BOOK REVIEW: Chiara VALSECCHI, Family and justice in the archives: historical perspectives on intimacy and the law, by Peter GOSSAGE and Lisa MOORE (ed.) (Montreal: Concordia University Press, 2024) (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1 (June), pp. 146-152)

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Following the editors' introduction the volume gathers sixteen contributions (mostly unpublished), organised into five sections. These explore diverse aspects of the legal fields traditionally defined as family law and inheritance law, while more broadly extending to the realm of emotional and intimate relationships between individuals.  

The editors have identified several thematic clusters around which the essays are grouped: 'Colonial Encounters' (four essays); 'Intergenerational Justice' (three essays); 'Intimacies in the Courtroom' (three essays); 'Marriage Regulation’ (three essays); and 'Everyday Violence' (three essays). The sixteen essays were written by scholars of different backgrounds and academic positions, based in diverse locations. The largest group consists of contributions concerning Canada, but the volume also includes studies on the United States, Australia, India, Latin America, and other regions of the world. Europe, too, is represented, with research on Britain, Russia, and France. Chronologically, the studies span two full centuries - the nineteenth and twentieth - offering a remarkable breadth of perspective both geographically and historically. This richness provides numerous insights for comparative reflection, even though comparison appears less straightforward from a strictly legal or normative standpoint, and proves more fruitful when pursued through broader, interdisciplinary perspectives.  

From a general legal standpoint, it should be noted, for instance, that Fabienne Giuliani's study (Chapter 15), dedicated among other things to an 'extreme' social and legal figure - that of incestuous fathers in nineteenth-century France - represents, together with Juandrea Bates's work on Argentina (Chapter 6) and, to a lesser extent, certain analyses of Francophone Canada, a small minority of studies engaging directly with the codified systems of Civil Law countries. Indeed, while Europe's continental scholarship on family and personal law - often based on archival material such as private papers or judicial records - is already abundant, this very abundance makes the scope for technical legal comparison offered by the volume somewhat limited.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.  

DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671631

BOOK REVIEW: James J. SHEEHAN, Shifting sovereignties: a global history of a concept in practice, by Moritz Mihatsch and Michael Mulligan [Berlin and Boston: Walther de Gruyter, 2025]; Sovereignty: European and global histories, 1400-1800, by Cornel Zwierlein and Daniel Lee [Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2025] (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1 (June), pp. 140-145)

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On June 28, 2004, during a meeting of the NATO alliance in Istanbul, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice slipped the following handwritten note to President George W Bush: 'Iraq is sovereign. Letter was passed from Bremer, 10.26 am Iraq time. Condi.' The president replied by writing in bold letters, 'Let Freedom Reign.' In retrospect, this exchange is one more example of the false hopes and genuine disappointments that attended the United States' misadventure in Iraq. It also shows just how elusive the concept of sovereignty turns out to be. After all, what could sovereignty possibly mean for Iraq in 2004, a state occupied by foreign troops and without a government that could control most of its divided and contested territory?  

For more than a century, scholars have complained about the concept of sovereignty. Some thought it would eventually collapse under the weight of its own contradictions. In 1919, for example, Harold Laski wrote that 'when we examine the historic perspective of sovereignty, it becomes sufficiently obvious that its association with the modern state is no more than the expression of a particular environment which is already passing away.' Eight decades later, Hans Lindahl remarked that 'while not yet completely routed, the concept of sovereignty certainly seems on the retreat. Sovereignty, of course, has not passed away. Some observers remain convinced that it should. Jacques Maritain, for example, insisted in 1950 that political philosophy must eliminate sovereignty both as a word and as a concept.' More recently, in a book appropriately entitled Sovereignty RIP, legal scholar Don Herzog provided what might be called a […]

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2049677X.2026.2648456

BOOK REVIEW: Paolo ASTORRI, The legal legacy of the reformation: Catholic and Protestant approaches to law, by John Duddington (ed.) [London and New York: Routledge, 2025] (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1 (June), pp. 137-139)

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This volume collects essays presented at a conference organised by the editor in 2017 to mark the five-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation. Comprising thirteen chapters, the book is divided into four parts: (I Church Law and the Reformation; (LI) Catholic and Protestant Approaches to Law in the Life of the Church; (III) Catholic and Protestant Approaches to Church and State Law; and (IV) Catholic and Protestant Approaches to Particular Areas of Law. 

