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31 May 2019

CALL FOR PAPERS: Weimar Moments: Constitutionalising Mass Democracy in Germany, Italy, Spain and Beyond (Madrid: University of Frankfurt/Autonomous University of Madrid/MPI Frankfurt/University of Ferrara/University of Valencia, 13-15 NOV 2019)

(image source: Uni Frankfurt)

The universities of Frankfurt, Madrid, Ferrara and Valencia and the MPI for Legal History in Frankfurt organize a workshop on "Weimar Moments. Constitutionalising Mass Democracy in Germany, Italy, Spain and Beyond". The workshop will take place in Madrid, 13-15 November 2019.

The deadline for submissions is 1 June 2019.

More information here.

JOURNAL: Journal of the History of Ideas LXXX (2019), No. 2 (Apr)

(image source: JHI Blog)

Value, Justice, and Presumption in the Late Scholastic Controversy over Price Regulation (Andreas Blank)
Abstract:
In the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, theories of price regulation were developed in order to analyze the demands of justice in situations where markets cease to function—be it through natural conditions, wars, or artificially induced shortages in supply. This article investigates the relevance of the methodological notion of presumption for the legally binding power of laws concerning price regulation. In particular, the relation between presumptions (assumptions that are taken to be true unless and until proven false), the cost-and-labor theory of value, and the question of the morally binding power of laws concerning legal prices are explored.
The Language of “Political Science” in Early Modern Europe (Sophie Smith)
Abstract:
Historians of early modern “scientia civilis” focus on two main understandings of that concept: the juridical and the rhetorical. This article focuses on another way of thinking about civil science in the early modern period, the origins and development of which are in the Aristotelian commentary tradition. This article begins with political science in Aristotle then turns to the works of commentators from Albert the Great in the thirteenth century, to the Oxford philosopher John Case in the late sixteenth. It ends on ways that this history offers new perspectives on Hobbes’s science of politics, and on the broader historiography.
 The Construction of the Concepts “Democracy” and “Republic” in Arabic in the Eastern and Southern Mediterranean, 1798–1878 (Wael Abu Uksa)
Abstract:
This article illuminates the construction of the concepts “democracy” and “republic” in the Arabic-speaking regions of the eastern and southern Mediterranean between 1798 and 1878. Examining these ideas through conceptual analysis on two levels, language construction and political discourse, the article reveals the layers these concepts acquired and their reception in the context of state reforms in the Ottoman Empire. While both “democracy” and “republic” evolved in Arabic after the French Revolution and acquired their modern morphological forms and content primarily between the 1820s and 1876, “republic” came into use and was perceived as relevant to local circumstances earlier than “democracy.”
For these and more articles, see the journal's blog.

BOOK: Candace BARRINGTON and Sebastian SOBECKI, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Law and Literature [Cambridge Companions to Literature] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). ISBN 9781107180789, c.£ 60.00


(Source: CUP)

Cambridge is publishing a new Companion, on Medieval English Law and literature.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Despite an unprecedented level of interest in the interaction between law and literature over the past two decades, readers have had no accessible introduction to this rich engagement in medieval and early Tudor England. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Law and Literature addresses this need by combining an authoritative guide through the bewildering maze of medieval law with concise examples illustrating how the law infiltrated literary texts during this period. Foundational chapters written by leading specialists in legal history prepare readers to be guided by noted literary scholars through unexpected conversations with the law found in numerous medieval texts, including major works by Chaucer, Langland, Gower, and Malory. Part I contains detailed introductions to legal concepts, practices and institutions in medieval England, and Part II covers medieval texts and authors whose verse and prose can be understood as engaging with the law.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Candace BarringtonCentral Connecticut State University

Candace Barrington is a Professor in the English Department of Central Connecticut State University. She has written multiple articles for journals and edited volumes and is the co-editor of The Letter of the Law: Legal Practice and Literary Production in Medieval England (with Emily Steiner, 2002).
Sebastian SobeckiRijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands

Sebastian Sobecki is Professor of Medieval English Literature at Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, The Netherlands. He is the author of The Sea and Medieval English Literature (2007) and Unwritten Verities: The Making of England's Vernacular Legal Culture, 1463–1549 (2015).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I. Legal Contexts:
1. English law before the conquest Stefan Jurasinski
2. Languages and law in late medieval England: English, French and Latin Gwilym Dodd
3. Canon and civil law Peter D. Clarke
4. Custom and common law Paul Raffield
5. Magna Carta and statutory law Anthony Musson
6. Treatises, tracts, and compilations Don C. Skemer
Part II. Literary Texts:
7. Treason Neil Cartlidge
8. Complaint literature Wendy Scase
9. Political literature and political law Andy Galloway
10. William Langland Emily Steiner
11. Geoffrey Chaucer Candace Barrington
12. John Gower R. F. Yeager
13. Lollards and religious writings Fiona Somerset
14. Lancastrian literature Sebastian Sobecki
15. Middle English romance and Malory's Le Morte Darthur Corinne Saunders
16. Marriage and the legal culture of witnessing Emma Lipton.

More info here

30 May 2019

JOURNAL: European Journal of International Law XXX (2019), No. 1 (Feb)

(image source: OUP)

Imagining the Rule of Law: Rereading the Grotian ‘Tradition’ (Martti Koskenniemi)
Abstract:
International law exists in the slippery zone between abstract speculation on binding principles and realistic deference to power. The position of Hugo Grotius as ‘father’ of international law, this article will suggest, results from the way later lawyers have appreciated his suggestion that when human beings enter that zone, they will discover a tendency to subordinate themselves to ‘rules’ that is lacking from other living creatures. Grotius then uses this assumed tendency to explain the trust and confidence with which members of good societies agree to live in peace and expect mutual benefits from cooperating with each other. The same tendency also entitles them to punish those who question the beneficial nature of these rules or lay down obstacles to their expansion. The importance of Grotius in the history of legal thought is highlighted by the manner in which the idea (though not the expression) of the ‘rule of law’ emerges in De iure belli ac pacis (1625) as a powerful justification of the government of a post-feudal, commercial state.

