PODCAST: Europas Weg – Podcast zur Verfassungsgeschichte der Europäischen Union

(Source: University of Göttingen)

We learned of a new podcast, narrated by Professor Schorkopf (Göttingen), on the legal history of the European Union.

Der Podcast hat das europäische Recht in seinen ideelen, politisch-gesellschaftlichen und wirtschaftli-chen Zusammenhängen zum Gegenstand. Es geht um Verträge, Ereignisse und Personen, um das Denken und Sprechen, um Partizipaton und Repräsenation im organisierten Europa von der Gründung der Montanunion in den frühen 1950er Jahren bis zur Europäischen Union der 2000er Jahre. Dieses digitale Vorhaben soll die Grundlagen europäischer Integration, besonders des Europarechts für Studenten nicht nur, aber auch der Rechtswissenschaft, im Grunde jedoch allen Interessierten zugänglich machen.

More info on the website of the Institut für Völkerrecht und Europarecht

BOOK: Alice TAYLOR, The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland, 1124-1290 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). ISBN 9780198861256, 40.00 USD

(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press is publishing the paperback edition of Professor Alice Taylor’s “The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland, 1124-1290” (we had not yet reported on the 2016 hardback edition).

ABOUT THE BOOK

This is the first full-length study of Scottish royal government in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries ever to have been written. It uses untapped legal evidence to set out a new narrative of governmental development. Between 1124 and 1290, the way in which kings of Scots ruled their kingdom transformed. By 1290 accountable officials, a system of royal courts, and complex common law procedures had all been introduced, none of which could have been envisaged in 1124.

The Shape of the State in Medieval Scotland, 1124-1290 argues that governmental development was a dynamic phenomenon, taking place over the long term. For the first half of the twelfth century, kings ruled primarily through personal relationships and patronage, only ruling through administrative and judicial officers in the south of their kingdom. In the second half of the twelfth century, these officers spread north but it was only in the late twelfth century that kings routinely ruled through institutions. Throughout this period of profound change, kings relied on aristocratic power as an increasingly formal part of royal government. In putting forward this narrative, Alice Taylor refines or overturns previous understandings in Scottish historiography of subjects as diverse as the development of the Scottish common law, feuding and compensation, Anglo-Norman 'feudalism', the importance of the reign of David I, recordkeeping, and the kingdom's military organisation. In addition, she argues that Scottish royal government was not a miniature version of English government; there were profound differences between the two polities arising from the different role and function aristocratic power played in each kingdom.

The volume also has wider significance. The formalisation of aristocratic power within and alongside the institutions of royal government in Scotland forces us to question whether the rise of royal power necessarily means the consequent decline of aristocratic power in medieval polities. The book thus not only explains an important period in the history of Scotland, it places the experience of Scotland at the heart of the process of European state formation as a whole

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Alice Taylor, Reader in Medieval History, King's College London

Alice Taylor is a Reader in Medieval History at King's College London. She was born in London and studied History at St Peter's College, Oxford. After receiving her doctorate from Oxford in 2009, she was a Research Fellow at King's College, Cambridge until 2011, when she joined the History Department at KCL. The Shape of the State was her first book, and was jointly awarded the Royal Historical Society's Whitfield Prize in 2017. Also in 2017, she was awarded a Philip Leverhulme Prize for History.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements

List of Maps and Tables

List of Abbreviations

Preliminary notes

Introduction

Part 1: Rulers and Ruled, 1124-1230

1. The early Scottish state?

2. Common Burdens in the Regnum Scottorum

3. Written law and the maintenance of order, 1124-1290

Part II: The emergence of a bureaucratic state, c.1170-1290?

4. The institutions of royal government, c.1170-1290

5. The development of a common law, 1230-1290

6. Accounting and Revenue, c.1180-1290

7. A bureaucratic government?

Conclusion

Appendix

Bibliography

More info here

BOOK: Lukas LEMCKE, Bridging Center and Periphery : Administrative Communication from Constantine to Justinian (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2020). ISBN 978-3-16-158945-4, 69.00 EUR

(Source: Mohr Siebeck)

Brill is publishing a new book on administrative communication channels in the late Roman Empire.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Lukas Lemcke challenges the conventional understanding of the Late Roman administration as a three-tiered system by demonstrating that its hierarchy of communication was distinctly two-tiered. In so doing, he offers a new perspective on the functional and organizational structure of this administrative system and advances our understanding of the vicariate by introducing a new functional dimension and by reassessing its development during the fifth and early sixth centuries. Based on a comprehensive collection of legal, epigraphic and other literary documents to which the concept of »formal communication« is applied, the author explores the forms and development of administrative communication channels that facilitated the official exchange of information from Constantine to Justinian and thus reveals how emperors actively sought to regulate the centripetal and centrifugal flow of official information.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lukas Lemcke Born 1990; 2012 BA (Classical Studies) and 2013 MA (Ancient Mediterranean Cultures), University of Waterloo, Canada; 2014–19 PhD studies in Ancient History, University of Cologne.

The table of contents can be found here

More info here

BOOK: Philipp AUSTERMANN, Der Weimarer Reichstag: die schleichende Ausschaltung, Entmachtung und Zerstörung eines Parlaments (Vienna: Böhlau Verlag, 2020).ISBN 978-3-412-51985-8, EUR 30.00

(Source: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht)

Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht is publishing a book on the German Reichstag during the Weimar period.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Am 24. Juni 1920 trat der erste Reichstag der Weimarer Republik zusammen. Er spiegelte stets den Zustand des Staates wider: seine politische Zerrissenheit, seine Belastung durch den verlorenen Ersten Weltkrieg und nicht zuletzt die Feindseligkeit, die der Demokratie von links und rechts entgegenschlug. Welche Chancen und Risiken für den Parlamentarismus bestanden, wie er seit 1930 immer mehr an den Rand gedrängt und schließlich zur bloßen Hülle wurde, zeigt dieses Buch.