The book situates itself in the wake of influential scholarship on law and the Reformation, including works by John Witte Jr (Law and Protestantism, 2002). Harold J Berman (Law and Revolution II, 2003), Mathias Schmoeckel (Das Recht der Reformation, 2014; Das Recht der Reformation in Frankreich, 2024), Martin Heckel (Martin Luthers Reformation und das Recht, 2016), and Robert von Friedeburg (Luther's Legacy, 2016), to mention only a few. As the editor notes in the preface, the core message of the book is that '500 years after it occurred the sundering of Christendom at the Reformation still resonates in the law, but equally the Reformation was not an isolated event. It was the product of forces in society that were present before Martin Luther nailed his theses to the church door at Wittenberg and to this extent the Reformation did not create change in all cases but instead recognised new forces at work in society and at times accelerated changes which, had the Reformation not occurred, might well have come about anyway' (xiii). 

The volume is not fully homogeneous. Its contributions vary significantly in chronological scope, methodological approach, and confessional focus. Some chapters concentrate primarily on the early modern period, while others extend their analysis into the contemporary era. Some focus exclusively on Catholic ot Protestant contexts, while the majority attempt a comparative perspective. Inevi- tably, chapters that seek to offer broad overviews from the Reformation, or even from the late medieval period, can only provide succinct accounts, often relying more heavily on secondary literature than on primary sources. Nevertheless, the effort to connect early modern legal developments with contemporary legal frameworks is one of the book's notable strengths. As David Mclroy observes. 'the debates within and between the different strands of Christianity which emerged from the Reformation were a key factor in the development of legislation in respect of freedom of religion, civil rights and human rights'. 

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. 

DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671630

BOOK REVIEW: Rosa CONGOST, From masters of slaves to lords of lands: the transformation of ownership in the western world, by James Q. Whitman [Cambridge: Cambrdige University Press, 2025] (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1 (June), pp. 131-136)

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The book I review here is one that cannot fail to impress any reader interested in the historical evolution of property rights. This will be the case whether you are interested in the legal discourse around the concept of property, or in the real and material interests that may lie behind the discourse. In this review, I will emphasise the aspects of the book I find most interesting, while pointing out some questions that came to mind during my reading. I will highlight not only the most obvious findings, but also the possibilities the book offers for starting a dialogue with historians who, like me, are working on similar topics, albeit from different angles and perspectives. 

This dialogue is facilitated by the author's ability to link the multiple references and quotations he provides from classic works, with which we are all familiar, with research from a wide variety of specialised fields. This is evident from the outset. Hence, Blackstone's statement that starts the introduction: ‘[t]here is nothing which so generally strikes the imagination, and engages the affections of mankind as the right of property, which allows the author to present his book as being about 'legal imagination’; an imagination, he immediately clarifies, that is expressed through the 'idioms of power' (10), a concept taken from Orlando Patterson's book Slavery and Social Death.' James Whitman shares one of the central theses of this book, which is the idea that the modern conception of property has its origins in a slave society. This is an idea that in itself already establishes a dialogue with the modern period, especially in a country such as the United States, which had to wait until the second half of the nineteenth century for the definitive triumph of the 'free-soil doctrines' and the 'disappearance of lawful slavery'. This reference locates us in the contemporary Common Law legal tradition where we are reminded that the success of the 'castle doctrine' and the homestead exemption proves the strong identification of property with land, an idea that is widespread throughout the Western world. To this effect, dialogue between scholars of different legal traditions is guaranteed from the outset because 'the West, as I [the book's author] will speak of it in this book, is the West of the Roman legal tradition' (14). In the last part of this review, I will emphasise the need for this dialogue […] 

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.  

DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671610

BOOK REVIEW: James Q. WHITMAN, De l’esprit des lois by Montesquieu, edited by Benjamin Hoffmann [Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 2024] (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1 (June), pp. 126-130)

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Charles Louis de Secondat Baron de la Brède et de Montesquieu's De l 'Esprit des Lois created a sensation when it was first published in 1748, for reasons that I will touch on in this review; but contemporary readers are likely to balk at reading it from end to end. Montesquieu packed, so it seems, pretty much everything he knew into De l'Esprit des Lois. He knew a lot; and it can be a struggle to plow through it all, for example when it comes to his lengthy, and out of date, disquisitions on German law. I will not suggest that readers - even the learned readers of Comparative Legal History - should feel ashamed if they lose steam while trying. 

That said, Montesquieu was, in a word, a genius. His thoughts, some of them presented in chapters hardly longer than post-it notes, are always engaging and frequently brilliant, even if now and then they seem comical or even sinister. (More on that anon.) He deserves more credit than he always gets, for example for discovering fundamental principles of proportionality and deterrence that we usually attribute to Bentham. Not least, he brought a kind of intellectual daring to his comparative work that was rare in the mid-eighteenth century, and that remains rare today - so much so that the reaction of this reviewer, after reading this excellent new annotated edition from Gallimard, is to wonder, wistfully, whether we are falling short of the standard he set two and a half centuries ago. 

What modern readers undoubtedly know best are Montesquieu's reflections on the functioning of monarchy, democracy and despotism, which occupy the opening books of the Esprit des Lois and still hold a place on the political theory syllabus. There is much more to Montesquieu's masterpiece than that, though, most of which is neglected or dismissed. This is notably true of one of the claims on which he was most insistent, his theory of the formative effect of different climates on the law. 'Climate determinism', as Ralf Michaels drily writes, 'seems eccentric to comparative lawyers today'. So it does, though Michaels makes an audacious case for a creative return to it. I will not defend climate determinism in its original form (and neither does Michaels). But I will defend the scientific, and moral, attitude that led Montesquieu to it. [...]

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. 

DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671608

CLH ARTICLE: Ann MUMFORD, Re-enacting the judicial philosophy of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.: Saunders v Vautier and Claflin v Claflin compared (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1, pp. 97-125) [OPEN ACCESS]

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Abstract: 

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. sat on the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts in 1889, when, in the case of Claflin v Claflin, he joined the decision that a trust may not be modified if the intention of the testator would be undermined. Claflin rejected Lord Cottenham’s reasoning in Saunders v Vautier that, under certain circumstances, beneficiaries may compel the termination of the trust and transfer the property to them. Claflin v Claflin and Saunders v Vautier are perhaps the two most famous cases in Anglo-American Equity. Through a detailed examination of manuscripts, this article offers a comparative expansion of the US and English histories, and particularly considers the role played by Holmes. Re-enactment theory offers the possibility of creating, or reliving, the intellectual process that led to Claflin, thus revealing a significant moment in the history of US federalism.

To read the article, please click here. The article is available in open access; the full issue is freely accessible online to members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671607

CLH ARTICLE: Lukasz Jan KORPOROWICZ, The Polish Blackstone: an examination of nineteenth-century Polish scholars’ interpretations of Blackstone and his Commentaries (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1, pp. 73-96) [OPEN ACCESS]

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Abstract:

The principal goal of this article is to address the reception of William Blackstone's legal thought and the awareness of his contributions within the context of nineteenth-century Polish legal scholarship. Despite the considerable differences between English and Polish legal traditions, the limited proficiency in the English language within Poland, and the relatively gradual evolution of Polish legal thought, Blackstone's works were acknowledged by academic circles in Poland in the nineteenth century. Over time, this awareness manifested in direct engagement with certain aspects of Blackstone's perspectives. Nonetheless, the temporal disparity between Blackstone's period of influence and the evolution of legal scholarship in partitioned Poland significantly limited the practical opportunities for the integration and application of Blackstonian jurisprudence.

