SEMINAR: Diritto Romano e mestiere del giurista. Esperienze, confronti, prospettive [Associazione Italiana di Diritto Romano] (Università degli Studi di Milano, 4–5 JUN 2026)

(image source: AIDR & Università degli Studi di Milano)

Diritto Romano e mestiere del giurista. Esperienze, confronti, prospettive

Associazione Italiana di Diritto Romano

Convegno: in presenza

Luogo: Aula 431, Università degli Studi di Milano — Via Festa del Perdono 3, Milano

4–5 giugno 2026

Contatti: Segreteria organizzativa (aidrmilano2026@unimi.it)

Per il programma completo del convegno (PDF): UniMil

Programma:

Giovedì 4 giugno 2026

Ore 14.30

Saluti istituzionali

Stefano Simonetta — Prorettore

Giuseppe Ondei — Presidente Corte d’Appello di Milano

Angela Santangelo — Direttore Dipartimento di diritto privato e storia del diritto

Carla Masi Doria — Presidente AIDR

Prima sessione. Il diritto come scienza per l’uomo. Omne ius hominum causa constitutum

Presiede Chiara Tenella Sillani

Francesco Fasolino — Ordinario di Diritto romano, Università degli Studi di Salerno

Alberto Venturelli — Ordinario di Diritto civile, Università degli Studi di Brescia

Discussione

Ore 17.00

Seconda sessione. Diritto romano e teoria generale del diritto

Presiede Claudio Luzzati

Luigi Garofalo — Ordinario di Diritto romano, Università degli Studi di Padova

Carlo Nitsch — Ordinario di Filosofia del diritto, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II

Discussione

Cena sociale

Venerdì 5 giugno 2026

Ore 9.30

Terza sessione. Il metodo esegetico al vaglio della contemporaneità

Presiede Sandro Schipani

Pietro Sirena — Ordinario di Diritto civile, Università Commerciale “Luigi Bocconi”

Discussione

Ore 11.00

Tavola rotonda

Presiede Patrizia Giunti

Giovanni Canzio — Già primo Presidente di Cassazione

Francesco Della Rocca — Notaio, Consigliere e Coordinatore delle Commissioni scientifiche del CNN

Antonio Genovese — Già Presidente di Sezione di Cassazione

C. Orisel Hernández Aguilar — “Titular” di Diritto romano, Università di Pinar del Río (Cuba)

Thomas Rüfner — Ordinario di Diritto romano e Diritto civile, Università di Treviri (Germania); Giudice presso la Corte d’Appello di Coblenza

Aldo Schiavone — Emerito di Diritto romano, Scuola Normale Superiore

Discussione

Ore 14.30
Assemblea dei soci
Elezione dei rappresentanti nel Direttivo

BOOK: Dominika UCKIEWICZ, Accountability for War Crimes in the Policy of the Polish Government-in-Exile. A Legal and Historical Analysis (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2026), ISBN 9789004759015, OPEN ACCESS

 

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

This book excavates the often neglected role of the Polish government-in-exile within the Allied war crimes trial programme and post-1945 international law. Drawing on newly examined archival sources and biographies of key émigré lawyers, it reveals how Polish and other Eastern European jurists helped define the concept of accountability for wartime atrocities long before the Allies convened at Nuremberg. Combining legal and historical approaches, this book traces the Central and Eastern European influence on the UN War Crimes Commission and Allied policy, showing how their ideas about justice, responsibility, victim’s perspective, and law continue to resonate in modern interpretations of the legacy of Nuremberg.

Read more here: DOI 10.1163/9789004759015.

FORMATION DOCTORALE : Ma thèse à l’ère de l’intelligence artificielle générative: enjeux, outils et pratiques situées [2e journée de formation commune de l’ED4 HiSTAR] (Louvain-la-Neuve, 5 JUN 2026)

(image source: UCLouvain)

ED4 HiSTAR

Journée de formation doctorale : en présentiel

Lieu : Louvain-la-Neuve

Date : vendredi 5 juin 2026

Inscription obligatoire avant le 22 mai 2026 à midi via le formulaire disponible sur le site HiSTAR:

HiSTAR – inscription et informations

Programme complet (PDF) :

Télécharger le programme PDF

Programme:

1e partie. Introduction théorique à l’IA, aperçu exploratoire de la diversité des applications possibles
9h45 – 12h15
Collège Erasme, salle polyvalente

