards an Integrated Discipline (Heikki Pilhajamäkki)
Abstract:

This Article argues that legal history and comparative law ought to merge into one discipline. The two disciplines are both products of the same period, the late nineteenth century, when they were formed as the fruit of the rising positivist legal scholarship. They are, to be sure, opposite sides of the coin. Mainstream legal history was, from early on, a humble servant of positivism, whereas comparative law formed as an antithesis to it. Nevertheless, neither of the twin disciplines would exist as such were it not for the emergence of national legal positivism on both sides of the Atlantic. National legal histories developed as the dominant paradigm of the nineteenth century and for the most part of the twentieth. Legal historians provided an important slice of the nationalistic narrative, explaining how history had led national states to the particular situations in law they found themselves in. Comparative law started early in the nineteenth century as a response to practical legislative needs, as “comparative legislation.” Some of the internationally minded German scholars also reacted against the national emphasis of Savigny’s Historical School. Comparative legal scholarship acquired more academic overtones as the century wore on, and many scholars optimistically expected that comparative scholarship would unify and civilize the world’s legal orders. After World War II, mainstream comparative law had little hope left in its possibilities of civilizing the world. The discipline declined into a “country and western” style of scholarship. The largest obstacle in the way of merging the twin disciplines is the fact that they, as all scholarly disciplines, are also social communities. Most scholars still like to identify themselves as “comparatists” or “legal historians.” The new combined discipline would do away with outdated ways of doing scholarship in both mother disciplines. It would marginalize the kind of legal history that seems unconscious of the world outside national boundaries and of international contexts, and it would supplant the kind of comparative law that is made without reference to the historical paths that have led to the present situation. 

 Global Legal History, Legal Systemology, and the Genealogy of Law (Alessandro Somma)
Abstract:

Comparatists in the social sciences are supposed to analyze social phenomena from a static point of view, with no interest in their dynamic aspects. However, this is not true for comparative lawyers, since they are committed to analyzing legal change, which necessarily enhances aspects like the circulation of legal models as well as their transformation due to the variation of the space-time coordinates. The dynamic aspects are of such importance for comparatists that the building of legal families, reflecting a static approach to comparative law, is increasingly questioned in its foundations and capability to detect decisive similarities and differences between legal systems: the evolution within the common law–civil law divide and its connection with the ruling of the economic order. The building of legal families will not be removed from the comparative lawyer agenda, at least in recognition of its didactic function. However, comparative lawyers are increasingly aware of the ideological value of taxonomies and increasingly convinced about the necessity to replace them with genealogies.

 East, East, and West: Comparative Law and the Historical Processes of Legal Interaction in China and Japan (Kentaro Matsubara)
Abstract:

As Western notions of law formed the basis of a globally shared common legal language, the language of comparative law has become inevitably Western. In studying historical societies that did not share this language, analyses using this language will always risk anachronisms due to the inherent assumptions, be they the meanings given to particular terms, or the manner in which different areas of law are categorized and distinguished from each other. One way to avoid such anachronisms would be to attempt the formulation of a different concept of law that is neutral to Western and non-Western legal traditions. This, however, would move the analysis away from discussions in other areas of legal studies conducted in the aforementioned common legal language, which in turn would limit the significance comparative law might have for these discussions. In looking at the historical processes of legal modernization in China and Japan, this Article discusses how one might manage the risk of anachronism in writing a legal history of non-Western societies, while also retaining a link with a wider range of legal studies. After Part I considers some of the theoretical problems of studying Chinese and Japanese society as a project in comparative law, Part II will look at the debates on legal reform in China and Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While these debates included serious discussions on incorporating traditional aspects of Chinese or Japanese society in the newly formed Western-style legal system, the discussions themselves were conducted in an essentially Westernized language, which identified the traditions of Japanese and Chinese as “customs,” a legal notion newly introduced in the course of modernization. While looking at certain traditional practices and institutions as “custom” might have been an anachronism, the extent and significance of this anachronism can be assessed through a study of the process of interaction whereby this viewpoint came to be adopted. Part III of this Article suggests an approach to studying the traditional Chinese property regime, also starting from a study of the historical process of interaction between Western colonial law and local society in China. Using an analysis of this interaction as a starting point, it discusses how relevant aspects of Chinese society and their interconnections might be identified, opening up possibilities for comparisons not limited to East–West comparisons, and it also contributes to a more general legal discussion on family, property, and state formation.