Perspective and Scale in the Architecture of International Legal History (Valentina Vadi)
Abstract:
Recent trends such as the turn to the history of international law, the parallel turn to the international law of history and the resulting emergence of international legal history as a field of study have encouraged an unprecedented interest in methodological questions in international legal history. Should international legal historians focus on the specific or the general? Should their narration be accessible to the many or should it be academic and addressed to the few? This article contributes to these emerging debates by focusing on the perspective and scale of analysis and investigating whether micro-historical approaches can help international legal historians to bridge the gap between the academic realm and the public, unveil unknown or little known international legal histories and contribute to the development of the field. This article aims to start a discussion on perspective and scale in international legal history and argues for inclusive and pluralist approaches by drawing out the advantages and potential of micro-history in relation to, and in combination with, the prevalent doctrinal, institutional and diplomatic macro-histories of international law.
 International Law in the Best of All Possible Worlds: An Introduction to G.W. Leibniz’s Theory of International Law (Tilmann Altwicker)
Abstract:
Today, the contribution by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646–1716), the last ‘universal genius’, to the theory of international law is nearly forgotten. Leibniz was a lawyer by training (later in life holding prestigious positions such as Reichshofrat), and he acted as a diplomat and political advisor to the Duke of Hanover. His engagement with legal practice distinguishes Leibniz from other philosophers. Always looking for intellectual synergies, Leibniz integrated his knowledge of (positive) law into his legal theory. He provides the rare combination of an international legal theory that is both grounded in his metaphysics and natural law theory and inspired by his extensive study of the positive international law of his time (Leibniz was the first to systematically collect and analyse historical international treaty law). This article introduces Leibniz’s theory of international law by outlining the different conceptual layers of his notion of ius gentium, by explaining the functions of natural law for positive international law and by showing how natural law can shape the substance of international relations. The three takeaways from Leibniz for contemporary international legal theory are the idea of optimizing pluralism, his ideas on synergies between theory and practice and, finally, his insistence on treating law as ‘legal science’.
See Oxford Journals for the full issue.
(source: ESILHIL Blog)

BOOK: Maria Adele CARRAI, Sovereignty in China - A Genealogy of a Concept since 1840 [Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). ISBN 9781108474191, £ 85.00


(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press is publishing a new book on the concept of sovereignty in China during the period 1840 to the present.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book provides a comprehensive history of the emergence and the formation of the concept of sovereignty in China from the year 1840 to the present. It contributes to broadening the history of modern China by looking at the way the notion of sovereignty was gradually articulated by key Chinese intellectuals, diplomats and political figures in the unfolding of the history of international law in China, rehabilitates Chinese agency, and shows how China challenged Western Eurocentric assumptions about the progress of international law. It puts the history of international law in a global perspective, interrogating the widely-held belief of international law as universal order and exploring the ways in which its history is closely anchored to a European experience that fails to take into account how the encounter with other non-European realities has influenced its formation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Maria Adele CarraiKatholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium

Maria Adele Carrai is currently a Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven and a Fellow at Harvard University Asia Center. She completed a Ph.D. in Law at the University of Hong Kong in 2016, where she received the Award for Outstanding Postgraduate Research Student for 2015–16, the Hong Kong Ph.D. Fellowship and the Swire Scholarship. Since she completed her Ph.D., she has been Princeton-Harvard China and the World Fellow (2017–18), New York University Global Hauser Fellow (2016–17), Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellow at the European University Institute, Florence (2015–17). Her research has appeared in various peer-review journals and she has spoken in a variety of fora.

TABLE OF CONTENT

Introduction
1. International law and the sinocentric ritual system: a nineteenth-century clash of normative orders
2. Secularizing a sacred empire: early translations and uses of international law
3. China's struggle for survival and the new Darwinist conception of international society (1895–1911)
4. China rejoining the world and its fictional sovereignty, 1912–1949
5. From Proletarian revolution to peaceful coexistence: sovereignty in the PRC, 1949–1989
Conclusion.

More info here

CONFERENCE: Law and Diversity - European and Latin American experiences from a legal historical perspective (Frankfurt, 6-7 June 2019)



We learned of a conference on European and Latin American approaches to law and diversity from a legal historical perspective at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History.

The tensions between equality and inequality as principles of justice and distribution as well as between general and individual case justice are among the basic experiences of any normative order. These tensions have heightened at various points in the history of law – as have the ever-new attempts to resolve them through institutional arrangements and special protection regimes. Our continental European legal system is based on the principle of equality. However, there is today a growing concern about how this equality-based system can respond to the increasing demands to take particular individual or collective circumstances into account to a greater extent. These concerns are raised in the debate on cultural diversity, but also in the struggle to compensate for disadvantages resulting from economic or social differences. In some cases, there are demands for specific, concrete changes in substantive law or procedural law. However, there are often doubts as to whether and for how long our equality-based legal system will be able to meet these challenges without fundamentally changing its structure.

However, this only describes a general constellation. The social dimensions in which the tension between equality and inequality emerged and the legal solutions or attempts at solutions it produced vary from country to country. In the workshop and publication project "Law and Diversity – European and Latin American Experiences from a Legal Historical Perspective", contributions from various European and Latin American countries are intended to illustrate this diversity and at the same time facilitate a comparison.