Pascal Vangrunderbeeck — Conseiller pédagogique numérique et IA au Louvain Learning Lab
Comprendre l’effet Woaw des interfaces d’IAg et perspectives pour développer l’esprit critique

Nicolás Marín Bayona — UCLouvain
Voir sans regarder : analyse critique des dispositifs computationnels d’analyse d’image en Digital Art History

Camille Berny — UCLouvain
Analyser le risque ferroviaire dans les annales parlementaires avec l’IA : contraintes matérielles, protocoles de dépouillement et enjeux épistémologiques

12h15 – 13h30
Lunch

2e partie. Formation pratique
13h30 – 17h
Pool informatique Socrate 31-32

Jonathan Dedonder — Logisticien de recherches en sciences humaines, UCLouvain – IACCHOS
De l’outil au corpus : IA générative, art du prompting et posture épistémologique

Cet atelier propose une entrée à la fois pratique et critique dans l’usage de l’IA générative pour le traitement de corpus textuels. Il s’organise en trois temps : réflexion sur les enjeux liés à l’usage de l’IA dans la recherche (protection des données, acceptabilité disciplinaire, traçabilité méthodologique), panorama des outils disponibles et initiation au prompt engineering, suivis d’exercices pratiques et d’un retour réflexif collectif sur les enjeux épistémologiques liés à l’intégration de ces outils dans la recherche scientifique.

BOOK: Clifford ANDO, Mirko CANEVARO & Benjamin STRAUMANN (eds.), The Cambridge History of Rights, vol.I: The Ancient World [The Cambridge History of Rights, eds. Nehal BHUTA, Anthony PAGDEN & Mira L. SIEGELBERG] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026), ISBN 9781108837354, 120 GBP

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

The ancient world existed before the modern conceptual and linguistic apparatus of rights, and any attempts to understand its place in history must be undertaken with care. This volume covers not only Greco-Roman antiquity, but ranges from the ancient Near East to early Confucian China; Deuteronomic Judaism to Ptolemaic Egypt; and rabbinic Judaism to Sasanian law. It describes ancient normative conceptions of personhood and practices of law in a way that respects their historical and linguistic particularity, appreciating the distinctiveness of the cultures under study whilst clarifying their salience for comparative study. Through thirteen expertly researched essays, volume one of The Cambridge History of Rights is a comprehensive and authoritative reference for the history of rights in the global ancient world and highlights societies that the field has long neglected.

Table of contents:

Introduction Clifford Ando, Mirko Canevaro and Benjamin Straumann

• 1. To claim to protect claims: the generative discourse of Mesopotamian legal rights Seth Richardson
• 2. The individual and the communal: early Confucian resources for human rights May Sim
• 3. human rights in the Hebrew Bible? Sandra Jacobs
• 4. Greek subjective rights? Justice, legal discourse, and legal institutions Mirko Canevaro and Linda Rocchi
• 5. Aristotle on subjective rights Pia Campeggiani
• 6. Do rights exist in Hellenistic philosophy? Jon Miller
• 7. Rights in Ptolemaic Egypt Nadine Grotkamp
• 8. Rights in Roman Republican thought Valentina Arena
• 9. Ius in the subjective sense in classical Roman law Charles Donahue, Jr
• 10. Rights and dignity in late ancient thought Kyle Harper
• 11. Rights in late ancient law? Noel Lenski
• 12. Rabbinic Judaism Alyssa M. Gray
• 13. Sasanian law Maria Macuch.

Read more here: DOI 10.1017/9781108938938

 

BOOK: Ville KARI, The Classical Doctrine of Civil War in International Law [Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law, eds. Larissa VAN DEN HERIK, &Jean D'ASPREMONT] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026), ISBN 9781009218665

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

In the classical law of nations there was a doctrine of civil war. This book sets out to recover the forgotten legal tradition that shaped the modern world from 1575-1975. The result is an autonomous reassessment of four hundred years of the law of insurgencies and revolutions, both in state practice and in legal scholarship. Its journey through centuries of rebellion and the rule of law touches some of the most basic questions of international law across ages. What does it mean to stand among the nations of the world? Who should be welcomed among the subjects of international law, who should not, and who should decide? Its findings not only help make the classical doctrine understandable again, but also offer potential new insights for present-day lawyers about the origins, aspirations and vulnerabilities of the legal tradition with which they work today.

Rad more here.