To read the article, please click here. The article is available in open access; the full issue is freely accessible online to members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: /10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671597

CALL FOR PAPERS: Ius Commune Workshop on Comparative Legal History - Ius Commune in the Making: Failure and the Law (Leuven: KULeuven, 24 NOV 2026) [DEADLINE 15 AUG 2026]

 The 30th Ius Commune Conference will take place in Leuven (24-25 November 2026), and a Workshop will be devoted to “Failure and the Law.”

(image:  Carte particuliere de Brusselles, Louvain et de Vilvorden [Material cartográfico] door Lat, Jan de, fl. 1734-1750 - 1747 - Digital Library Real Academia de la Historia, Spain - Public Domain)

The workshops on “Comparative Legal History – Ius Commune in the Making” aim to reveal and understand the nature and effects of various legal formants in the development of law. Indeed, forces of legal formants are too often lost or hidden beneath a superficies of commonalities. History is a living laboratory. In the past, we explored the role of legal actors (2014), legal sources (2016), force of local laws (2017), methods and dynamics of law (2018), networks (2019), paradigmatic shifts (2020), great debates in the history of law (2021), the concept of innovation in law (2023), manifestations of nature in law (2024), and meaning in law (2025).

This Workshop is dedicated to the place of failure in the life of the law. Not every effort triggers a successful outcome, it should be noted. Efforts in the realm of the law are no exception, and endeavours may fail because of different reasons and at different stages. Failure should be considered a learning experience both for those who attempted to succeed and for those who might attempt in the future. Efforts should not always be considered success stories, yet they should always be considered tools for change and for the advancement of legal science. Thus all legal acting has the inherent capacity to profit from learned experiences, and one should even hold such is the duty of legal scholarship. Failure as a working definition means that a wilful act has not been received effectively, yet the qualification of an act as a failure in itself is profoundly normative as this takes its place in the fabric of legal debate.

The story of failure and success is therefore multi-layered. Failed attempts are omnipresent throughout history and can take different forms. Researchers are invited to explore in this Workshop examples of failed attempts to change or preserve the law as it is, be these, amongst others, legislative, judicial, doctrinal, educational. It may be a failure concerning the fabric of the law itself, as well as in the law’s interaction with the real world. Limitations can relate to several aspects, including the practical such as availability of time, access to (re)sources, flaws in argumentative lines, skills of the human resources involved. For example, Diocletian’s Edictum de Pretiis Rerum Venalium failed in 301 to stop inflation. The medieval feudal system, that failed to maintain personal ties of fealty but turned into a system hereditary rights of succession, eventually creating its own demise. Closer in time, private law codification efforts, such as early-nineteenth century attempts in the Low Countries, provided timely awareness on the merits and weaknesses of those corpora of the law in Europe and beyond. The invention, import or abolition of concepts, rules or methodologies which are considered (not) to fit well may be an illustrative area of research.

Comparative legal historians can benefit from an inventory of what went “wrong” in the selected failure in making or changing the law. This Workshop aims to take stock, inviting for papers that could serve as “logbooks” in that learning process, helping to document failure as it emerged. Awareness of working points can assist in attaining a quick catch-up, something that is recurrent in other sciences, where researchers need to avoid replicating failed exercises that may have taken place in other laboratories. Even when not all experiences may be considered successful, comparative legal history can evolve when failed experiences are assessed and reconsidered.

Senior researchers and PhD candidates are invited to submit an abstract of a paper related to the above-mentioned theme. Abstracts (max. 400 words) should be sent to Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl) no later than 15 August 2026. Shortly after that, the authors will be informed whether their papers are selected for a presentation during the Workshop. All contributions should be in English. Co-authored papers will be also considered. The organizing committee will give preference to early-career researchers when facing submissions of similar quality.

Researchers from within and outside the Ius Commune Research School will be eligible to present abstracts. Please also forward this call to colleagues who might be interested.