More info, as well as the full program, can be found here

29 May 2019

BOOK: Hassan Salih KHALILIEH, Islamic Law of the Sea Freedom of Navigation and Passage Rights in Islamic Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). ISBN 9781108481458, £ 75.00


(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press has published a new book on law of the sea from an Islamic legal historical perspective.

ABOUT THE BOOK 

The doctrine of modern law of the sea is commonly believed to have developed from Renaissance Europe. Often ignored though is the role of Islamic law of the sea and customary practices at that time. In this book, Hassan S. Khalilieh highlights Islamic legal doctrine regarding freedom of the seas and its implementation in practice. He proves that many of the fundamental principles of the pre-modern international law governing the legal status of the high seas and the territorial sea, though originating in the Mediterranean world, are not a necessarily European creation. Beginning with the commonality of the sea in the Qur'an and legal methods employed to insure the safety, security, and freedom of movement of Muslim and aliens by land and sea, Khalilieh then goes on to examine the concepts of the territorial sea and its security premises, as well as issues surrounding piracy and its legal implications as delineated in Islamic law.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Hassan S. KhaliliehUniversity of Haifa, Israel

Hassan S. Khalilieh is a senior lecturer in the departments of Maritime Civilizations and Multidisciplinary Studies and a senior research fellow in the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies, Leon H. Charney School of Marine Sciences at the University of Haifa, Israel. His publications include Islamic Maritime Law: An Introduction (1998) and Admiralty and Maritime Laws in the Mediterranean Sea (ca.800–1050): The Kitāb Akriyat al-Sufun and the Nomos Rhodion Nautikos (2006).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
1. Freedom of the seas
2. Offshore sovereignty and the territorial sea
3. Piracy and its legal implications
Conclusion.

More information here

VIDEO: Prof. Dario MANTOVANI at the Collège de France (Usages juridiques du passé (dans la pensée des juristes romains))


Prof. dr. Dario Mantovani (Pavia) teaches the course Usages juridiques du passé (dans la pensée des juristes romains) at the Collège de France for 2018-2019.

As with all public courses at the Collège de France, his lectures are available for free on videocast or podcast.

Course presentation:
Le digeste de Justinien et le Corpus iuris civilis dont il fait partie, qui seront au centre de l’enseignement de la Chaire « Droit, culture et société de la Rome antique » à partir de cette année au Collège de France, ont également été au centre de l’enseignement des universités européennes à partir du XIe siècle. Les universités elles-mêmes sont nées autour de la lecture du Corpus iuris civilis grâce à son attrait. Le droit romain recueilli dans ces volumes a donc nourri la culture de générations d’étudiants devenus ensuite juges, fonctionnaires ou avocats. Bien entendu avec des inflexions nationales et locales, avec des mouvements de résistance et de réception, le droit romain est toujours resté un point de repère incontournable. Le Corpus iuris civilis est donc en quelque sorte le livre de chevet de l’Europe. Connaître le droit romain nous offre donc la clé pour la connaissance du développement de cette culture juridique, mais pas seulement la culture juridique. Par exemple Guillaume Budé, le promoteur du Collège de France, lorsqu’il décida au XVIe siècle de restaurer la langue latine, se tourna vers les œuvres des juristes romains parce qu’il savait qu’ils se distinguaient par la précision et la beauté de leur langage. Le droit romain, avant d’appartenir à l’Europe, a appartenu à la Rome antique. Et mon enseignement va porter surtout sur le moment ancien du droit romain. Mais qu’est-ce, au fond, que le droit romain ? C’est une formalisation des rapports sociaux. Il s’agit de choix de valeurs et il s’agit d’un raisonnement. Parce que, oui, il y avait des lois, même d’une certaine envergure, comme la Loi des Douze Tables, mais les lois ne parlent pas seules, il faut que les juristes leur prêtent leur voix. Et donc le droit romain, c’est surtout l’ouvrage, l’œuvre des juristes. Donc il s’agit d’un produit intellectuel. Je dirai, une gigantesque rhétorique sans ruse. Le rôle du juriste romain n’était pas le rôle des avocats. Ils étaient des intellectuels qui cherchaient, par le biais du raisonnement, la solution la plus équitable des conflits d’intérêts. C’est ça qui fait l’attrait du droit romain et qui a permis son réemploi dans l’histoire médiévale et moderne de l’Europe. Une question se pose : comment peut-on renouveler un sujet qui a une tradition d’étude si longue ? Mon séminaire va présenter de nouveaux textes de droit romain que mon équipe et moi avons découverts et publiés. Il s’agit de fragments de papyrus témoins d’ouvrages des juristes romains. Mais derrière le renouvellement d’une discipline historique, il y a aussi le renouvellement du questionnement. Est-ce que les œuvres des juristes romains ont continué à être lues et à fonctionner comme la structure de base du droit même après Dioclétien et jusqu’à Justinien. Eh bien ! la réponse des papyrus est affirmative. On continuait à les copier, à les lire. Donc nous parlons d’une structure cachée. La structure cachée, c’est la pensée des juristes romains incorporée dans ce type d’ouvrage qui a continué à fonctionner même dans l’antiquité tardive.

More information on the Collège de France's website.

REPOSITORY: Leibniz Institute of European History (Mainz) on GitHub

(image source: GitHub)

The Leibniz Institute of European History opened its repository on Digital History on GitHub.

More information here.