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)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

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: Vid ŽEPIĆ, Favor debitoris. Varstvo dolžnika v rimskem pravu (Ljubljana: Univerza v Ljubljani, Pravna fakulteta & Litteralis d.o.o., 2026), 496 p., ISBN 978-961-7162-25-7, € 79.90

(image source: Knjigarna Pravna)

Abstract: 

Monografija obravnava razvoj načela favor debitoris oziroma krepitev varstva dolžnika v poznoantičnem rimskem pravu. Na podlagi analize cesarskih konstitucij od 4. do 6. stoletja prikazuje, kako so družbene, gospodarske in politične spremembe vplivale na zakonodajne ukrepe za zaščito dolžnika kot šibkejše stranke obligacijskega razmerja.

Posebna pozornost je namenjena razlagi pogodb, omejevanju pogodbene avtonomije, prenehanju obveznosti ter izvršbi in zavarovanju terjatev. Raziskava obenem osvetljuje vpliv gospodarske krize, provincialne pravne prakse, stoiške filozofije in vzhodnorimskih pravnih šol na razvoj poznega rimskega prava ter pokaže, kako so ti procesi vplivali tudi na kasnejši razvoj socialnih korektivov v civilnem pravu.

On the author:

Dr. Vid Žepič je docent na Katedri za pravno zgodovino Pravne fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani.

Table of contents:

Uvod
     1.1 Razvojne težnje in dejavniki rimskega obligacijskega prava
     1.2 Metodologija
     1.3 Stanje raziskav

(2) Razvojni dejavniki postklasičnega prava
     2.1 Cesarske konstitucije – ius novum
     2.2 Razvojni dejavniki

(3) Favor debitoris in njegove pojavne oblike
     3.1 Favor debitoris – pojmovna analiza
     3.2 Razlaga pravnih poslov
     3.3 Omejevanje pogodbene avtonomije
     3.4 Prenehanje obveznosti
     3.5 Zavarovanje in izvršba

(4) Sklep
     4.1 Favor debitoris v rimskem pravnem izročilu
     4.2 Razvojni dejavniki načela favor debitoris
     4.3 Pot do materializacije civilnega prava

(5) Zusammenfassung

Find more on Pravna fakulteta Univeza v Ljubljani & Knjigarna pravna.

BOOK: Paolo AMOROSA, Ville ERKILLÄ & Karolina STENLUND (eds.), Times of Global Injustice. Temporalities of Power and Community Beyond Disciplinary Boundaries [Routledge Studies in Law, Rights and Justice] (London: Routledge, 2026), 388 p. ISBN 9781032873770, € 190

 

(image source: Routledge)

Abstract:

Time is an essential dimension of our shared understandings of the historical significance or fairness of a particular event or situation. The ways time is constructed, however, are characterised by a plurality of diverse and sometimes inconsistent representations. This book examines the uses of different conceptualizations of time in explaining injustice and justice in society from an interdisciplinary perspective.  It is the temporal representations that are the focus of this book here: how and by whom are they constructed, how do they weave together or fray in the process of working through temporary or permanent injustices, and what spaces are made or quashed for different understandings of time? The volume gathers scholars from different backgrounds with expertise from law, history, politics and international relations, philosophy, and sociology to examine the temporality of (in)justice in society. The chapters of the book are integrated around a coherent central theme: the unavoidable intertwining of time and justice. As well as addressing the lived processes of collectively coming to terms with temporal experiences and justice, the book work also discusses the different disciplinary ways of making sense of such processes and the strengths and pitfalls of each approach. The collection will be of interest to researchers and students of legal theory, international relations, global history, memory studies, and political philosophy.

Table of contents:

1.Introduction. Times of Global (In)justice.
Paolo Amorosa, Ville Erkkilä, Karolina Stenlund

Part I: Offcial Time

2. Why Do People Move? Governing the Time and Space of Climate Migration.
Usha Natarajan

3. Yesterday’s tomorrows and today’s: Future-making in Swedish permit-granting procedure
Agnes Hellner 

4. As If a Foreign Country: Evidence Law and Settler Colonial Sovereignty.
Genevieve Renard Painter

5. State redress for involuntary sterilisation in Sweden.
Malin Arvidsson

6. Urgency and Exceptional Time: The State of Emergency as an institution of official time.
Tuukka Brunila

Part II: Emancipatory Time 

7. How to Overcome an Unjust Past? Conflicts of Historicities in the Contemporary World.
Marek Tamm & Zoltán Boldizsár Simon

8. Urgency! At the European Court of Human Rights: Hope, Haste and Climate Justice.
Zoë Jay

9. Existential time and climate in/justice at the end of the world.
Andrew R. Hom

10.Law, Time, and Tradition.
Sebastián Machado

11.Stitching as reparation: expanding narrations of the past and imagining the future.
Helena Alviar García & Laura Betancur Restrepo