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact a member of the organizing committee,

 

Harry Dondorp (j.h.dondorp@vu.nl)

Wouter Druwé (wouter.druwe@kuleuven.be)

Michael Milo (j.m.milo@uu.nl)

Pim Oosterhuis (janwillem.oosterhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

CLH ARTICLE: Henrik-Riko HELD, Ius commune, Venetian governance, and Croatian Glagolitic culture: testaments from the countryside of Šibenik in the early modern period (1637–1713) (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1, pp. 55-72)

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Abstract:

In the article, I discuss the entanglement of ius commune and Croatian Glagolitic culture under the auspices of Venetian rule in the early modern period. I analyse 222 testaments written in the Croatian language and Glagolitic script between 1637 and 1713 by Glagolitic priests in the countryside of Šibenik, on the eastern Adriatic coast, then under Venetian rule. I address in particular the terminology employed, as well as the structure of the testaments. I compare them with models found elsewhere in Europe, as evidenced by relevant notarial formularies. Finally, I examine the issue of the validity of testaments composed by ostensibly unauthorised persons (parish priests).

To read the article, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671589

JOURNAL: Comparative Legal History XIV (2026), nr. 1 (Jun)

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FROM THE EDITORIAL (David Schorr & Agustín Parise)

[...] As is appropriate for this spring season, Issue 1 of Volume 14 of Comparative Legal History is marked by the welcome arrival of several new developments. 

We would first like to highlight a new feature in the journal – a review of a classic work of comparative legal history, written from the perspective of today’s scholarship. To kick off this new format, James Whitman reviews Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, a classic in the field if there ever was one. We plan for reviews of classics to be a recurring feature of the journal, and welcome suggestions from our readers for classic works that should be considered for review in our journal.

Another novelty is that we start off Issue 1 of Volume 14 with an invited essay, by comparative law scholar Ralf Michaels. The author gives us a breathtakingly wide-ranging and erudite appraisal of new literature on comparative law, examining the place of legal history in the field of comparative law, while at the same time demonstrating the importance of comparative law scholarship for comparative legal historians. We hope to return to this theme in the sixth session of the Dialogues in Comparative Legal History, to be held online later this year.

With the support of Taylor & Francis, we are also proud to inaugurate two technical features that we think will add to the journal. First, we will now publish contributions to the journal online on a rolling basis, without waiting for them to be collected into issues according to our regular publication schedule. Second, we are encouraging authors to include relevant images in their contributions. We welcome proposals for contributions that take advantage of the visual medium and for new formats are centred on it.

New sprouts ultimately rely on good roots, and Issue 1 of Volume 14 continues the journal’s tradition of presenting an assortment of articles involving a wide variety of legal traditions and their interactions. Henrik-Riko Held’s article shows how a local, vernacular legal culture and the learned ius commune interacted in surprising ways in the Venetian Empire; Hoàng Thảo Anh’s article looks at the private international law of the Chinese and Vietnamese Empires; Lukasz Korporowicz surveys the reception of William Blackstone in Polish legal literature; and Ann Mumford investigates what legal rejection – the refusal of a potential legal transplant – can teach us about the legal philosophies of judges and scholars. 

Issue 1 of Volume 14 is enriched with 13 additional book reviews on an expansive range of topics, including James Sheehan’s review of two books on the history of sovereignty; Gary Jacobsohn’s comparative look at debates on ‘originalism’ in the USA; William Butler’s review of a Russian work on comparative legal history; and Michele Graziadei’s appreciation of Dirk Heirbaut’s comparative work on codification. All reviews in this issue demonstrate the continued vitality of comparative legal history, to which we are proud to contribute.

CLH ARTICLE: William PARTLETT, Constitutional nationalism and remembered history: the post-Soviet example (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 277-305)

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Abstract:

This article will argue that national history can further the project of constitutional self-government even in formerly authoritarian countries. Examining the former Soviet republics, it will describe how remembering forgotten or suppressed democratic constitutional ideas and arguments from national history can help support the project of constitutional self-government. This form of ‘constitutional nationalism’ counters arguments that constitutional self-government is a project of convergence with western best practices. It instead links it to long-standing national struggles to adapt the balanced constitution of constitutional self-government to the national context. ‘Constitutional nationalism’ therefore relies on a different approach to history. Rather than understanding national history in countries with a long history of authoritarianism as something to ignore or overcome, it views this history as a potential source of (often suppressed) ideas and inspiration for helping the project of constitutional self-government today.