Due Process and Civil Procedure, or How to Do Codes with Theories (Carlos Petit)
Abstract:

Franco Cipriani’s historical research on the great authors of “scientific proceduralism” (Giuseppe Chiovenda, Francesco Carnelutti, and Piero Calamandrei) made it possible to elaborate a theory of the civil process: “guaranteeism.” The theory holds that the lawsuit is a legal relationship between private parties, and the judicial authority only acts in the trial as an impartial bystander. This is opposite the procedural tradition of the twentieth century that accentuates the legal–public nature of the process and therefore the autonomy and activity of the judge to come to a fair resolution. The wide acceptance of the Italian classic authors on civil procedure in Spain and Latin America explains the impact that Cipriani’s “revisionist” work had in several countries and the tension between guaranteeism and activism in their codified regulation of the trial. From that point of view, this Article analyzes the most recent codes of civil procedure, those of Colombia and Brazil. If historiography has led to theory, it is interesting to find out whether theory leads finally to legislation.

The Synesthesia of Values: How the Ideals of Modernist Design Predisposed and Shaped Fascist Legal and Political Thought (Daniel Damler)
Abstract:

In this Article, I will argue that aesthetic, epistemic, and moral (legal, political) values are correlated because of a common underlying mechanism. Value judgments are regulated via chronologically antecedent emotions. Their attribution to a certain normative category is an analytical achievement that only occurs in a second step. “Analogical” interferences are inevitable due to the processes involved being partly identical. Jurisprudence, too, continually operates with terms that have an underlying sensuous, aesthetic component and depend on concrete experiential knowledge. This lifeworld horizon and the attendant aesthetic preferences differ from society to society, sometimes considerably from state to state, despite otherwise very similar economic and social conditions. Using the example of Germany in the 1920s and 1930s, I will demonstrate how popular stylistic elements of the New Objectivity—the ideal of “visibility” and a technoid, spare, and simple design—inspired the critics of Western democracy, liberalism, and parliamentarianism. From the moralizing and dogmatically rigid perspective of German-style functionalism, violating the imperative of purposefulness is not only an aesthetic faux pas, but also an inexcusable moral failure. Carl Schmitt’s critique of parliamentarianism, with its focus on the supposedly functionless and empty ritual of the parliamentary speech, was just a variation and echo of this moral-aesthetic leitmotif.

More information with Oxford Journals.

BOOK: Adrien WYSSBROD, De la coutume au code. Résistances à la codification du droit civil à Neuchâtel sous l'Ancien Régime (Neuchâtel: Université de Neuchâtel, 2019), 363 p. ISBN 978-1792722660, € 17,5

Book abstract:

Le droit civil dans la principauté de Neuchâtel reste coutumier durant tout l'Ancien Régime. Malgré une volonté en apparence affirmée de codifier, les princes de Neuchâtel successifs ne parviennent pas à faire rédiger cette coutume. Leurs rêves de codifications s'inscrivent parfaitement dans les idées des Lumières et les souverains sont soutenus par les philosophes. Pourquoi, dans une petite principauté telle que celle de Neuchâtel, régie par de puissants souverains comme Frédéric II, la mise par écrit du droit se révèle-t-elle impossible ? Quelles résistances un tel projet rencontre-t-il, qui en sont les acteurs et comment agissent-ils ? Les réponses à ces questions ne peuvent être données qu'à la suite d'une analyse minutieuse de l'imposante masse de documents concernant la codification. Une fois ce phénomène éclairci, la comparaison du modèle neuchâtelois avec d'autres exemples de résistances à la codification permet de faire apparaître des constantes et des particularités dans ces oppositions. Ces informations, replacée dans le contexte de la fin de l'Ancien Régime permet d'observer et de mieux comprendre ces sociétés à un tournant de la modernité. La conception même de la souveraineté, de la domination et du pouvoir peuvent être interrogés au moyen de ces entreprises de codification qui ne parviennent que difficilement à aboutir, ou échouent simplement. Les résistances à la codification ne doivent être observées ni comme un phénomène anecdotique et provincial ni comme un mal à surmonter pour parvenir au code. Elles sont interrogées comme le miroir d'une société que rejette de manière parfaitement légitime une transformation du système juridique aujourd'hui faussement considérée comme une évolution forcément bénéfique. Quant à la réaction des princes face à cette opposition, elle témoigne du choix complexe et détermine la figure du pouvoir qu'ils souhaitent incarner.