BOOK: Kevin TAN and Bui NGOC SON (Eds.), Constitutional Foundings in Southeast Asia (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2019). ISBN 9781509918928, £70.00


(Source: Bloomsbury)

Bloomsbury is publishing a new book on the first constitutions at the founding of modern nation-states in Southeast Asia.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This volume focuses on the making, nature, and role of the first modern constitutions at the founding of the modern nation-states in Southeast Asia. These historical essays add richly to our understanding and appreciation of the founding moments and to the theory and practice of constitutionalism in these states. This volume makes three significant contributions. First, it helps plug the wide knowledge gap in comparative constitutional history in Southeast Asia. Second, it furthers our understanding of contemporary constitutional practice and also anticipates possible developmental trajectories in light of the foundational values embedded in and manifested through these constitutions. Third, through the comparative historical study of these early constitutions, plausible theoretical insights may be gained to further our understanding of Southeast Asia's constitutional history. The book is essential reading for those wishing to obtain a deeper understanding of the constitutional foundings of Southeast Asia.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Kevin YL Tan is a leading scholar of Singapore's constitution and has written and edited over 30 books on the law, politics and history of Singapore. He is currently Adjunct Professor at both the Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore and the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University. He is also Executive Editor of the Asian Journal of Comparative Law and Editor-in-Chief of the Asian Yearbook of International Law.

Bui Ngoc Son is an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Law at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Kevin YL Tan & Bui Ngoc Son, 'Southeast Asian Constitutional Foundings: A Constitutional-History Perspective'
2. Leia Castañeda Anastacio, 'Keeping Close to Shore: Preserving Colonial Legacies in the 1935 Philippine Constitution'
3. Koichi Kawamura, 'The Origins of the 1945 Indonesian Constitution'
4. Leigh-Ashley Lipscomb, 'Timor-Leste's Post-Revolutionary Constitution: From Foundations to Practice
5. Maitrii Aung-Thwin, 'The Making of Myanmar's 1947 Constitution: Geography, Ethnicity, and Law'
6. H. Kumarasingham, 'A Foreign Commission for Domestic Needs: The Constitutional Founding of Malaysia'
7. Kevin YL Tan, 'Foundational Moments: The 'Singapore Constitution'
8. BA Hussainmiya, 'The Making of the Brunei's 1959 Constitution'
9. Stein Tønnesson, 'Not Meant to Last: Vietnam's First Constitution'
10. Martin Stuart-Fox, 'The Lao Constitution of 1947/1949: Creating a Nation-State
11. Teilee Kuong, 'The First Constitution-Making in Cambodia: Colonialism, Modernism, Nationalism and the Implications'
12. Eugenie Mérieau, 'The 1932 Compromise Constitution: Matrix of Thailand's Permanent Constitutional Instability'

More information here

BOOK: William E. NELSON, E Pluribus Unum: How the Common Law Helped Unify and Liberate Colonial America, 1607-1776 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). ISBN 9780190880804, $34.95


(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press has published a book on the common law in pre-revolutionary America.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The colonies that comprised pre-revolutionary America had thirteen legal systems and governments. Given their diversity, how did they evolve into a single nation? In E Pluribus Unum, the eminent legal historian William E. Nelson explains how this diverse array of legal orders gradually converged over time, laying the groundwork for the founding of the United States.

From their inception, the colonies exercised a range of approaches to the law. For instance, while New England based its legal system around the word of God, Maryland followed the common law tradition, and New York adhered to Dutch law. Over time, though, the British crown standardized legal procedure in an effort to more uniformly and efficiently exert control over the Empire. But, while the common law emerged as the dominant system across the colonies, its effects were far from what English rulers had envisioned.

E Pluribus Unum highlights the political context in which the common law developed and how it influenced the United States Constitution. In practice, the triumph of the common law over competing approaches gave lawyers more authority than governing officials. By the end of the eighteenth century, many colonial legal professionals began to espouse constitutional ideology that would mature into the doctrine of judicial review. In turn, laypeople came to accept constitutional doctrine by the time of independence in 1776.

Ultimately, Nelson shows that the colonies' gradual embrace of the common law was instrumental to the establishment of the United States. Not simply a masterful legal history of colonial America, Nelson's magnum opus fundamentally reshapes our understanding of the sources of both the American Revolution and the Founding.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

William E. Nelson is Judge Edward Weinfeld Professor of Law, New York University. In 1961, he founded the Legal History Colloquium at NYU Law School, where nearly 100 younger scholars have held fellowships and received post-graduate training, and has presided over the Colloquium since that time. He has been writing and teaching in the field of American legal history for nearly fifty years and is the author of many books, including four volumes of The Common Law in Colonial America (Oxford), The Roots of American Bureaucracy, Americanization of the Common Law, and The Fourteenth Amendment.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Table of Contents
Introduction
Part One: The Initial Settlements, 1607-1660
Chapter 1: The Chesapeake
Chapter 2: New England
Chapter 3: New Netherland
Part Two: The Forging of Empire, 1660-1750
Chapter 4: The Crown's Imposition of the Common Law and Colonial Resistance
Chapter 5: The End of Resistance and the Triumph of the Common Law
Chapter 6: Ready Acceptance of the Common Law: Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and the South
Chapter 7: The Emergence of the Legal Profession
Chapter 8: Property, Commercial Law, Labor Law, and Slavery
Part Three: Altering Empire to Defeat France, 1689-1750
Chapter 9: The Local Structure of Power
Chapter 10: The Law of Religion
Chapter 11: Criminal and Regulatory Law
Part Four: The Collapse of Empire, 1750-1776
Chapter 12: The Well-Functioning Empire of the Mid-Eighteenth Century
Chapter 13: Weakening the Bonds of Empire
Chapter 14: Testing the Bonds of Empire
Chapter 15: Severing the Ties of Empire
Chapter 16: An Historian's Postscript
Bibliography