Im Weimarer Reichstag spiegelten sich alle Probleme der jungen Republik wider. Er stand im Zentrum heftiger gesellschaftlicher und politischer Auseinandersetzungen. Das Erbe der Kaiserzeit und die Krisen der Republik forderten die Reichstagsabgeordneten und belasteten die Parlamentsarbeit schwer. Philipp Austermann erzählt die Geschichte der Weimarer Republik zum ersten Mal vor allem aus der Sicht ihres Parlaments und seiner Abgeordneten. Er beschreibt, wie häufig die demokratischen Parteien kompromissunfähig waren, wie sehr die Todfeinde der Demokratie von rechts und links den Reichstag als Agitationsbühne nutzten, um die parlamentarische Republik zu zerstören, wie gezielt Reichspräsident Hindenburg ab 1930 den Reichstag an den Rand drängte und wie der mit jeder Wahl in den 1930er Jahren steigende Stimmenanteil der Radikalen das Parlament lähmte und aushöhlte. Das Buch appelliert angesichts stärker werdender Populisten zugleich an die demokratische Wachsamkeit.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philipp Austermann ist promovierter Jurist und Professor für Staats- und Europarecht an der Hochschule des Bundes für öffentliche Verwaltung in Brühl. Zuvor war er zwölf Jahre als Referent in der Bundestagsverwaltung tätig. Er hat mehrere Veröffentlichungen zum Verfassungsrecht, darunter einen Kommentar zum Abgeordnetengesetz sowie ein Lehrbuch zum Parlamentsrecht verfasst.

More info here

BOOK: Stefania TORRE, Il melodramma in tribunale. Un'altra storia della Cavalleria Rusticana (Napoli: Editoriale Scientifica, 2019). ISBN: 9788893917049, pp. 220, € 15,00

(Source: Editoriale Scientifica)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Collana: IusRegni. Collana di Storia del diritto medievale, moderno e contemporaneo

La Cavalleria Rusticana, il melodramma di un successo di Pietro Mascagni, deve l’ispirazione all’omonima novella di Giovanni Verga, che ne autorizzò l’adattamento musicale per il teatro lirico. L’incontro fra il compositore livornese e lo scrittore siciliano, dopo un avvio in totale armonia, degenerò in uno scontro giudiziario per l’attribuzione dei diritti d’autore sull’opera. Sul finire del secolo XIX, le parti diedero vita ad una lunghissima e combattuta vicenda processuale che assunse, in Italia, il valore di precedente giurisprudenziale nelle controversie sulla tutela delle creazioni in musica. Lo studio che si presenta ha inteso ripercorrere tutto l’iter di questo importante processo celebre, di cui furono protagonisti non solo Mascagni e Verga ma soprattutto gli avvocati, i magistrati e i tanti autorevoli giuristi che, dalle pagine delle riviste scientifiche o attraverso saggi e trattati, contribuirono alla formazione del diritto italiano sulle produzioni dell’intelletto.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stefania Torre è ricercatrice instoria del diritto medievale e moderno (IUS/19) preeso il dipartimento di Giurisprudenza dell'Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II.

More information with the publisher.

BOOK: Catherine FLETCHER, Diplomacy in Renaissance Rome. The Rise of the Resident Ambassador (Cambridge: University Press, 2020). ISBN: 9781107515789, £ 22.99

(Source: CUP)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Diplomacy in Renaissance Rome is an investigation of Renaissance diplomacy in practice. Presenting the first book-length study of this subject for sixty years, Catherine Fletcher substantially enhances our understanding of the envoy's role during this pivotal period for the development of diplomacy. Uniting rich but hitherto unexploited archival sources with recent insights from social and cultural history, Fletcher argues for the centrality of the papal court - and the city of Rome - in the formation of the modern European diplomatic system. The book addresses topics such as the political context from the return of the popes to Rome, the 1454 Peace of Lodi and after 1494 the Italian Wars; the assimilation of ambassadors into the ceremonial world; the prescriptive literature; trends in the personnel of diplomacy; an exploration of travel and communication practices; the city of Rome as a space for diplomacy; and the world of gift-giving.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Catherine Fletcher is Lecturer in Public History at the University of Sheffield. Her first book, Our Man in Rome: Henry VIII and his Italian Ambassador, was published in 2012. Catherine graduated with a first-class degree in Politics and Communication Studies from the University of Liverpool and worked for the BBC Political Unit before studying for a PhD in History at Royal Holloway, University of London. She held fellowships at the Institute of Historical Research, the British School at Rome and the European University Institute before taking up her current post in 2012. She has published widely on aspects of early modern political culture and diplomacy. Catherine is a regular media contributor and has been a guest on two editions of BBC Radio 4's 'In Our Time' among other programmes. She has been a historical adviser to the new TV production of Wolf Hall and blogs at History Matters.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Rome and the rise of resident diplomacy

2. Conceptualising the resident ambassador

3. The ritual world of the curia

4. The personnel of diplomacy

5. Information and communication

6. Locating diplomacy in the city of Rome

7. 'Those who give are not all generous': the world of gifts

Conclusion

Bibliography

Index.

More information with the publisher.