Part III: Everyday Time

12.Authoritarian Regimes and the ’Everyday Time.’ The trial of Greta Wolff.
Ville Erkkilä

13. Times of Hermeneutical Injustice: Memory Struggle in the Public Discussion around the Attack on the Elias Lönnrot Monument.
Ulla Savolainen

14. Rehearsing the Future Through Design.
Sara Duell

15. The Shape of Time to Come: The History of the Future in Teleological legal reasoning.
Karolina Stenlund

16. Conclusions: Just(ice) in Time

Bo Stråth

 On the editors:

Paolo Amorosa is University Lecturer of International Law at the Law Faculty, University of Helsinki, Finland. Ville Erkkilä is an Academy Research Fellow at the Centre for European Studies, University of Helsinki, Finland. Karolina Stenlund is a university researcher and team leader at the Research Council of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity, and the European Narratives (EuroStorie), based at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

 Read more here.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: International Conference on Risk and Insurance in History (ICRIH) [HOSTING PROPOSALS FOR 2028–2029]

(image source: RKD Research)

The Scientific Committee of the International Conference on Risk and Insurance in History (ICRIH) has issued a call for proposals to organize and host the next edition of the conference in the summer of 2028 or, at the latest, 2029.

Since its inaugural meeting in Seville in 2019, followed by conferences in Basel (2022) and Warsaw (2025), the ICRIH has established itself as a major interdisciplinary forum for scholars working on the historical and long-term dimensions of risk and insurance. Previous editions brought together researchers from across the world and covered topics ranging from marine insurance and maritime law, insurance and the Atlantic slave trade, and micro-insurance, to modern financial instruments and alternative risk transfer mechanisms.

The Scientific Committee invites proposals from institutions interested in hosting the next conference. The selected organizing committee will work closely with the Scientific Committee, which will provide support regarding conference structure, call for papers, keynote speakers, paper evaluation, awards, and fundraising. A dedicated conference website is also being developed by the University of Basel.

The ICRIH welcomes interdisciplinary engagement from fields including economic, business, financial, legal, social, and cultural history, as well as economics, sociology, anthropology, management studies, and legal studies. The conference has also traditionally included participation from professionals in the insurance industry alongside established and early-career researchers.

The Scientific Committee of the ICRIH consists of: Lars Fredrick Andresson (Sweden), Gustavo de Angel (Mexico), Sabine Go (Netherlands), Phillip Hellwege (Germany), Sebastian Kohl (Germany), Jean Kwon (USA), Martin Lengwiler (Switzerland), Jeronia Pons (Spain), and Grietjie Verhoef (South Africa).

Hosting proposals and enquiries should be addressed to: Prof. Robin Pearson, Professor Emeritus of Economic History, University of Hull (UK)

Email: ehsrp70@gmail.com 

The full Call for Proposals is available in PDF format here: Full Call PDF.

BOOK: Luka BRENESELOVIC and Arnd KOCH (eds.), Die europäische Bedeutung der Internationalen Kriminalistischen Vereinigung (IKV) 1889–1919 [Grundlagen des Strafrechts; 16] (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2026), 336 p. ISBN 978-3-7560-0794-3

 

(image source: InLibra)

Abstract:

Die Internationale kriminalistische Vereinigung war eine international erfolgreiche Vereinsgründung der Belle Époque. Initiiert von Franz v. Liszt, Adolphe Prins und G. A. van Hamel legte sie ihrer Tätigkeit die Prämisse zugrunde, dass Verbrechen und Strafe „ebenso sehr vom soziologischen wie vom juristischen Standpunkte aus ins Auge gefasst werden müssen“ (Art. 1, Satzung von 1889). Auf dieser Basis erhob die IKV kriminalpolitische Forderungen, die bis heute das moderne Bild des Strafrechts maßgeblich prägen. Der Band widmet sich aus einer vergleichenden Perspektive der Tätigkeit und legislatorischen Wirksamkeit der nationalen Landesgruppen der IKV und leistet so einen wichtigen Beitrag zur europäischen Geschichte des Strafrechts.