More information here

BOOK: D. J. (David J.) IBBETSON, Neil JONES, and Nigel RAMSAY, eds., English Legal History and its Sources Essays in Honour of Sir John Baker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). ISBN 9781108483063, £ 95.00


(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press has published an edited essay collection on various aspects of English legal history in honour of Sir John Baker.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This volume honours the work and writings of Professor Sir John Baker over the past fifty years, presenting a collection of essays by leading scholars on topics relating to the sources of English legal history, the study of which Sir John has so much advanced. The essays range from the twelfth century to the nineteenth, considering courts (central and local), the professions (both common law and civilian), legal doctrine, learning, practice, and language, and the cataloguing of legal manuscripts. The sources addressed include court records, reports of litigation (in print and in manuscript), abridgements, fee books and accounts, conveyances and legal images. The volume advances understanding of the history of the common law and its sources, and by bringing together essays on a range of topics, approaches and periods, underlines the richness of material available for the study of the history of English law and indicates avenues for future research.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

David IbbetsonUniversity of Cambridge
David Ibbetson has been Regius Professor of Civil Law in the University of Cambridge since 2000, and is Co-Director of the Centre for English Legal History at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of A Historical Introduction to the Law of Obligations (1999) and has published on a wide range of subjects in the legal history of England and elsewhere. He is a recipient of the American Society for Legal History's Surrency and Sutherland Prizes.

Neil JonesUniversity of Cambridge
Neil Jones is Reader in English Legal History at the University of Cambridge, Co-Director of the Centre for English Legal History at the University of Cambridge, and Literary Director of the Selden Society. He writes on the history of English law in the early-modern period, with a particular emphasis upon equity and the law of real property. He is a recipient of the Selden Society's David Yale Prize, and of the American Society for Legal History's Sutherland Prize.

Nigel RamsayUniversity College London
Nigel Ramsay is a former senior research fellow in the history departments of University College London and the University of Oxford and in the law department of the University of Exeter. He has written on medieval and Tudor legal history, religious history (especially monasticism), art history and heraldry. He is at present preparing an edition of the medieval records of the Court of Chivalry for the Selden Society.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Year book men David J. Seip
2.Errores in Camera Scaccarii David Ibbetso
3. Law reporting in the seventeenth century W. H. Bryson
4. The law of contracts as reported in The Times, 1785-1820 James Oldham
5. Reading terminology in the sources for the early common law: seisin, simple and not so simple John Hudson
6. 'A photograph of English life'?: the trustworthiness of the thirteenth-century crown pleas rolls Henry Summerson
7. Law, lawyers and legal records: litigating and practising law in late medieval England Jonathan Rose
8. The fees they earned: the incomes of William Staunford and other Tudor lawyers Nigel Ramsa
9. The fifteenth-century accounts of the undersheriffs of Middlesex: an unlikely source for legal history Susanne Brand
10. Local courts in Eastern Sussex, 1263-1835 Christopher Whittick
11. Visualising legal history: the courts and legal profession in image Anthony Musson
12. The engraved facsimile by John Pine (1733) of the 'Canterbury' Magna Carta (1215) Simon Keynes
13. The abbess, the empress and the 'Constitutions of Clarendon' Elisabeth van Houts
14. The Tractatus de Antiquo Dominico Corone ascribed to Anger of Ripon Paul Brand
15. Another way of doing manuscript catalogues? Charles Donahue, Jr.
16. Common opinion in the fourteenth century: before the common learning, before the inns of court Ian Williams
17. Henry Sherfield's reading on wills (1624) and trusts in the form of a use upon a use N. G. Jones
18. Civilians in the common law courts, 1500-1700 R. H. Helmholz
19. The widow's apparel: paraphernalia and the courts Janet S. Loengard
20. 'The glorious uncertainty of the law': life at the Bar, 1810-1830 Michael Lobban

More info with CUP

BOOK: Carlos Augusto RAMOS NUNEZ, Justicia Profana. El jurado de imprenta en el Perú (Lima: PUCP - Fondo Editorial, 2018). ISBN 9786123173784, S/. 60.00


(Source: Fondo Editorial)

We had not yet reported this book on the printing jury (1823-1939) in Peru, which was published last year by the Fondo Editorial. A book review by Christian Ramirez-Gastón in English can be found below.

ABOUT THE BOOK

La libertad de expresión debe convivir con el respeto al derecho ajeno. Pero, ¿quién determina dónde se ubica exactamente ese límite? En una sociedad democrática como la nuestra que está regida por un Estado de derecho, es la ley la que regula esa dinámica. Aunque bien sabemos que las leyes no son expresión de las necesidades colectivas o de la equidad en las relaciones humanas. Por tanto, la delicada relación entre libertad y regulación se convierte en un terreno de negociación y disputa en el que las respuestas definitivas y consensuales resultan imposibles de alcanzar.

Una de las instituciones que durante un siglo intentó ejercer esa regulación en el Perú fue el jurado de imprenta, que es el objeto de estudio de este exhaustivo trabajo del magistrado Carlos Ramos Núñez, el más importante historiador del derecho que ha producido nuestro país. En este nuevo libro, el autor ilumina el accionar de una institución que, sorprendentemente, no había recibido hasta ahora la atención que se merece. El jurado de imprenta se dedicaba a procesar casos de delitos de imprenta que podemos considerar comunes, en oposición a aquellos de naturaleza claramente política. Estos últimos constituyeron solo una pequeña fracción del total de casos existentes. Ciudadanos ordinarios que veían sus derechos y su honor afectados por alguna publicación recurrían al jurado de imprenta para intentar obtener justicia y castigar conductas contrarias a la convivencia y el respeto mutuo.