JOURNAL: XVIIe siècle, n° 287 (n°2, 2020). ISBN: 978-2-13-082385-8

(Source: PUF)

The Revue XVIIe siècle has recently published its latest issue.

Articles:

Vittorio Frajese, Savoir et tuer. Analyse d’un document sur Paolo Sarpi à la British Library

François Pierrard, L’apport méconnu de Jean Domat (1625-1696) au droit pénal

Pierre Lyraud, La manière de citer : les citations latines montaniennes dans les Pensées

Matthieu Somon, La découverte de Moïse au bord du Nil selon Nicolas Poussin en 1647

Antoine Gallay, Le problème de l’invention en gravure. L’émergence d’une théorie de la gravure comme art libéral au sein de l’Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture (1651-1674)

Florent Quellier, L’usage de la table par Gourville lors de sa mission à Madrid pour le prince de Condé (1669-1670)

Marie-Clémence Regnier, Le « Tour de France » par les Classiques. Les demeures des écrivains du XVIIe siècle dans le paysage patrimonial français après 1870

More information with the publisher.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Research Fellowship in the field of European Administrative History (MPI for European Legal History) (DEADLINE: 30 September 2020)

(Source: MPI for European Legal History)

We learned of a call for applicants for the JEV Fellowship for European Administrative History at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History. Here the call:

"JEV-Fellowship for European Administrative History"

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

The scholarship is intended to benefit the next generation of researchers, particularly doctoral and post-doctoral students, to enable them to complete their research project in as brief a period as possible, ordinarily up to a maximum of 6 months. The scholarship is based on the usual rates for doctoral fellowships of the German Research Foundation (DFG). Should a fellowship be awarded to a researcher outside Germany, local scholarship rates will be taken into consideration. Marital status will not be taken into account, nor will travel or overhead costs be reimbursed.

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

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

Applications for a scholarship commencing in January 2021 can be submitted until 30 September 2020. Applications in English or German should be sent in electronic form to: Priv.-Doz. Dr. Peter Collin, collin@rg.mpg.de. The application, which must also indicate  the intended duration of the fellowship, should include: a tabular CV with details on the applicant’s university education with copies of examination results and diplomas to be enclosed, a list of academic publications, where applicable; a detailed description of the research project including a detailed outline of the intended structure of the resulting book, a detailed report on the current state of the project and writing progress, including the reasons for any delay in its completion; extensive excerpts from the manuscript; information on the project’s previous,  current and planned financing arrangements; a precise timetable to complete the manuscript within the duration of the fellowship. Furthermore, at least one expert opinion on the research project and a personal reference from a university lecturer are to be submitted directly to the jury.

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

All info can be found here

BOOK: Natalie R DAVIDSON, American Transitional Justice - Writing Cold War History in Human Rights Litigation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). ISBN 9781108477703, 75.00 GBP

(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press is publishing a new book on Alien Tort Statute litigation (US) during the Cold War.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Natalie Davidson offers an alternative account of Alien Tort Statute litigation by revisiting the field's two seminal cases, Filártiga (filed 1979) and Marcos (filed 1986), lawsuits ostensibly concerned with torture in Paraguay and the Philippines, respectively. Combining legal analysis, archival research and ethnographic methods, this book reveals how these cases operated as transitional justice mechanisms, performing the transition of the United States and its allies out of the Cold War order. It shows that US courts produced a whitewashed history of US involvement in repression in the Western bloc, while in Paraguay and the Philippines the distance from US courts allowed for a more critical narration of the lawsuits and their underlying violence as symptomatic of structural injustice. By exposing the political meanings of these legal landmarks for three societies, Davidson sheds light on the blend of hegemonic and emancipatory implications of international human rights litigation in US courts.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Natalie R. Davidson, Tel-Aviv University

Natalie Davidson is a Lecturer in the Faculty of Law at Tel-Aviv University. She has published about Alien Tort Statute litigation, feminist interventions in international law, the prohibition of torture, and interdisciplinary methodology.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Introduction. Revisiting the Gilded Age of transnational human rights litigation in US courts

2. Alien tort statute litigation in legal practice and the legal imagination

3. 'Foreign torture, American justice': Filártiga in the United States

4. Filártiga in Paraguay

5. Narrating the Marcos regime in US courts

6. The Marcos case and transitional justice in the Philippines

7. Conclusion.

More info here

BOOK: Paul TIEDEMANN, Philosophical Foundation of Human Rights (Cham: Springer, 2020). ISBN 978-3-030-42261-5, 74,89 EUR

(Source: Springer)

Springer is publishing a new book on the philosophical foundation of human rights.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This textbook presents a range of classical philosophical approaches in order to show that they are unsuitable as a foundation for human rights. Only the conception of human dignity –based on the Kantian distinction between price and dignity – can provide a sufficient basis. The derivation of human rights from the principle of human dignity allows us to identify the most crucial characteristic of human rights, namely the protection of personhood. This in turn makes it possible (1) to distinguish between real moral human rights and spurious ones, (2) to assess the scope of protection for many codified human rights according to the criteria of “core” and “yard,” and (3) offers a point of departure for creating new, unwritten human rights. This philosophical basis supports a substantial reassessment of the case law on human rights, which will ultimately allow us to improve it with regard to legal certainty, clarity and cogency.

The textbook is primarily intended for advanced law students who are interested in a deeper understanding of human rights. It is also suitable for humanities students, and for anyone in the political or social arena whose work involves human rights and their enforcement.

Each chapter is divided into four parts: Abstracts, Lecture, Recommended Reading, and Questions to check reader comprehension. Sample answers are included at the end of the book.