Contributors:

Mit Beiträgen von Prof. Dr. Attila Barna | Dr. Luka Breneselović, LL.M. | Prof. Dr. Yves Cartuyvels | Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Cyrille Fijnaut | Prof. Dr. José Franco-Chasán | Prof. Dr. Sabine Freitag | Dr. Urs Germann | Prof. Dr. Jørn Jacobsen | Mag. Dr. Nina Kaiser | Prof. Dr. Sylvia Kesper-Biermann | Prof. Dr. Arnd Koch | Prof. Dr. Dr. Michael Kubiciel | Prof. Dr. Dunja Milotić | Prof. Dr. Martin Sunnqvist | Dr. Richard Wetzell

Read more here: 10.5771/9783748915515. 

BOOK: Simon GILBERT, Droit administratif: le cours alpha. Naissance d'une discipline académique et doctrine originelles (1804-1814) [Méthodes du droit] (Paris: Dalloz, 2026), 162 p. ISBN 9782247249268, € 35

 

(image source: Dalloz)

Abstract:

Peu de recherches ont jusqu'à présent permis d'identifier et d'analyser les premiers usages de l'expression « droit administratif » ni les conditions dans lesquelles l'enseignement de cette matière est apparu sous le Premier Empire. Le présent ouvrage revêt un triple objet : porter à la connaissance des contemporains du xxie siècle un corps de doctrines du Premier Empire aussi remarquables que méconnues inhérentes au caractère politique du droit administratif, qui forgent les conditions pour que la scriptogenèse de ce droit détermine son caractère autoritaire et qui jettent sur le droit contemporain une lumière aussi riche que nouvelle ; faire découvrir le contexte dans lequel est apparu cet enseignement académique en l'an XII (les motifs de son instauration, sa dévolution à une vingtaine de privatistes qui formèrent historiquement la première génération des professeurs de droit administratif, la manière dont ce droit a été représenté comme une matière académique d'un genre à part) ; mettre en relief le caractère mixte de ce droit dans les représentations prégnantes de l'époque, ce droit étant originellement considéré comme un composé de règles de droit public et de droit privé. La doctrine du Premier Empire assignait déjà à ce droit la fonction de déterminer des formes d'harmonie sociale, de fixer un point d'équilibre entre les lois civiles et politiques et de s'appliquer à certains rapports administratifs. Elle était convaincue que ce droit devait être en harmonie avec l'administration et fondé en la raison d'État. Elle a conceptualisé les conditions institutionnelles permettant de garantir que l'écriture matérielle du droit administratif soit compatible avec sa fonction politique.

On the author:

Simon Gilbert est professeur de droit public et doyen de la faculté de droit de l'université Paris-Est Créteil.

Read more here. 

 

PRIZE: Bader-Preis to legal historian Svit KOMEL (Ljubljana) (Vienna: Austrian Academy of Sciences)

 

(image source: ÖAW)

Abstract:

Der Bader-Preis für die Geschichte der Wissenschaft und Technik geht in diesem Jahr an Svit Komel von der Universität Ljubljana. Ausgezeichnet wird seine Dissertationsschrift „Rule and measure. A history of juridical practices in the age of surveys“, in der er die Abschaffung von Grundlasten und kollektiven Landnutzungsrechten in der Habsburgermonarchie zwischen 1853 und 1895 untersucht. Komel zeigt, wie die Grundentlastung, also die Auflösung gemeinschaftlicher Rechte von Bauern an Wäldern und Weiden, nicht nur ein agrarpolitischer Einschnitt war, sondern Ausdruck einer tiefgreifenden Veränderung im Verhältnis zwischen Staat, Wissenschaft und lokaler Gesellschaft. Im Zentrum seiner Analyse steht das Konzept der Vermessung: Kommissare wurden in alle Winkel der Monarchie entsandt, um Gewohnheitsrechte zu erfassen und neu zu kategorisieren – ein Prozess, der auf das Wissen der bäuerlichen Bevölkerung zwingend angewiesen war.

More information at the ÖAW. 

BOOK: Peter STACEY, The State in Machiavelli (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), ISBN 9781009630351, €145,89

 

(image source: Cambridge University Press)

Abstract:

While historical scholarship has often downplayed the importance of Machiavelli's theory of the state, this study reconstructs the question of lo stato as the conceptual crux of his political philosophy. Peter Stacey offers a detailed reconstruction of the historical context from which Machiavelli's theory emerges, demonstrating how the intellectual and ideological contours of Machiavelli's thinking, as well as much of its content, were decisively shaped by conceptual apparatuses drawn from Roman philosophical, rhetorical and aesthetic discourse. Stacey further provides a sustained analysis of the development of Machiavelli's picture of the state from his earliest writings onwards, underlining the extent to which the Florentine draws deeply upon several key aspects of this intellectual inheritance in hitherto unacknowledged ways, while calling into question some of its cherished assumptions about the character of collective political entities. As Machiavelli's thinking unfolds across The Prince and the Discourses, Stacey illustrates how a strikingly novel conception of the body politic marks him out as the author of a distinctively new philosophy of the state.