More information on the author's website or on amazon.

BOOK: David MCILROY, The End of Law : How Law’s Claims Relate to Law’s Aims. (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2019). ISBN 978 1 78811 399 1, £63.00

(Source: Edward Elgar Publishing)

Edward Elgar is publishing a new book that deals with natural law theory and the significance of St. Augustine.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Augustine posed two questions that go to the heart of the nature of law. Firstly, what is the difference between a kingdom and a band of robbers? Secondly, is an unjust law a law at all? These two questions force us to consider whether law is simply a means of social control, distinguished from a band of robbers only by its size, or whether law is a social institution justified by its orientation towards justice.

The End of Law applies Augustine’s questions to modern legal philosophy as well as offering a critical theory of natural law that draws on Augustine’s ideas. McIlroy argues that such a critical natural law theory is realistic but not cynical about law’s relationship to justice and to violence, can diagnose ways in which law becomes deformed and pathological, and indicates that law is a necessary but insufficient instrument for the pursuit of justice. Positioning an examination of Augustine’s reflections on law in the context of his broader thought, McIlroy presents an alternative approach to natural law theory, drawing from critical theory, postmodern thought, and political theologies in conversation with Augustine.

This insightful book will be fascinating reading for law students and legal philosophers seeking to understand the perspective and commitments of natural law theory and the significance of Augustine. Readers with an interest in interdisciplinary approaches to legal theory will also find this book a stimulating read.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

David McIlroy, Barrister and Visiting Professor, CCLS, Queen Mary University of London, UK

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents: 1. What is the difference between a kingdom and a band of robbers? 2. What on earth are we talking about? 3. An end to war 4. The rule of law and the law of rules 5. The stable door 6. The good ending 7. Critical natural law 8. Justice: the terrible truth? 9. The agony of the law 10. The final judgment

More information here

LECTURE VIDEO: Frédéric AUDREN (SciencesPo/ULB) on "L'invention de la technique juridique" (CHRiDI/Université Saint-Louis-Bruxelles)

Prof. dr. Frédéric Audren (Sciences Po, visiting researcher at the Centre Perelman of the Université libre de Bruxelles) held a talk at the CRHiDI of the Université Saint-Louis (Brussels) on 18 March 2019. His intervention can be watched on Youtube (cf. embed above).

(source: CRHiDI Facebook Page)

BOOK: Anna ROSS, Beyond the Barricades : Government and State-Building in Post-Revolutionary Prussia, 1848-1858 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). ISBN 9780198833826, $85.00

(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press has published a new book on statebuilding in Prussia after the 1848 revolutions.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Beyond the Barricades is an original study of government after the 1848 revolutions. It focuses on the state of Prussia, where a number of conservative ministers sought to learn lessons from their experiences of upheaval and introduce a wave of reform in the 1850s. Using extensive archival research, the work explores Prussia's entry into the constitutional age, charting initiatives to transform criminal justice, agriculture, industry, communications, urban life, and the press. Reform strengthened contact with the Prussian population, making this a classic episode of state-building, but Beyond the Barricades seeks to go further. It makes a case for taking notice of government activity at this particular juncture because the measures endorsed by conservative statesmen in the 1850s sought to remove the feudal intermediaries that had lingered long into the nineteenth century and replace them with an array of government institutions, legal regimes, and official practices. In sum, this book recasts the post-revolutionary decade as a period which saw the transition from an old to a new world, pivotal to the making of modern Prussia and ultimately, modern Germany.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna Ross, Associate Professor, University of Warwick

Anna Ross is Associate Professor of Modern European History at the University of Warwick. She received her PhD from the University of Cambridge, and later held a Junior Research Fellowship at Nuffield College, University of Oxford. At Warwick, she is a member of the European History Research Centre, and the Global History and Culture Centre.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
1. Cabinets, Constitutions, and Parliamentary Representation
2. Bureaucratic Geographies of the State
3. Crime and Punishment
4. Agriculture, Industry, and Communications
5. Cities and Urban Life
6. Public Opinion and Press Management
Conclusion

More information here

PODCAST: Prof. Soazick Kerneis (Paris Ouest La Défense) on Roman Law in English History [La Fabrique de l'Histoire/France Culture]

Prof. dr. Soazick Kerneis (President of the Department of Legal History and Legal Anthropology at University Paris Ouest La Défense) intervened on the popular historical broadcast La Fabrique de l'Histoire (France Culture), in a special series devoted to the peculiar history of the British isles.