More info here

BOOK: A. Dirk MOSES, Marco DURANTI, and Roland BURKE, Decolonization, Self-Determination, and the Rise of Global Human Rights Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). ISBN 9781108479356, 90.00 GBP

(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press is publishing an edited collection on the global history of human rights politics in the age of decolonization.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This volume presents the first global history of human rights politics in the age of decolonization. The conflict between independence movements and colonial powers shaped the global human rights order that emerged after the Second World War. It was also critical to the genesis of contemporary human rights organizations and humanitarian movements. Anti-colonial forces mobilized human rights and other rights language in their campaigns for self-determination. In response, European empires harnessed the new international politics of human rights for their own ends, claiming that their rule, with its promise of 'development,' was the authentic vehicle for realizing them. Ranging from the postwar partitions and the wars of independence to Indigenous rights activism and post-colonial memory, this volume offers new insights into the history and legacies of human rights, self-determination, and empire to the present day.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

A. Dirk Moses, University of Sydney

A. Dirk Moses is Professor of Modern History at the University of Sydney. He is Senior Editor of the Journal of Genocide Research.

Marco Duranti, University of Sydney

Marco Duranti is Senior Lecturer in Modern European and International History at the University of Sydney. He is the author of The Conservative Human Rights Revolution (2017).

Roland Burke, La Trobe University, Victoria

Roland Burke is Senior Lecturer in World History at La Trobe University. He is the author of Decolonization and the Evolution of International Human Rights (2010).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction. Human rights, empire, and after Roland Burke, Marco Duranti and A. Dirk Moses

Part I. Anti-colonial struggles and the right to self-determination:

1. Seeking the political kingdom: universal human rights and the anti-colonial movement in Africa Bonny Ibhawoh

2. Decolonizing the United Nations: Anti-colonialism and human rights in the French Empire Marco Duranti

3. The French Red Cross, decolonization, and humanitarianism during the Algerian War Jennifer Johnson

4. Connecting indigenous rights to human rights in the Anglo settler states: Another 1970s story Miranda Johnson

5. Privileging the Cold War over decolonization: The US emphasis on political rights Mary Ann Heiss

Part II. Post-colonial statehood and global human rights norms:

6. Cutting out the ulcer and washing away the incubus of the past: genocide prevention through population transfer A. Dirk Moses

7. Codifying minority rights: postcolonial constitutionalism in Burma, Ceylon, and India Cindy Ewing

8. Between ambitions and caution: India, human rights, and self-determination at the United Nations Raphaëlle Khan

9. 'From this era of passionate self-discovery': Norman Manley, human rights, and the end of colonial rule in Jamaica Steven L. B. Jensen

10. Re-entering histories of past imperial violence: Kenya, Indonesia, and the reach of transitional justice Michael Humphrey

Part III. Colonial and neo-colonial responses

11. The inventors of human rights in Africa: Portugal, late colonialism, and the UN human rights regime Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and José Pedro Monteiro

12. 'A world made safe for diversity': Apartheid and the language of human rights, progress, and pluralism Roland Burke

13. Between humanitarian rights and human rights: René Cassin, architect of universality, diplomat of French Empire Jay Winter

14. The end of the Vietnam War and the rise of human rights Barbara Keys

15. Decolonizing the Geneva Conventions: national liberation and the development of humanitarian law Eleanor Davey

16. Liberté sans frontières, French humanitarianism, and the neoliberal critique of Third Worldism Jessica Whyte.

More info here

CALL FOR PAPERS: Rechtskultur - European Journal of Legal History - Journal européene d'histoire du droit (DEADLINE : 10 January 2021)

(Source: HSozKult)

Via HSozKult, we learned of a call for papers for a special issue on “Against unification of law” of the journal Rechtskultur.

“ Anfang 2021 wird der neunte Band der Zeitschrift "Rechtskultur - European Journal of Legal History - Journal européene d'histoire du droit" erscheinen. Themenschwerpunkt ist "Widerstand gegen Rechtsvereinheitlichung / Against Unification of law / Contre Unification du droit".[…]“

More info via HSozKult

BOOK: Stephanie ELSKY, Custom, Common Law, and the Constitution of English Renaissance Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). ISBN 9780198861430, $70.00

(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press is publishing a new book on the centrality of legal custom to early modern literature’s form and content in English law.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Custom, Common Law, and the Constitution of English Renaissance Literature argues that, ironically, custom was a supremely generative literary force for a range of Renaissance writers. Custom took on so much power because of its virtual synonymity with English common law, the increasingly dominant legal system that was also foundational to England's constitutionalist politics. The strange temporality assigned to legal custom, that is, its purported existence since 'time immemorial', furnished it with a unique and paradoxical capacity--to make new and foreign forms familiar. This volume shows that during a time when novelty was suspect, even insurrectionary, appeals to the widespread understanding of custom as a legal concept justified a startling array of fictive experiments.