To read the article, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2579474

CLH ARTICLE: Mehmed BECIC, The Commercial Law for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1883: A legal transplant debate perspective (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 222-251)

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Abstract: 

The subject of this article is the Commercial Law for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1883. This law represented a legal transplant of German commercial law. At the time of its adoption in 1883, the Commercial Law did not represent a mirror of society. However, archival sources point to the fact that the government did not actually aim to impose a law that reflected the socio-economic conditions or business and commercial practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The imposition of this legal transplant was aimed at unifying commercial law in a unified customs territory. A contextual analysis, based on archival sources, economic policies and economic history, confirmed that the government was interested in imposing precisely this kind of legal solution (legal transplant) to achieve specific legal, social and economic effects and transform the existing socio-legal and economic system of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

To read the article, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2579472

BOOK REVIEW: Marek Jan WASIŃSKI on Socialism and international law: the cold war and its legacies, edited by Raluca Grosescu and Ned Richardson-Little (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 356-362)

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The prevailing scholarly understanding of geopolitical agency in the formation of international law still seems to echo the logic of Hegelian historiography. A benchmark for this narrative was set in 1824 by Leopold von Ranke, who claimed that the Slavic and Byzantine-Islamic East did not belong to the West. Its peoples, he famously wrote, never exercised any independent influence; they only appear either subservient or antagonistic. With Western Europe proclaimed l’Europe européenne, the line drawn around this central and privileged position came to define the civilised and capitalist West in opposition to its politically, economically, and culturally inferior Other. This entity was presumed incapable of theorising or structurally and normatively shaping the international legal order. European international lawyers from beyond the borders of the Latino-Germanic West often feel compelled to perform rhetorical autos-da-fé as acts of symbolic self-sacrifice and purification, in which their own perspectives are disavowed in order to align with a civilisational script authored elsewhere and promising progress and emancipation. Part of this gesture involves the complete substitution of Europe’s inherited geopolitical divisions with alignments based on epistemic, ethical, and ideo-political affinities. This kind of positioning tends to arise within discursive contexts that assert continuity with a Western tradition, often framing local perspectives as having never departed from its presumed universality. However, this may amount to the epistemic self-erasure of what Hans-Georg Gadamer called one’s own horizon of a historically and spatially situated vantage point, continually reshaped by shifting existential conditions. This seemingly subliminal act of repression manifests in the unsettling and paradoxical practice of writing about international law from a Central and Eastern European perspective offering only the faintest articulation of its contextual standpoint. Marxist-informed critiques of international law might read this not as a neutral scholarly gesture, but as a submission to inherited historical conditions, what Marx described as making history not as they please, but under circumstances already passed down. 

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. For further information about the volume on our blog, please visit here.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580115

BOOK REVIEW: Leo BOONZAIER on State liability and the law: a historical and comparative analysis by Bartłomiej Wróblewski (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 366-372)

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This book, authored by Bartłomiej Wróblewski, an Assistant Professor at SWPS University, Poznań, is a stimulating contribution to our understanding of the liability of public authorities in Europe. It was first published in Polish in 2011 by CH Beck and has now been translated into highly readable English by Gwidon Naskrent, with revisions by Stephen Dersley. The author tells us, mysteriously, that ‘some changes have been made’ for the English edition. It appeared in spring 2023 as the second title in Routledge’s new Studies in Comparative Legal History series. The author has written two previous books on closely related topics in German and Polish, respectively. The volume under review consolidates the results of this research and makes them available to English readers for the first time. 