Prof. Kerneis adresses the history of Roman Law in Britain.

More information with France Culture.

Laetizia PUCCIO (collectif sous la dir.), Trésors de procédure. Les dossiers du Tribunal de la Chambre impériale conservés aux Archives de l’État en Belgique (1495-1806) (Bruxelles: Éditions Avant-Propos 2019), 112 p.

(image source: Belgian State Archives)

Book abstract:

Endommagés lors du bombardement de 1944, plus de 200 dossiers de procès du Tribunal de la Chambre impériale viennent d’être restaurés. Publié en février 2019, l’ouvrage « Trésors de procédure » retrace l’histoire de ces archives et permet découvrir quelques-une des plus belles pièces. Les dossiers du Tribunal de la Chambre impériale (1495-1806) sont composés de milliers de procès. Plus de 2.000 d’entre eux sont conservés aux Archives de l’État à Liège. Ces dossiers de procès décrivent entièrement la procédure judiciaire. Ils regorgent de pièces justificatives dont la valeur iconographique et esthétique force l’admiration : cartes, plans, arbres généalogiques, dessins, etc. Quelque 225 dossiers de procès, soit plus de 25.000 feuillets viennent d’être patiemment restaurés et 28 belles pièces ont fait l’objet de soins particuliers. Le 24 décembre 1944, en effet, le dépôt des Archives de l’État à Liège était touché lors d’un bombardement allemand qui avait pour cible le réseau ferroviaire liégeois. Une partie des archives de la Chambre impériale avait alors été détruite et une autre gravement endommagée par le feu et la neige.

On the Reichskammergericht:

En 1495, l’Empire germanique créait une nouvelle cour de justice. Installée à Wetzlar à partir de 1673, la Chambre impériale (Reichskammergericht) faisait office de juridiction suprême en matière civile. Les habitants originaires des anciennes Principautés de Liège et de Stavelot ont eu recours à ce tribunal jusqu’à la fin de l’Ancien Régime. En 1856, les archives relatives à nos régions ont été transférées de Wetzlar (Allemagne) à Bruxelles, puis l'année suivante aux Archives de l’État à Liège.

Project context:

 Paru en février 2019, l’ouvrage Trésors de procédure est le résultat de plus de six années de recherche. Le projet, destiné à faire renaître ces documents et leurs trésors de procédure, a été financé par la Politique scientifique fédérale (Belspo), avec l’intervention du Fonds Baillet Latour. L’ouvrage est en vente à la boutique des Archives générales du Royaume, via publicat@arch.be, Amazon et Bol.

More information with the Belgian State Archives.

(source: Standen en Landen/Aciens Pays et Assemblées d'États

JOURNAL: Vergentis VII (2018): Judicial Process II. Evolution and development in the History of Law

(image source: Innocent III Chair)

Research articles:

"Procedural progress and culture in the ecclesiastical justice" (Manuel Jesús Conde)
"Reforms to the canonical procedural law proposed by the Spanish metropolitans at the beginning of the canonical codification of 1917" (Carlos René Salinas Araneda)
"The value of jurisprudence in Roman Law and in Roman tradition" (Giovanni Luchetti)
"The care of migrants between the pastoral care of mobility and the mobility of pastoral care" (Luigi Sabbarese)
"The contractual nature of the classical litiscontestatio and the theory of the judicial contract. The dawn of the public conception of the process and of the social function of justice" (Elena Di Bernardo)
"The right of asylum in Christian churches on the basis of some imperial constitutions of the 4th and 5th century" (Rosa Mentxaka)

Read the full issue here.