This is the first book to reveal fully the relationship between Renaissance literature and legal custom. It shows how writers were able to reimagine moments of historical and cultural rupture as continuity by appealing to the powerful belief that English legal custom persisted in the face of conquests by foreign powers. Custom, Common Law, and the Constitution of English Renaissance Literature thus challenges scholarly narratives in which Renaissance art breaks with a past it looks back upon longingly and instead argues that the period viewed its literature as imbued with the aura of the past. In this way, through experiments in rhetoric and form, literature unfolds the processes whereby custom gains its formidable and flexible political power. Custom, a key concept of legal and constitutionalist thought, shaped sixteenth-century literature, while this literature, in turn, transformed custom into an evocative mythopoetic.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephanie Elsky, Assistant Professor, Rhodes College

Stephanie Elsky is Assistant Professor of English at Rhodes College. Her areas of research and teaching include law, politics, and literature; the reception of the classical past; gender; women's writing; and the global Renaissance. She has published essays in English Renaissance Literature, Law Culture and the Humanities, and Spenser Studies, and won the Louis Wilson Round Award for Best Essay in Studies in Philology in 2014. Her research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the Volkswagen Foundation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: Custom and Renaissance Literature
1. Time Out of Mind: Custom and the Politics and Poetics of Duration
2. The Commonwealth of Custom in Thomas More's Utopia
3. Inventing Custom: Meter, Etymology, and Conquest in the Spenser-Harvey Letters and Spenser's A View of the Present State of Ireland
4. Performing Custom: Poetry and the Aporia of Constitutional Authorship in Sidney's Old Arcadia
5. Cultivating Custom: The Poetics of the Commonplace in Isabella Whitney's A Sweet Nosgay
6. Forgetting Custom? Narratio, Rebellion, and Revolution in Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare's Hamlet
Conclusion: Custom's Futures

More info here

CALL FOR PAPERS: Global Inequality – An Intellectual History (Aarhus, 10-11 June 2021) (DEADLINE: 31 August 2020)

(Source: global-inequality.com)

We learned of a call for papers for a symposium on the intellectual history of global inequality since 1945. Here the call:

This two-day symposium is designed to investigate the global intellectual history of inequality. It will do so through a double global lens: How have intellectuals from around the world thought about inequality in the world? The aim of the symposium is to contribute with a new transnational intellectual history of inequality in different geographical and cultural contexts. The symposium will investigate links, differences and similarities between different intellectual traditions, as well as the circulation of inequality concepts and knowledge across countries. It aspires to facilitate a unique transcultural and multi-linguistic knowledge about inequality concepts, contributing to the fields of global conceptual and intellectual history. The symposium will aim at a special journal issue on the global intellectual history of inequality, exploring relationships between geographical anchoring (place) and thinking on inequality in history. We are delighted that the journal Global Intellectual History has kindly agreed to be the host of this special issue. Critics of global intellectual history have rightfully pointed out that few connections are actually truly global (planetary), but can much more adequately be described as transnational or transcultural (or ‘transcolonial’ or ‘transimperial’) connections. Taking this criticism into account, we are interested both in learning more about the intellectual histories of inequality in non-western countries, including in non-English, indigenous languages. Secondly, we are interested in learning more about intellectual and conceptual histories of transnational connections between various parts of the world, such as North-South and South-South connections and intellectual biographies of key thinkers on inequality whose histories are linked to several countries and continents. How did intellectuals across the globe address inequalities in a post-world war II age of ‘development’, promises of universal human rights, new data on inequalities, and of the crucial historical dynamics of the Cold War and decolonization?

The full call for papers can be found here

BOOK: Andrew RABIN (transl.), Old English Legal Writings - Wolfstan (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020). ISBN 9780674247482, EUR 31.50

(Source: HUP)

Harvard University Press is publishing a new translation of the work of Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023).

ABOUT THE BOOK

Archbishop Wulfstan of York (d. 1023) was a powerful clergyman and the most influential political thinker of pre-Conquest England. An advocate for the rights and privileges of the Church, he authored the laws of King Aethelred and King Cnut in prose that combined the rhetorical flourishes of a master homilist with the language of law. Some works forged a distinctive style by adding rhythm and alliteration drawn from Old English poetry. In the midst of Viking invasions and cultural upheaval, Wulfstan articulated a complementary relationship between secular and ecclesiastical law that shaped the political world of eleventh-century England. He also pushed the clergy to return to the ideals of their profession.

Old English Legal Writings is the first publication to bring together Wulfstan’s works on law, church governance, and political reform. When read together, they reveal the scope and originality of his thought as it lays out the mutual obligations of the church, the state, and the common people. This volume presents new editions of the Old English texts alongside new English translations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Rabin is a professor of English at the University of Louisville.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Wulfstan’s Life and Career

Political Tracts

Tracts on Ecclesiastical Governance

Royal Legislation

Appendix 1. Questionable Attributions

Appendix 2. Revisions and Reworkings

Editing Wulfstan

Acknowledgments

Political Tracts

The Laws of Edward and Guthrum

The Compilation on Status

On Sanctuary

Northumbrian Church Sanctuary

The Oath of the King

The Institutes of Polity (1)

The Institutes of Polity (2)

Tracts on Ecclesiastical Governance

On Episcopal Duties

On the Remedy of Souls

Instructions for Bishops

An Admonition to Bishops

The Canons of Edgar

Royal Legislation

5 Æthelred

6 Æthelred

7 Æthelred

7a Æthelred

8 Æthelred

9 Æthelred

10 Æthelred

Cnut’s Oxford Legislation of 1018

Cnut’s Proclamation of 1020

1 Cnut

2 Cnut

Appendix 1. Questionable Attributions

The Northumbrian Priests’ Law

The Obligations of Individuals and On Reeves

Appendix 2. Revisions and Reworkings

1 Æthelstan

1 Edmund

2 Edgar and 3 Edgar

Note on the Texts

Notes to the Texts

Notes to the Translations

Bibliography

Index

More info here

BOOK: Peter RUSHTON and Gwenda MORGAN, Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800 - Legal Responses to Threatening the State (London: Bloomsbury, 2020). ISBN 9781350005327, £73.44

(Source: Bloomsbury)

Bloomsbury is publishing a new book on treason and rebellion in the British Atlantic.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book examines internal political conflicts in the British Empire within the legal framework of treason and sedition. The threat of treason and rebellion pervaded the British Atlantic in the 17th and 18th centuries; Britain's control of its territories was continually threatened by rebellion and war, both at home and in North America. Even after American independence, Britain and its former colony continued to be fearful that opposition and revolution might follow the French example, and both took legal measures to control both speech and political action.