BOOK REVIEW by Christian Ramírez-Gastón

The present book is about the printing jury in Peru, an institution that regulated freedom of expression in that country for more than a century (1823-1939), to control the damage that flyers, pamphlets or newspapers could do to the constitutional order and the catholic faith of the brand-new State.

The book is made up of four chapters. The first deals with the development of printing censorship, both previous and after publication, and freedom of press. The second studies the changing legislation on the printing jury and its application. The third analyzes the operation of the jury in Lima and the fourth analyzes its dynamic in the provinces.

As the author shows, this jury had a notorious presence in the history of Peru, due to the importance of the freedom of the press at the beginning of the republican era, a period in which processes for abuse of the printing press abound.

According to the author, at that time it was considered more convenient to implement popular justice on the matter. But the book proves that this presumed democratization gave rise to juries’ subject to the dominion of city elites (notable persons in the respective municipalities), who imposed their particular vision of morality and politics, and used it as an instrument of reprisal, intimidation and revenge, issuing verdicts without due motivation. As the author says, “the law seemed more designed to prosecute offenders than to guarantee freedom of printing”.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents: Introduction. 1. “La imprenta y la censura” (Printing and censorship). 2. “El Jurado de imprenta” (The printing jury). 3. “El jurado de imprenta en el Perú” (The printing jury in Peru). 4. “La dinámica del Jurado de imprenta en el siglo XX” (The dynamics of the printing jury in the XX century).

More information here

BOOK: Johannes W. FLUME, Marktaustausch Grundlegung einer juristisch-ökonomischen Theorie des Austauschverkehrs (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2019). ISBN 978-3-16-156898-5, €84.00


(Source: Mohr Siebeck)

Mohr Siebeck has published a new book on the legal foundation of markets and contracts.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Johannes W. Flume analyses the legal foundation of markets and contracts. He formulates a theory of market exchange, which shows that markets are legal products and that all exchange contracts in a market economy are derivatives because they derive their value from underlying market prices.
Johannes W. Flume zeigt, wie in den vergangenen vierhundert Jahren an den Börsen aus den archetypischen Formen der Austauschverträge – Tausch und Kauf – Futures-Märkte entstanden sind. Dabei arbeitet er heraus, dass der allgemeine Austauschmarkt der Kaufverträge und die Futures-Märkte ein gemeinsames privatrechtliches Fundament haben. Der monetäre Wert von Verträgen, das Pekuniarinteresse, wird in diesen Märkten jeweils durch das Verhältnis zwischen Kaufpreis und Marktpreis errechnet. Beim Kaufvertrag wird so der Schadensersatz statt der Leistung ermittelt, während an den Börsen das Pekuniarinteresse in automatisierten Rechenvorgängen festgestellt wird. Der Autor formuliert hierauf aufbauend eine Theorie des Marktaustauschs: Märkte sind Rechtsprodukte und sämtliche Austauschverträge sind in einer Marktwirtschaft Derivate, denn sie leiten ihren Wert vom Basiswert der Marktpreise ab.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Johannes W. Flume Geboren 1979; Studium der Rechtswissenschaften an den Universitäten Regensburg, Köln und Bonn; 2008 Promotion; Rechtsreferendar im OLG-Bezirk Köln; 2011 Max Planck Scholar und Visiting Fellow am Wolfson College, Cambridge; 2012–18 Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter an der Universität Tübingen; 2018 Habilitation (Universität Köln); seit 2018 Gastprofessor an der Freien Universität Berlin.

More info here


CONFERENCE: Iº Convegno Nazionale Sui Domini Collettivi “IL CAMMINO DELLE TERRE COMUNI” - Dalle Leggi liquidatorie degli usi civici al riconoscimento costituzionale dei domini collettivi (Tarquinia, 8 June 2019)


We learned of a conference organized by the Società Tarquiniense d'Arte e Storia.

Presentazione

Con la legge n. 168 del 20 novembre 2017 è stata istituita la figura giuridica dei Domini collettivi con la quale viene finalmente riconosciuta dalla Costituzione italiana, accanto alla proprietà pubblica e privata, la proprietà collettiva quale patrimonio identitario delle comunità locali che su di essa hanno costruito nei secoli la loro storia.

La Legge n. 168 rappresenta un momento epocale nella storia italiana perché pone fine ad uno scontro secolare tra due diverse modalità, egualmente legittime, di relazione ed appropriazione tra l’uomo e le cose: la proprietà privata e la proprietà collettiva. A partire dalla rivoluzione francese queste due forme di possedere il mondo sensibile sono state le protagoniste di uno scontro ideologico che ha investito l’intera Europa segnando progressivamente, in un contesto culturale profondamente individualistico, la imposizione del modello di proprietà privata a discapito di quella collettiva, vittima di una vera e propria persecuzione legislativa culminata nelle leggi liquidatorie dei secoli XIX e XX.

Dopo secoli di persecuzioni, con la recente Legge n. 168 è stato riconosciuto il valore sociale, culturale ed economico della proprietà collettive in quanto patrimonio riconosciuto e protetto dalla Costituzione italiana.