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. For further information about the volume on our blog, please visit here

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580105

BOOK REVIEW: Assaf LIKHOVSKI on Sovereignty and religious freedom: a Jewish history, by Simon Rabinovitch (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 351-356)

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Simon Rabinovitch’s book is an ambitious, wide-ranging, and erudite discussion of the past and present status of Jewish collective rights. Using a comparative method, Rabinovitch explores a variety of interactions between Jewish communities and modern states in the last two centuries in various countries around the world. The topic of this book is highly relevant to contemporary political debates, not only regarding the place of Jewish communities in modern Western states but also concerning other minority religious groups such as Muslims and Sikhs. While legal historians and other scholars have long been interested in the relationship between ethnic and religious minorities and modern states, Rabinovitch’s book is unique because of the broad and detailed way he explores this topic. On a more abstract level, the author’s analysis is an essay on the nature of liberalism, discussing the dilemma that modern liberal states face when they try to reconcile the individualist nature of liberal ideology with the fact that in every society, there are collective groups, often of a religious nature, whose beliefs and practices sometimes conflict with those of the majority.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580113

ANNOUNCEMENT: Comparative Legal History (Mission Statement and new Editorial Board)

 

The journal Comparative Legal History is pleased to announce that its website has been updated with the new composition of its Editorial Board.

 

Comparative Legal History is the scholarly journal of the European Society for Comparative Legal History, publishing innovative research in comparative, transnational, and global legal history. The journal welcomes contributions that examine and compare historical interactions between diverse forms of normativity, including legal, religious, customary, and social norms, as well as the agents, institutions, and jurisdictions through which they have operated.  Engaging with legal traditions from across the globe, the journal welcomes interdisciplinary approaches and publishes research articles, invited contributions, review essays, book reviews, and special issues.

 

The journal is committed to fast turn-around times for its evaluations and editing, and thanks to our publisher, Taylor & Francis, we will now be publishing contributions online as soon as they are ready for production, thus giving authors the ability to publish and disseminate their research without delay.

 

We would also like to note that the journal encourages authors to make use of visual material in their articles.

 

To discuss ideas for articles or special issues, please contact Articles Editors Paolo Astorri (paa@teol.ku.dk) and Emanuel van Dongen (E.G.D.vanDongen@uu.nl). To recommend a book (published in the last two years) for review, please contact Reviews Editors Gianmarco Palmieri (gianmarcopalmieri1@gmail.com) and Geetanjali Srikantan (gasrikantan@gmail.com). For any and all enquiries, please feel free to contact the Editor, David Schorr (dschorr@tau.ac.il).

 

CONFERENCE: Le Code pénal belge. Regards historiques et comparatifs (XVIe-XXIe siècles) /The Belgian Penal Code. Historical and Comparative Perspectives (XVIth-XXIth centuries) (Brussels: Academy Palace, 18 MAY 2026)

 

To mark the entry into force of the new Belgian Penal Code, originally scheduled for 8 April but ultimately postponed until 1 September 2026, Jérôme de Brouwer, Professor at the Université libre de Bruxelles, François Pierrard, F.R.S.-FNRS Postdoctoral Researcher at UCLouvain, and Édouard Delrée, PhD student at the ULB, are organising a conference on 18 May entitled ‘Le Code pénal belge. Regards historiques et comparatifs (XVIe-XXIe siècles)’ / ‘The Belgian Penal Code. Historical and Comparative Perspectives (16th–21st centuries)’. The aim of this conference is to offer a historical and comparative perspective on Belgian criminal codification. It will seek to situate the gradual development of the concept of the Penal Code within the European and then colonial context, from the Spanish Netherlands to contemporary Belgium. The conference will take place on 18 May 2026, from 9am to 6pm, at the Palace of Academies, Rue Ducale 1, 1000 Brussels. Admission is free, but registration is compulsory (contact: pierrard.francois@uclouvain.be).

À l'occasion de l'entrée en vigueur du nouveau Code pénal belge initialement prévue le 8 avril mais finalement reportée au 1er septembre 2026, François Pierrard, chargé de recherches F.R.S.-FNRS à l'UCLouvain sous la direction de Wim Decock, organise avec Jérôme de Brouwer, professeur à l'Université libre de Bruxelles, un colloque intitulé "Le Code pénal belge. Regards historiques et comparatifs (XVIe-XXIe siècles)" / "The Belgian Penal Code. Historical and Comparative Perspectives (XVIth-XXIth centuries)". Ce colloque a pour but d'offrir une perspective historique et comparative à la codification pénale belge. Il s'agira de replacer l'élaboration progressive du concept de code pénal dans le contexte européen et puis colonial des Pays-Bas espagnols à la Belgique contemporaine. Le colloque se tiendra le 18 mai 2026, de 9h à 18h, au Palais des Académies, Rue Ducale 1, 1000 Bruxelles. L'entrée est libre, mais l'inscription est obligatoire (contact : pierrard.francois@uclouvain.be).