This study places these conflicts within a political and legal framework of the laws of treason and sedition as they developed in the British Atlantic. The treason laws originated in the reign of Edward III, and were adapted and modified in the 16th and 17th centuries. They were exported to the colonies, where they underwent both adaptation and elaboration in application in the slave societies as well as those dominated by free settlers. Relationships with natives and European rivals in the Americas affected the definitions of treason in practice, and the divided loyalties of the American revolutionary war added further problems of defining loyalty and treachery.

Treason and Rebellion in the British Atlantic, 1685-1800 offers a new study of treason and sedition in the period by placing them in a truly transatlantic perspective, making it a valuable study for those interested in the legal and political of Britain's empire and 18th-century revolutions.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Peter Rushton is Professor of Historical Sociology at the University of Sunderland, UK. He has published widely on witchcraft, problems of marriage and family life, the poor law and crime in C18th England. He is the joint author of Eighteenth Century Criminal Transportation (Palgrave, 2004).

Dr Gwenda Morgan is Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Durham, UK.  She has published widely on law and society in early America.  Her latest book is The Debate on the Modern American Revolution: Issues in Historiography (MUP 2007).

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part One: Origins - Theory, Doctrine and Practice 1500-1700

1. Treason and Rebellion

2. The Practice: Treason, Civil Wars, Rebellions and Law in Seventeenth-Century Britain and Ireland

Part Two: Development - Rebellion and Treason in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland

3. Treason and Rebellion in the Eighteenth Century

4. Treason and the Laws of War in Domestic Revolts

5. Rebellion and Retaliation

Part Three: Crisis - The American Revolution and the British Atlantic

6. Precursors to Rebellion

7. Rebellion and Revolution

8. Patriots and Loyalists

9. Revolutionary War and the Laws of Nations

Part Four: Revolution - Parallels and Contrast in Response to the Revolutionary Years of the 1790s

10. The 1790s – The Age of Revolution

11. Conclusion – Treason and Rebellion in the Transatlantic World

Bibliography

Index

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BOOK: Julia ROSE KRAUT, Threat of Dissent - A History of Ideological Exclusion and Deportation in the United States (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2020). ISBN 9780674976061, 31.50 EUR

(Source: HUP)

Harvard University Press is publishing a history of ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In this first comprehensive overview of the intersection of immigration law and the First Amendment, a lawyer and historian traces ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States from the Alien Friends Act of 1798 to the evolving policies of the Trump administration.

Beginning with the Alien Friends Act of 1798, the United States passed laws in the name of national security to bar or expel foreigners based on their beliefs and associations—although these laws sometimes conflict with First Amendment protections of freedom of speech and association or contradict America’s self-image as a nation of immigrants. The government has continually used ideological exclusions and deportations of noncitizens to suppress dissent and radicalism throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, from the War on Anarchy to the Cold War to the War on Terror.

In Threat of Dissent—the first social, political, and legal history of ideological exclusion and deportation in the United States—Julia Rose Kraut delves into the intricacies of major court decisions and legislation without losing sight of the people involved. We follow the cases of immigrants and foreign-born visitors, including activists, scholars, and artists such as Emma Goldman, Ernest Mandel, Carlos Fuentes, Charlie Chaplin, and John Lennon. Kraut also highlights lawyers, including Clarence Darrow and Carol Weiss King, as well as organizations, like the ACLU and PEN America, who challenged the constitutionality of ideological exclusions and deportations under the First Amendment. The Supreme Court, however, frequently interpreted restrictions under immigration law and upheld the government’s authority.

By reminding us of the legal vulnerability foreigners face on the basis of their beliefs, expressions, and associations, Kraut calls our attention to the ways that ideological exclusion and deportation reflect fears of subversion and serve as tools of political repression in the United States.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Julia Rose Kraut, a lawyer and historian, was the inaugural Judith S. Kaye Fellow for the Historical Society of the New York Courts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1. Sovereignty and Self-Preservation

2. War on Anarchy

3. Making Democracy Safe in America

4. Denaturalization, Detention, Deportation, and Discretion

5. An Iron Curtain of the West

6. The Return of McCarranism

7. One Door Closes, Another Opens

8. War on Terror

Conclusion

Abbreviations

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

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CALL FOR PAPERS: The Independence of Peru and the Americas in Global Perspective (London, 11-12 March 2021) (DEADLINE: 1 November 2020)

(Source: SOAS)

We learned of a call for papers for a symposium on 200 years of Peruvian, Mexican, Central American and Brazilian independence at SOAS London. Here the call:

In 2021-22 Peru, Mexico, Central America and Brazil will celebrate 200 years of independence. The Independence of Peru in particular and of the Americas as a whole was a global event. A key battleground of the Age of Revolutions and the birthplace of the First Wave of Decolonization, Latin American independence produced a new world order.

In this hybrid symposium, leading historians from around the world will present and debate new research on the global significance and legacy of these events.