BOOK: Olivier GUILLOT, Arcana Imperii IV [Cahiers de l'Institut d'anthropologie juridique; vol. 51] (Limoges: Pulim, 2018), 568 pages, 978-2-8428-7793-4. 39 €

(image source: Nomôdos)

Book abstract:

Avec ce quatrième volume, les Presses universitaires de Limoges poursuivent la publication des travaux d'Olivier Guillot dans la collection des Cahiers internationaux d'anthropologie juridique, On y retrouve toute la richesse de la pensée de ce grand chercheur qui analyse le droit, les institutions et les idées politiques du premier Moyen Age à la lumière des réalités de cette société composite dans laquelle la romanité est bien plus présente qu'on ne l’a imaginé jusque-là. Olivier Guillot a fait sienne la formule de Boileau « Cent fois sur le métier remettez votre ouvrage! », n’hésitant pas à compléter ou à réviser des hypothèses antérieurement formulées contribuant ainsi à renouveler notre connaissance de cette période. On y trouvera en particulier des réflexions sur l’origine et les effets du principatus, des études sur saint Martin ou encore sur la portée institutionnelle et politique de certaines « interprétations » du Bréviaire d’Alaric.

Table of contents:

– Références de l'édition originale des articles réunis dans ce volume
I –  Le jeu du principatus et l'effectivité du titre de roi ou d'empereur aux premiers temps carolingiens »
II –  Un art du princeps Geoffroy Martel, comte d'Anjou, de dire la coutume ? A partir de trois descriptions rétrospectives
III –  Principauté et princeps. La première expression du ducatus de Guillaume le Pieux dans la charte de ce dernier pour Saint-Julien de Brioude de mai 898
IV –  Les rois mérovingiens et l’épiscopat au VIIe siècle
V –  Karl Ferdinand Werner, novissimus fundatorVI –  Variations de Fulbert de Chartres sur le thème de la distinction du spirituel et du temporel
VII –  L’appui apporté par Henri Ier, roi de France à Guillaume d’Arques dans le conflit opposant ce dernier à Guillaume le Bâtard, duc de Normandie (fin 1053-1054) : une motivation juridique ?
VIII –  Le pouvoir et la foi au Moyen Age Introduction
VIII bis –  À propos de quelques actes de Marmoutier pour Chemillé de la mi XIe siècle
IX –  De Philippe Ier à Louis VI :  dans quelle mesure, de l’un à l’autre, la justice du roi semble-t-elle avoir progressé face à des nobles auteurs de dommages ? Une simple approche
X –  À propos de l’absence probable de chancelier aux débuts du règne du roi Eudes (des débuts de l’an 888 à juin 889)
XI –  En relisant les Annales de Flodoard :  l’offense faite à Louis IV par Arnulf, comte de Flandre, pour avoir fomenté l’assassinat de Guillaume Longue Epée, princeps des Normands (943)
XII – Une pierre d’achoppement d’ordre institutionnel : le régime de l’accession à l’épiscopat dans le monde franc du règne de Clovis à celui de Clotaire II
XIII – La fides prêtée à l’empereur Louis le Pieux par les grands laïques, à l’épreuve de l’épisode du Rothfelth de la fin juin 833 : comment l’événement a été compris sur l’instant, puis a été revu et corrigé après coup
XIV –  Comment l’Evangile transforme-t-il la société ? L’exemple des premiers chrétiens de Lyon en 177-178 (intervention orale)
XIV bis –  Comment l’Evangile transforme-t-il la société ? L’exemple des premiers chrétiens de Lyon en 177-178 : rapport de synthèse
XV –  Magister et non pas abbé ? une devise illustrée par saint Martin de Tours, souvent édulcorée par l’historiographie
XVI –  À propos de quatre moments où la virtus de saint Martin a été réputée avoir soutenu dans les Gaules, par les armes ou autrement, la légitimité d’un princeps ou d’un Auguste défenseur de la foi catholique
XVII –  En quoi l’apparition de la dynastie capétienne semble-t-elle avoir entraîné la désuétude institutionnelle et politique de l’époque franque ?
XVIII –  Coup d’œil sur la Société d’Histoire du Droit qui a cent ans
XIX –  L’esprit gallo-romain de l’élaboration du Bréviaire d’Alaric et de certaines de ses « interpretationes »
XX –  À propos de la seigneurie banale née en coutume au sein du royaume capétien ; son apparition première et son impact en cas de guerre, et le rôle des rustres sur ces deux plans (XIe-débuts XIIe siècles)
XXI –  Les grands laïques et le pouvoir royal carolingien, notamment dans la Francia de l’Ouest