Il proposito del presente convegno è di ricostruire - attraverso una prospettiva interdisciplinare - il lungo e avvincente cammino degli assetti fondiari collettivi (le terre comuni) a partire dalle politiche individualistiche della modernità sino alla rivoluzione culturale aperta dalla Legge sui domini collettivi. Su questo sentiero cronologico e tematico ideale la giornata di studi si apre alla riflessione di Storici, Giuristi, Avvocati, Economisti, Filosofi, Sociologi e cultori della materia operanti nelle sedi accademiche o presso gli enti collettivi (Università agrarie, partecipanze, regole, associazioni agrarie).

A solo scopo esemplificativo, costituiscono tematiche di rilevante interesse scientifico:
-          Vicende storico-giuridiche legate ai domini collettivi e agli usi civici
-          Riflessioni concernenti le categorie della proprietà collettiva, usi civici e beni comuni
-          La consuetudine come fonte storica costituiva dei domini collettivi
-          I domini collettivi come ordinamento giuridico primario delle comunità originarie
-          I domini collettivi come elementi fondamentali per lo sviluppo delle collettività locali
-          I domini collettivi come strumenti per la tutela del patrimonio ambientale nazionale
-          I domini collettivi come basi territoriali di istituzioni storiche di salvaguardia del patrimonio culturale e naturale
-          Il secolare dibattito dottrinale e giurisprudenziale sulla proprietà collettiva
-          Gli enti esponenziali delle collettività titolari del diritto d'uso civico e della proprietà collettiva


All info to be found here

28 May 2019

BOOK: Olivier CAYLA & Jean-Louis HALPÉRIN (dir.), Néo ou rétro constitutionnalismes ? Mises en perspective de la démocratie constitutionnelle contemporaine (Paris: Mare & Martin, 2019), 231 p. ISBN 978-2-84934-275-6 € 16

(image source: Mare & Martin)

Book abstract:
Comment comprendre les événements politiques majeurs survenus sur tous les continents durant ces vingt-cinq dernières années ? Quel sens attribuer aux diverses (r)évolutions à la faveur desquelles se sont multipliés les « États de droit » ayant en vue d’assujettir, sous la férule du juge constitutionnel, le pouvoir politique au respect des droits fondamentaux de l’individu, constitutionnellement garantis ? L’ouvrage s’efforce de dégager des perspectives théoriques permettant de conduire une réflexion sur la nature de ce qui est souvent présenté comme l’aboutissement du « constitutionnalisme » né à la fin du XVIIIe siècle. Peut-on, en ce sens, recourir à l’expression de « néo-constitutionnalisme » ? Ou ne serait-il pas préférable de faire plutôt l’hypothèse d’une reconstruction doctrinale de ce qu’est supposé avoir été le constitutionnalisme des siècles précédents, en vue d’accorder artificiellement la réalité politique contemporaine à ce passé revisité ? Néo ou rétro ? Tels sont les deux axes principaux entre lesquels balancent les auteurs de cet ouvrage dans leur compréhension du constitutionnalisme d’aujourd’hui.
(more information with the publisher)

AUDIO: How free are Research and Teaching in the German constitution ? (Prof. Michael STOLLEIS, Frankfurt)

(image: prof. Stolleis; source: MPI Frankfurt)

The MPI for European Legal History published an audio interview with Prof. em. dr. dr. h.c. mult. Michael Stolleis on the famous freedom of "Forschung und Lehre", present in the Frankfurter Constitution of 1849, the Weimar Constitution of 1919 and the Grundgesetz.

Abstract:
Der Staat soll die Freiheit der Wissenschaft garantieren und die Wissenschaft vor staatlichem Einfluss geschützt werden. In dieser paradoxen Situation die Balance zu halten, ist schwierig. In Deutschland ist die Freiheit der Wissenschaft im Grundgesetz (Artikel 5.3) geregelt. In anderen europäischen Staaten gerät Wissenschaft immer mehr unter Druck, weiß Rechtshistoriker Michael Stolleis.
Link here.

CONFERENCE: Les obligations royales (Poitiers: Université de Poitiers & Université de Tours, 4 JUN 2019)

(image source: univ-droit)

The universities of Poitiers and Tours co-organise a conference on "royal obligations" on 4 June 2019. 

The full programme can be found on univ-droit.

27 May 2019

BOOK: Jacques LE GOFF, Du silence à la parole - Une histoire du droit du travail des années 1830 à nos jours (Paris: LGDJ, 2019). ISBN 978-2-7535-7756-5, €35.00


(Source: LGDJ)

LGDJ has published a new edition of Jacques Le Goff’s monograph on the history of modern French labor law.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Raconter de manière vivante l'histoire du droit du travail. Montrer comment la société française s'est dite dans son idiome juridique sur fond de compromis précaires et évolutifs entre l'économique et le social. Décrire l'émergence et les mutations de la citoyenneté dans l'espace d'entreprise. En comprendre l'allure aujourd'hui plus incertaine à l'heure du numérique et de la mondialisation, après l'apogée des années 1980. Bref, mettre une nouvelle fois l'histoire au service du présent.

C'est le pari de ce livre conçu par son auteur, juriste, politiste, historien, et ancien inspecteur du travail, comme le récit passionné et passionnant de l'émancipation du monde du travail symbolisée par l'accès à une parole d'abord collective puis individuelle, puissante mais vulnérable.

D'où le titre de ce qui fut la première histoire du droit du travail dans laquelle certains ont vu le « roman du droit du travail » (journal Marianne, Le Monde initiatives). L'écho enthousiaste qu'elle a rencontré au point d'en faire rapidement un « classique » (Laurent Berger), explique les trois rééditions et les réimpressions successives intégrant, au fil du temps, les évolutions les plus actuelles.
Cette 4e édition comportant trois nouveaux chapitres pour la période du début des années 2000 à nos jours n'élude pas la question de la place et du sens du travail dont dépend la configuration présente et future d'un droit du travail en proie à une évidente incertitude statutaire.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Préface de Laurent Berger, secrétaire général de la CFDT; postface de Philippe Waquet, doyen honoraire de la Chambre sociale de la Cour de cassation.