Participants may join us in London or via Zoom. All paper proposals and perspectives will be considered. We particularly seek papers that engage the following approaches:

• Connected histories of independence

• Conceptual and intellectual histories of independence

• Economic histories of independence

• New political histories of independence

• Atlantic and global histories of independence and decolonisation

• Historical anthropologies of independence

• Cultural histories of the symbols and materiality of independence

• Histories of the historiography of independence

• Histories of knowledge and independence

• Histories of centennial and bicentennial commemorations

Please send your paper abstract and 2-page cv to Professor Mark Thurner, mark.thurner@sas.ac.uk by November 1, 2020. Please note that we intend to publish an edited volume of original work based on the conference proceedings.

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JOURNAL: American Journal of Legal History (Vol. 60, Issue 2)

(Source: OUP)

The American Journal of Legal History has recently published its latest issue.

Articles

Reforming Criminal Justice in the Ottoman Empire: Police, Courts and Prisons in Rusçuk, 1839-1864

Mehmet Celik 109

Combatting Bias in the Criminal Courts of France, 1870s-1913

James Donovan 137

Political Judging and Judicial Restraint: The Case of Learned and Augustus Hand

Jak Allen 169

Law at a Critical Juncture: The US Army’s Command Responsibility Trials at Manila, 1945-1947

Jamie Fellows 192

White Subversion of Public School Desegregation in South Carolina, 1963-1970

Stephen Lowe 223

Book Reviews

Elizabeth Papp Kamali, Felony and the Guilty Mind in Medieval England

Sarah B. White 247

Anat Rosenberg, Liberalizing Contracts: Nineteenth Century Promises Through Literature, Law and History

Victoria Barnes 250

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CALL FOR PAPERS: Journal on European History of Law 2/2020 (DEADLINE: 30 September 2020)

(Source: HSozKult)

Via HSozKult, we learned of a call for papers for the next issue of the Journal on European History of Law.

“The Journal on European History of Law is published 2x per year. It is assigned for law-historians and Romanists that want to share with their colleagues the results of their research in this field.

At the same time, reviews of books with historical themes are being published. You can also find there information about the happenings in the field of law-history. […]”

More info via HSozKult

BOOK: Enrico GENTA, Andrea PENNINI & Davide B. DE FRANCO (Eds.), "Une très-ancienne famille piémontaise". I Taparelli negli Stati sabaudi (XVII-XIX secolo) - Raccolta di studi (Milano: Ledizioni, 2019). ISBN: 9788855260619,l pp. 244, € 28.00

(Source: Ledizioni)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Collana: Quaderni del Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza – Università di Torino

Frutto di una rielaborazione critica di un convegno tenutosi presso il castello di Lagnasco (CN) il 10 maggio 2016, il volume si presenta come un primo tentativo organico di analisi dello sviluppo di una delle più importanti famiglie del Piemonte tra l’Autunno del Medioevo e l’Unità d’Italia, ovvero i Taparelli. Questo percorso inizia con gli studi di Blythe Alice Raviola, Paolo Cozzo e Laura Facchin i quali, partendo da prospettive storiografiche differenti (politico istituzionali la prima, religioso-devozionali il secondo, storico-artistiche la terza), prendono in considerazione le vicende di questa famiglia nei primi secoli dell’età moderna. I contributi di Andrea Merlotti e Davide De Franco focalizzano invece l’attenzione sulle vicende dinastiche ed economiche della famiglia nel Settecento. Dopo il saggio di Mario Riberi incentrato sulle vicende d’età Napoleonica, Ida Ferrero e Michele Rosboch si concentrano su Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio, gesuita e filosofo; mentre Matteo Traverso si dedica alla figura più nota dei Taparelli, ovvero Massimo d’Azeglio, nel particolare momento politico della crisi costituzionale subalpina del 1849, causata dalla sconfitta del regno di Sardegna nella prima guerra di indipendenza. Chiudono il volume il contributo di Andrea Pennini su Emanuele d’Azeglio – ultimo della dinastia – e quello di Pierangelo Gentile che traccia un bilancio storiografico della famiglia Taparelli, suggerendo nuovi campi d’indagine.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Enrico Genta Ternavasio è professore ordinario di Storia del Diritto italiano ed europeo presso il Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza dell’Università degli Studi di Torino. Socio effettivo della Deputazione Subalpina di Storia Patria e della Société d’Histoire du Droit, è autore di numerose pubblicazioni tra cui: Ricerche sull’ipoteca in Piemonte, Milano 1978; Senato e Senatori di Piemonte nel secolo XVIII, Torino 1983; Una rivoluzione liberale mancata, Torino 2000; Principi e regole internazionali tra forza e costume. Le relazioni anglo-sabaude nella prima metà del Settecento, Napoli 2004; Dalla Restaurazione al Risorgimento. Diritto, diplomazia, personaggi, Torino 2012.

Andrea Pennini attualmente è assegnista di ricerca presso il Dipartimento di Studi Umanistici dell’Università del Piemonte Orientale. Si occupa principalmente di istituzioni politiche e diplomatiche degli Stati sabaudi. È autore di «Con la massima diligentia possibile». Diplomazia e politica estera sabauda nel primo Seicento, Roma 2015; Nulla standoci maggiormente a cuore. Ordini religiosi e politiche territoriali nel Piemonte della Restaurazione, Roma 2017; I ragionamenti di Giovanni Francesco Gandolfo all’alba del ducato di Vittorio Amedeo I 1631-1632, Torino 2019.