(source: Nomôdos)

BOOK: Laura GAFFURI & Rosa Maria PARRINELLO (eds.), Verbum e ius: predicazione e sistemi giuridici nell'Occidente medievale = preaching and legal frameworks in the Middle Ages [Reti Medievali. E-books 32] (Firenze: Firenze UP, 2019), ISBN 978-88-6453-809-9 [OPEN ACCESS]

(image source: Unina)

Book abstract:

The crucial relationship between faith (“verbum”) and law (“ius”) has been intensively debated all throughout the Middle Ages. Such a debate was far from being secret and locked in the learning centers. It was quite used by the pastoral care of the medieval Church in order to influence the drafting and/or amendment of legislation, both civil and religious. The texts published in this volume devote special attention to that debate, by focusing on the role of medieval preachers in converting scholars' words on law, community and faith into a public communication addressed to ordinary secular people.

Download the full book for free here.

Postdoctoral Fellowship: ‘Refugees and Early Modern States’, University of Amsterdam (DEADLINE: 25 April 2019)

(Source: UvA)

We learned of a postdoctoral fellowship on refugees and early modern states at the University of Amsterdam.

JOB DESCRIPTION

The Amsterdam School of Historical Studies (ASH) currently has a vacant Postdoctoral position as part of the NWO-funded VICI Project The Invention of the Refugee in Early Modern Europe, led by professor Geert Janssen. ASH is one of the six research schools under the aegis of the Amsterdam Institute for Humanities Research.

Project description

This Postdoctoral project Refugees and Early Modern States is one of five closely-related projects, which together aim to analyse the invention of the refugee in early modern Europe. Funded through a VICI-grant of the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), the programme seeks to achieve three inter-related objectives:

1. To explain the emergence of the refugee as a social category in European society.
2. To identify the agency of displaced religious minorities in forging transnational solidarity networks.
3. To uncover the impact of refugees on European state formation.

The Postdoctoral researcher will study objective 3 by examining how the protection and accommodation of displaced men and women interacted with the ambitions of early modern authorities to expand their territories and forge confessional regimes. She/he will work closely with three PhD’s and the PI. A detailed research outline on the project, including potential source material, may be obtained from the PI Geert Janssen.

Tasks of the Postdoctoral researcher will include:

• participating in meetings of the project research group and developing a shared database;
• presenting intermediate research results at workshops and conferences, and delivering at least two peer reviewed articles;
• organizing knowledge dissemination activities;
• organizing an international conference on early modern refugees and (co-)editing a collection of essays;
• contributing to teaching courses in early modern history.

REQUIREMENTS

The successful applicant must have:

a PhD in Early Modern History;

excellent research skills, demonstrated by a track record of publishing in high-ranking journals and/or with leading presses or a demonstrable capacity to develop such a record;

astrong cooperative attitude and willingness to engage in collaborative research;

enthusiasm for communicating academic research to non-academic audiences;

proficiency in English.

More information can be found here

READING GROUP: “Just dominion: whatever may have been the right and justice in the beginning”: Reading Course of Alonso de la Vera Cruz’ Relectio De dominio infidelium et iusto bello (Frankfurt am Main: MPIeR, 10-12 APR 2019)

(image source: ScienceSprings)

Abstract:

The project “The School of Salamanca. A Digital Collection of Sources and a Dictionary of its Juridical-Political Language” invites applications for its second Reading Course: The discovery and conquest of America in the Early Modern era gave rise to intense debate among European jurists, theologians, and philosophers. Due to the leading role played by the Spanish monarchy in this process of conquests and assimilation of American indigenous peoples, most of the Iberian ‘intellectuals’ took part in the polemic. One of the major figures of this debate – as well as of the School of Salamanca – was the Augustinian monk and professor of theology Alonso de la Vera Cruz († 1584).
While doctrines of authors such as Vitoria and Soto, considered by the historiography as founders of the School of Salamanca, are well known and have aroused the interest of the international scientific community, little attention has so far been paid to Alonso de la Vera Cruz. First holder of the chairs of Sacred Scripture and S. Thomas at the newly established University of Mexico, he can be considered as the teacher who first introduced western philosophy in America.
Vera Cruz wrote the Relectio De dominio infidelium et iusto bello for the inauguration of the University of Mexico (1553). The text is a polemical reflection about the dilemmas related to the process of conquest and subordination of native American peoples which was then still in progress. Having always in mind the famous Relectio De Indis (1539) held by Francisco de Vitoria at the University of Salamanca some years before (with Vera Cruz already overseas), we will discuss the similarities and differences between the legal and political thinking of both authors.
Vera Cruz focusses on two aspects of the Spanish colonial presence in America: the justification of Spanish rule and of the power change from the indigenous rulers to the king of Castile, and that of the legal and moral relations between Spanish settlers, the so-called encomenderos, and the indigenous population. We will analyse Vera Cruz’ juridical positions regarding political dominion, socio-economic domination and questions of private property in America, but we will also look at the religious elements inextricably linked to the political issues, and, in particular, at strategies of evangelization and conversion.
On a methodological level, we will discuss the structure of argumentation as well as the handling of authors, authorities, and citations. By approaching these quintessential features of early modern scholasticism, the participants will gain experience in handling the complex texts of early modern European academia.
The Reading Course addresses advanced students, doctoral students and post-docs from legal studies, philosophy, history, theology, and political sciences. Working language will be English.
Participants working on a research project of their own (master or doctoral thesis) are invited to present and discuss their work during a special section of the Reading Course.

Where

Max Planck Institute for European Legal History
Hansaallee 41
60323 Frankfurt am Main
Germany

More information

Please find the full Call for Applications with the program's draft, requirements, and more information here:https://blog.salamanca.school/en/2019/02/14/just-dominion-whatever-may-have-been-the-right-and-justice-in-the-beginning-reading-course-of-alonso-de-la-vera-cruz-relectio-de-dominio-infidelium-et-iusto-bello-10-12-a/ 

Contact

Project The School of Salamanca
Dr. Christiane Birr, Dr. José Luis Egío, Dr. Andreas Wagner

(source: dr. Andreas Wagner)

JOURNAL: The Historical Journal LXII (2019), No. 1 (March)

(image source: CUP)

"The Ancient Constitution and the Languages of Political Thought" (Mark Goldie)

Abstract:

Historians of political thought speak of ‘languages’ of politics. A language provides a lexicon, an available resource for legitimating positions. It is looser than a ‘theory’, because protean, and not predictive of particular doctrines. Some languages attract considerable scholarly attention, while others languish, for all that they were ambient in past cultures. In recent scholarship on early modern European thought, natural law and civic humanism have dominated. Yet prescriptive appeals to national historiographies were equally pervasive. Many European cultures appealed to Tacitean mythologies of a Gothic ur-constitution. The Anglophone variant dwelt on putative Saxon freedoms, the status of the Norman ‘Conquest’, whether feudalism ruptured the Gothic inheritance, and how common law related to ‘reason’, natural law, and divine law. Whigs rooted parliaments in the Saxon witenagemot; though, by the eighteenth century, ‘modern’ Whigs discerned liberty as the fruit of recent socio-economic change. Levellers and Chartists alike talked of liberation from the ‘Norman Yoke’. These themes were explored from the 1940s onwards under the stimulus of Herbert Butterfield; one result was J. G. A. Pocock's classic Ancient constitution and the feudal law (1957).

"Empire and the Right to Preach the Gospel in the School of Salamanca, 1535-1560" (Daniel S. Allemann)

Abstract:

The sixteenth-century theologians of the School of Salamanca are well known for their sophisticated reflections on the Spanish conquest of the New World. But the nature of their responses seems far from clear and is subject to historiographical debate. Recent studies from the discipline of intellectual history suggest that the Salmantine theologians challenged the legitimacy of Spanish claims to the Americas. Scholars associated with the field of post-colonial studies, on the other hand, forcefully stress their entanglement in Spain's imperial venture overseas. This article, however, argues that these seemingly irreconcilable approaches are not in fact mutually exclusive. It shifts our attention to the sorely neglected ius praedicandi, the right to preach the gospel, which served to translate the Spanish theologians’ deeply rooted belief in the hegemonic truth of the Christian faith into a discourse of otherwise ‘secular’ natural rights. In adopting this novel lens, the article makes a case for assessing the language of the university theologians in its own terms while simultaneously exposing the support of Salamanca for Spain's imperial venture.