Jacques Le Goff est professeur émérite des universités (droit public, Brest, Quimper), ancien inspecteur du travail durant 10 ans, président de l'Association des Amis d'Emmanuel Mounier.

More info here

CONFERENCE: The Contribution of the Legal Services of the European Institutions to European Union Law (Frankfurt, 18-19 June 2019)



The Max Planck Institute for European Legal History is hosting its annual conference for the “Legal History of the European Union” research field.

While the most recent research on the legal history of the European Union has established that the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has played a critical role in the functioning of European institutions, other legal actors have also played important roles, exerting a decisive influence on the ECJ and on legislators. This, for instance, was the case with the legal services of institutions such as the Commission, the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament, decisively influencing the negotiation of various European treaties and the resolution of legal controversies – especially concerning institutional competencies, which was ultimately resolved through bilateral meetings between these legal services, and by the ECJ.

Hosted at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History (Frankfurt am Main), this conference will bring together scholars and former members of these institutions' legal services. They will present the historical trajectories of the legal services via key figures, the doctrinal developments achieved by each institution, and their cooperation with academics and legal practitioners. Contributions will reflect on how each of these legal services has influenced the general development of EU law as a constitutional practice, their implications for the process of European integration and its institutional evolution.

Guests are welcome to register for the event to take place at Frankfurt am Main, Campus Westend, on 18 and 19 June 2019. There is no conference fee.

The program and more can be found here


JOURNAL: Law and History Review XXXVII (2019), Vol. 2


(Source: Cambridge Core)


The Law and History Review has just published its latest issue.

Articles

A Deep History of Chinese Shareholding Madeleine Zelin 325
More than Mothers: Juries of Matrons and Pleas of the Belly in Medieval England Sara M. Butler 353
Sovereignty and Common Law Judicial Office in Taylor’s Case (1675) David Kearns 397
Testimonial Exclusions and Religious Freedom in Early America Jud Campbell 431
The Legislature at War: Bandits, Runaways and the Emergence of a Virginia Doctrine of Separation of Powers Matthew Steilen 493
Illegal Under the Laws of All Nations? The Courts of Haiti and the Suppression of the Atlantic Trade in African Captives Andrew Walker 539
Slavery’s Legalism: Lawyers and the Commercial Routine of Slavery Justin Simard 571
Narratives and Normativity: Totalitarianism and Narrative Change in the European Legal Tradition after World War II Kaius Tuori 605

Book Reviews

Across Oceans of Law: The Komagata Maru and Jurisdiction in Time of Empire — Renisa Mawani reviewed by Debjani Bhattacharyya 639
Seeking Sanctuary: Crime, Mercy, and Politics in English Courts, 1400–1550 — Shannon McSheffrey reviewed by Helen Lacey 642
Law and Order in Anglo-Saxon England— Tom Lambert reviewed by Kristen J. Carella 644
Surviving Slavery in the British Caribbean — Randy M. Browne reviewed by Randy J. Sparks 645
Sovereignty, International Law, and the French Revolution — Edward James Kolla reviewed by Zachary M. Stoltzfus 647
Birthright Citizens: A History of Race and Rights in Antebellum America — Martha S. Jones reviewed by Kunal M. Parker 649
Under the Starry Flag: How a Band of Irish Americans Joined the Fenian Revolt and Sparked a Crisis over Citizenship — Lucy E. Salyer reviewed by Allison Brownell Tirres 651
The Sit-Ins: Protest and Legal Change in the Civil Rights Era — Christopher W. Schmidt reviewed by John A. Kirk 653

More info here

NOTICE: Decease of Prof. Peter Landau

(image: Prof. Landau; Source: MGH)

On Thursday 23 May, the Monumenta Germaniae HIstorica reported the decease of Prof. dr. dr. h.c. mult. Peter Landau (München), at the age of eighty-four.

Professor Landau was a towering figure in legal history.

More information here.

OPINION: Prof. Ulrike MÜSSIG on "The European Idea of Justice"


Europe has a very specific European idea of justice: it is about reason and fairness.”
Professor Ulrike Müßig, holder of the Chair of Civil Law, German and European Legal Historian

(image source: Uni Passau)

Professor Ulrike Müßig is a European Research Council advanced grantee. She headed the “ReConFort – Reconsidering Constitutional Formation” project (grant agreement no. 339529, ReConFort) in which legal scholars spent four years researching historical constitutional debates in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Poland and Spain.
“Europe has a very specific European idea of justice: it is about reason and fairness. It incorporates the Aristotelian idea of goodness, the English concept of equity that uses the law to compensate for hardship, and a reason-based fairness that goes beyond formal justice. Professor Kurt Lipstein, who I was fortunate enough to learn from as a student at Cambridge, impressed me with his legal scholarship permeated with this idea. Having fled to England as a Jewish civil servant in 1933, he spent the Blitz as a faculty assistant on the very pointed roof of the Squire Law Library. With three buckets of water to combat German bombs!

This elder statesman of English international inheritance law and author of the first English textbook on European law could not and would not disappoint anyone who was looking for a book in the old Squire (where they were confusingly sorted by size). ‘Justice seen to be done’ was based on values that are both British and European: reason and fairness. Kurt Lipstein embodied and taught we German students in the 1990s that fairness could be reasonably achieved by striving time and again for a distinction between ‘what is’ and interpretation.”


(source: Prof. Müssig)