CONFERENCE: 'Natural Law and Domestic Government' - KU Leuven, 27-28 April 2023 - Speakers’ conference programme

KU Leuven will host a two-day conference on the interaction between natural law-thinking and domestic government in early modern Europe on 27 and 28 April, where academics both junior and senior will be presenting their research. Anyone interested in attending one or more sessions is kindly requested to register their attendance by sending an e-mail to naturallawconference@kuleuven.be.

Speakers’ conference programme

[All conference talks will take place in the Irish College – Iers College, Janseniusstraat 1, 3000 Leuven]

This conference is organised by the KU Leuven Research Unit Roman Law and Legal History (Faculty of Law and Criminology). It is co-funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), project nr. G0C4421N.

Thursday 27 April 2023

9u Reception with coffee in the Irish College.

9u30 Opening session.

- 9u30: Word of welcome by the conference organisers.

- 9u45: Keynote speech by prof. dr. Annabel Brett (University of Cambridge) on “Natural law and human difference: The possibility condition in later scholastic thought.”

11u Coffee break. 

11u15

- 11u15: Ms. Rosalind Acland (University of Cambridge) on “Edward Coke’s Ciceronian Common Law (1552-1634).”

- 11u45: Dr. Signy Gutnick Allen (University of Zurich) on “Locke’s Theory of Economic Citizenship: Natural Law, Property and Charity.” 

- 12u15: discussion.

13u Lunch.

14u  

- 14u: Mr. Geert Sluijs (KU Leuven) on “Stewardship and statesmanship. Justus Lipsius and Diodorus Tuldenus on the natural law of government in the Early Modern Low Countries.”

- 14u30: Dr. Paolo Astorri and prof. dr. Lars Nørgaard (University of Copenhagen) on “The notion of potestas in the works of Henning Arnisaeus (1570-1636).”

- 15u: discussion.

15u45 Coffee break.

16u  

- 16u: Ms. Sarah Papa (Goethe University Frankfurt) on “Between the People and the Priest: a case of expropriation of land for the ‘common good’ in eighteenth- century Portuguese America.”

- 16u30: Mr. Rafael Mateus (Federal University of Ceará, Fortaleza) on “Mutability of Lex et Ius Naturale in Domingo de Soto’s De Iustitia et Iure.” 

- 17u00: discussion.

18u Conclusion of the day’s sessions.

Friday 28 April 2023

9u Coffee in the Irish College.

9u15 Keynote speech by prof. dr. Marie Seong-Hak Kim (St. Cloud State University) on “Bodin, Natural Law, and the Crisis of the French Renaissance Monarchy.”

10u30 Coffee break.

11u  

- 11u: Dr. Ki-Won Hong (Yonsei University) on “Leibniz’s Critique of Pufendorf’s Concepts of Sovereignty and German Federation.”

- 11u30: Mr. Carlos Eduardo Perez Crespo (University of Hamburg) on “Emer de Vattel’s Monarchical Theory of Constituent Power.”

- 12u: discussion.

12u45 Lunch. 

13u45  

- 13u45: Mr. Pedro Ricardo da Silva Santos (KU Leuven) on “Fides and the nature of Feudum in the legal thought of Petrus Gudelinus (1550-1619).”

- 14u15: Dr. Jeffrey Dymond (University of Zurich) on “Association and Corporation in Humanist Jurisprudence.”

- 14u45 discussion.

15u30 Closing remarks by prof. dr. Alain Wijffels (KU Leuven).

16u Conference end.