Robert Persons, Popular Sovereignty, and the Late Elizabethan Succession Debate (M.JM. Innes)

Abstract:

This article explores how, and why, Robert Persons's A conference about the next succession to the crowne of Ingland (1594) scandalized late Elizabethan England. By invoking the spectres of popular sovereignty and political resistance, Persons, as is well known, threatened to disrupt the succession of James VI of Scotland to Elizabeth I's throne. In doing so, however, he also undermined the very notion that the English crown passed by succession at all. After discussing Persons's political thought, this article examines the responses to it by such writers as John Hayward, Henry Constable, Peter Wentworth, and James VI himself. Their turn towards natural law as a basis for James's title was, it is argued, a direct consequence of the Conference’s argument. As well as shining long-overdue light on Hayward's political thought, the article thus argues that the reception of Persons's Conference was a significant influence on the development of English political thought in the early seventeenth century.

"Protestant Military Humanism in Early Stuart England" (D. Alan Orr)

Abstract:

This article addresses the role of Protestant military humanism in early Stuart Ireland. The central argument is that Protestant military humanism as embodied in the works of such authors as Geoffrey Gates (fl. 1566–80) and Barnabe Rich (1541–1617) played a vital role in the Jacobean plantation of Ulster. These authors combined a strong commitment to the Protestant religion with the conviction that martial virtue was essential for the preservation of the commonwealth against the threats of domestic rebellion and foreign domination. The example of the soldier-planter Sir Thomas Phillips of Limavady (c. 1560–1636) and his criticisms of the City of London's plantation in Derry during the 1620s demonstrates that military humanist values not only offered a persuasive rationale for colonization, but also significantly shaped the course of plantation on the ground. Phillips's lengthy conflict with the City of London demonstrated a fundamental disjuncture between his own Protestant military humanist outlook, and the City's own understanding of its civilizing mission in Ireland; however, rather than a conflict between aristocratic and civic values, close study reveals instead a struggle grounded in competing hierarchies of civic values.

"Language and Power in an English Convent in Exile, c. 1621-1631" (Emilie K. M. Murphy)

Abstract:

Scholarship on transnational encounter has predominantly focused on men's cross-cultural interactions. This article breaks new ground by exploring women's roles in similar forms of linguistic and power negotiation within the context of English convents founded in Europe during the seventeenth century. Moreover, recent scholarship on English convents has so far remained silent on the question of how these women negotiated the language barriers that many of them faced. This article proposes an answer by examining the correspondence sent in the 1620s from the English Benedictine convent in Brussels. These letters reveal the changing ways in which English nuns relied on both male and female translators to communicate. In so doing, this article expands existing scholarly understanding of epistolary and literary culture by exploring the authorial strategies employed in the convent, which afforded the nuns a sense of authority over their texts. The letters were vital avenues for the women to express dissent, and raise concerns over the way their community was governed. Finally, despite being enclosed institutions, English convents in exile were not monoglot spaces but porous sites of multi-lingual encounter.

"Where was the Church of England, 1646-1660?" (Christopher Haigh)

Abstract:

When parliament abolished episcopacy, cathedrals, and the Book of Common Prayer, what was left of the Church of England? Indeed, as contemporaries asked between 1646 and 1660, ‘Where is the Church of England?’ The episcopalian clergy could not agree. Some thought the remaining national framework of parishes and congregations was ‘the Church of England’, though now deformed, and worked within it. Others thought that only those ministers and parish congregations who remained loyal in heart to the church as it had been qualified as ‘the church’: most of them continued to serve a parish church and tried to keep the old practices going. A third category of hard-liners thought ‘the Church of England’ was now restricted to a recusant community that worshipped with the Prayer Book in secret and rejected the new national profession. The fundamental issue was the nature of a church: was it a society of believers, however organized, or a hierarchical institution following rules prescribed by God? The question caused tensions and distrust among the clergy, and the rigorists thought of the rest as time-servers and traitors. Disagreements continued to divide the clergy after the Restoration, and were reflected in attitudes towards concessions to dissenters.

For these (and other) scientific contributions, see CUP.