Davide Bruno De Franco è direttore dell’Archivio di Stato di Novara. Membro dell’Associazione Nazionale Archivistica Italiana (ANAI), in precedenza si è occupato di studi di Storia Economica e Demografia Storica collaborando – tra gli altri – con l’Università Bocconi di Milano. È autore del volume La difesa delle libertà. Autonomie alpine nel Delfinato tra continuità e mutamenti (secoli XVII-XVIII), Milano 2016.

More information with the publisher.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Conference - Digital Methods and Resources in Legal History (Frankfurt, 4-5 March 2021) (DEADLINE: 20 September 2020)

(Source: MPI for European Legal History)

We learned of a call for papers for the next conference on digital methods and resources in legal history at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History.

Um eine Gelegenheit für den kritischen Austausch über digitale Methoden und Ressourcen in der Rechtsgeschichte zu schaffen, und um einen Überblick über das breite Spektrum jener Methoden und Ressourcen zu vermitteln, veranstaltet das Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte am 4./5. März 2021 eine Konferenz "Digital Methods and Resources in Legal History". Wir laden dazu ein, Sammlungen, Datenbanken, Gazetteers und andere für die Rechtsgeschichte einschlägige Ressourcen vorzustellen, sowie zu diskutieren, wie solche digitalen Ansätze in konkreten rechtshistorischen Projekt-Kontexten eingesetzt wurden. Ausdrücklich laden wir auch zum Bericht über Erfahrungen ein, in denen digitale Mittel nicht befriedigend gefunden, erzeugt oder eingesetzt werden konnten. Der Call for Papers/Posters ist hier einzusehen, zusammen mit einer ausführlicheren Darstellung der Thematik und weiteren Informationen. Einreichungen sollten bis 20. September 2020 per E-Mail an dlh@rg.mpg.de erfolgen.

The full call can be found here

BOOK: Bertrand G. RAMCHARAN, A History of the UN Human Rights Programme and Secretariat (Brill/Nijhoff: Leiden/Boston, 2020). ISBN: 9789004356474, pp. 272, €165.00

(Source: Brill/Nijhoff)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Series: International Studies in Human Rights, Volume: 132

This volume constitutes a valuable and unique history of the United Nations human rights programme and its secretariat. It offers interpretations of the history of the programme and its secretariat against the background of historical currents such as the Cold War, colonialism and decolonisation, and covers the seminal period during which the programme moved decisively towards human rights fact-finding and the denunciation of violations of human rights, which took place in the latter part of the 1970s and the 1980s. The author was a central player in this period, having served as the Special Assistant to three Directors of the Human Rights Division, and so provides historical materials that only he is aware of, having been at the heart of the action. He also provides snapshots of United Nations human rights leaders from the beginning of the United Nations, all of whom he knew personally, and writes about the contributions of NGOs and NGO leaders who served the cause of human rights with fortitude and determination.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Bertrand G. Ramcharan is President Emeritus of UPR Info. Previously, he was: Chancellor of the University of Guyana; Professor of Human Rights at the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies; Deputy, then Acting UN High Commissioner for Human Rights; Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists; Member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration; Special Adviser of the UN Secretary-General on the peace process in Georgia; Fellow of the LSE; UN Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preliminary Material, pp. i–xvii

Introduction, pp. 1–9

Navigating the Cold War, pp. 10–36

Navigating the Colonial and Post‑Colonial Worlds, pp. 37–60

Organization, Mandate, pp. 61–88

Leaders, pp. 89–107

Programmes, Resources, pp. 108–129

The International Bill of Human Rights, pp. 130–153

Studies and Reports, pp. 154–162

Implementation, pp. 163–203

Petitions and Fact-Finding, pp. 204–221

Voices of Conscience, pp. 222–235

Promotion and Advisory Services, pp. 236–247

Partnership with NGOs and Civil Society, pp. 248–257

Conclusion, pp. 258–262

Bibliography, pp. 263–265

Index, pp. 266–271

More information with the publisher.

BOOK: Lora Anne VIOLA, The Closure of the International System How Institutions Create Political Equalities and Hierarchies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020). ISBN 9781108482257, 99.99 USD

(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press is publishing a new book on how international institutions influence political inequalities and hierarchies.

ABOUT THE BOOK

As global governance appears to become more inclusive and democratic, many scholars argue that international institutions act as motors of expansion and democratization. The Closure of the International System challenges this view, arguing that the history of the international system is a series of institutional closures, in which institutions such as diplomacy, international law, and international organizations make rules to legitimate the inclusion of some actors and the exclusion of others. While international institutions facilitate collective action and common goods, Viola's closure thesis demonstrates how these gains are achieved by limiting access to rights and resources, creating a stratified system of political equals and unequals. The coexistence of equality and hierarchy is a constitutive feature of the international system and its institutions. This tension is relevant today as multilateral institutions are challenged by disaffected citizens, non-Western powers, and established great powers discontent with the distribution of political rights and authority.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Lora Anne Viola, Freie Universität Berlin

Lora Anne Viola is a professor of political science, researching and teaching on international organizations, international relations theory, and US foreign policy. She is co-editor of Historical Institutionalism and International Relations (Oxford University Press, 2016). She is a recipient of the American Political Science Association's Alexander L. George Article Award, as well as research funding from the German National Science Foundation.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. False promises of universalism: the interdependent logics of equality and inequality in the international system

2. The closure thesis: social closure, club dynamics, and stratification in the international system

3. 'The master institution': diplomacy, practices of closure, and the emergence of an international system in early modern Europe

4. 'Dwarves and giants': international law, the monopolization of sovereign rights, and stratification in the international system

5. International organizations: between sovereign equality and the institutionalization of inequality

6. What remains of the promise of equality?

Index.

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