Le Code pénal belge. Regards historiques et comparatifs           (XVI^e-XXI^e siècles)

The Belgian Penal Code. Historical and Comparative Perspectives (XVI^th-XXI^th centuries)

 

Palais des Académies,

Rue Ducale 1, Bruxelles

18.05.2026

A)       L’élaboration du concept de code pénal                                                            The development of the concept of a criminal code

I)                    De l’uniformisation à la codification                                                                                          From standardisation to codification

Président de séance / Chairperson : Jean-Marc Hausman (UCLouvain, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

9:00 : Introduction

Jérôme de Brouwer (ULB), François Pierrard (FNRS, UCLouvain) et Édouard Delrée (ULB)

9:30 : Le plus difficile : définir le concept

Dirk Heirbaut (Universiteit Gent) 

10:00 : The myths of criminal law codes

Aniceto Masferrer (Universitat de València) 

 

Pause-café / Coffee break

 

II)                  La séparation du droit pénal substantiel et procédural                                                The separation of substantive and procedural criminal law

Président de séance / Chairperson : Wim Decock (UCLouvain, Université de Liège)

 

11:00 : Les premières tentatives de codification. Des Ordonnances criminelles de Philippe II au Règlement provisionnel pour la procédure criminelle de Joseph II (1570-1787)

François Pierrard (FNRS, UCLouvain) 

11:30 : From the old to the new criminal law. Innovative aspects of the codification of criminal law of Joseph II (1787) compared with the Constitutio Criminalis Theresiana                         Thomas Simon (Universität Wien) 

12:00 : L’expérience française de la codification pénale (1791-1810)

Liêm Tuttle (Université Panthéon-Sorbonne)

Buffet froid / Cold buffet

B)       Le changement de paradigme de la codification pénale                 The paradigm shift in criminal codification

I)                    Les aléas de l’élaboration d’un code national                                                                                                 The challenges of developing a national code  

Président de séance / Chairperson : Nicolas Simon (Académie royale de Belgique)

 

14:00 : à la recherche d’un code pénal pour le royaume des Pays-Bas (1815-1830). Une divergence entre le nord et le sud ?

Fred Stevens (Katholieke Universiteit Leuven)

14:30 : Observation, expérimentation : les sciences au service de la codification pénale en Belgique au 19^e siècle

Jérôme de Brouwer (ULB) 

15:00 : Le Code pénal belge de 1867 lu par la doctrine française

Tanguy Le Marc’hadour (Université d’Artois) 

Pause-café / Coffee break

 

II)                  L’influence et le devenir du premier Code pénal belge                                 The The influence and future of the first Belgian Penal Code    

Présidente de séance / Chairperson : Marie-Aude Beernaert (UCLouvain)

16:00 : Du Code pénal de 1867 aux lois de défense sociale en Belgique. Deux logiques antagonistes et complémentaires pour lutter contre le crime                                                                Yves Cartuyvels (UCLouvain Saint-Louis Bruxelles) 

16:30 (sur Teams) :  L’influence du droit belge sur le Code pénal congolais de 1940 à nos jours                                                                                                                                                                           Pacifique Magadju (Université Catholique de Bukavu)

17:00 : Des codifications jumelles aux destins opposés : trajectoires croisées des codes pénaux et du Code d’instruction criminelle en Belgique de 1831 à nos jours                                            Édouard Delrée (ULB)

Conclusion

 

17:30 : D’un code à l’autre                                                                                                                                         Jérôme de Brouwer (ULB), François Pierrard (FNRS, UCLouvain) et Édouard Delrée (ULB)

 

 

Contact : pierrard.francois@uclouvain.be