Read more here: DOI 10.1017/9781009630351.

SEMINAR: Cécile VIDAL, "L’argument du suicide dans le débat sur l’abolition de la traite et de l’esclavage en Grande-Bretagne et en France au XVIIIe siècle" (Paris: Sorbonne Université, 15 MAY 2026)

  

(image source: Sorbonne Université)

Cécile Vidal will intervene in the seminar hosted by the "Pôle Europe des Lumières" at Sorbonne Université on Wednesday 27 May at 17:30.

Title:

L’argument du suicide dans le débat sur l’abolition de la traite et de l’esclavage en Grande-Bretagne et en France au XVIIIe siècle.

More information here.

ADVANCE ARTICLE: Benjamin STRAUMANN, "From Individual virtue to the just state: Cicero and the legal nature of Roman political thought" (The Journal of Roman Studies) [OPEN ACCESS]

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

Scholarship on Roman political thought and its legacy, especially anglophone, has rapidly expanded over the last decade. The main drivers of this renewed attention to Roman political ideas and institutions are an historical interest in the collapse of the Roman republic; a philosophical interest in republicanism; and a growing sensitivity to the originality of Roman thinkers, especially Cicero, in contrast to the older view that they were simply derivative of the Greeks. In this essay I will discuss recent publications on Cicero and Roman political ideas. After offering an overview of key themes in this new scholarship, I seek to suggest promising directions for future research and encourage the growing interest in Roman political thought and Cicero in particular. Cicero provides a fascinating link between ideas, institutions and action on the ground and he is therefore with good reason at the centre of much of the rapidly expanding literature on Roman political thought. In addition, given his interest in developing a theory of justice as the foundation of the state (res publica), a focus on Cicero will help explore the legacy of republicanism from the angle of his ideas about justice while paying attention to scholarship placing these ideas into their historical and institutional context.

Read more here: DOI  10.1017/S0075435825100634.

CLH ARTICLE: Mohammad FADEL, Doctrinal change in Mālikī law: the case of judicial divorce on account of harm (Ḍarar) (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 190-221)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Abstract:

This article explores doctrinal change in Mālikī law. Using the example of the distinctly Mālikī doctrine of a wife’s right to judicial divorce based on harm (ḍarar), it explores how this rule became the basic position of the school by no later than the eighth/fourteenth century, when Khalīl b Isḥāq included it in his authoritative Restatement of Mālikī law. The earliest sources of Mālikī law from the second/eighth century used the law of battery and principles of property law to protect a wife who suffered harm at the hands of her husband but did not provide her a right of divorce. Mālik, idiosyncratically, deemed the decision of the Quranic-mandated marital arbitrators to be binding. The combination of Mālikī commitments to a wife’s property rights, her right to bodily integrity and the broad powers they assigned to judges, beginning with marital arbitrators, along with the widespread inclusion in marriage contracts of covenants of good treatment that granted wives the right to divorce themselves if their husbands abused them, eventually led to the recognition of judicial divorce based on harm.

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.2025.2579343

PODCAST: Scott Andrew KEEFER, "Building the Palace of Peace: The Hague Conference of 1907 and Arms Control before the World War" [Voices of JHIL]

 

Abstract:

In Episode 9 of the Voices of JHIL podcast, we once again turn to history to discuss timely and pressing questions. This time, Scott Andrew Keefer joins us to discuss his article “Building the Palace of Peace: The Hague Conference of 1907 and Arms Control before the World War,” published in JHIL 9(1) (2007), 35–81, which explores the international legal dynamics of the naval arms race of the early 20th century. From a comparative historical analysis of the multilateral failure of the 1907 Hague Conference and the bilateral success of the 1902 Argentine-Chilean Naval Armament Treaty, we move on to broader questions regarding international law’s capacity to respond to global security issues.

On the speaker:

Dr. Scott Andrew Keefer, Senior Lecturer in History at Bournemouth University. 

More information here. 

BOOK: Sandrine BAUME & David RAGAZZONI (eds.), Hans Kelsen on Constitutional Democracy Genesis, Theory, Legacies (Cambridge: CUP, 2026), ISBN 9781009230360 [OPEN ACCESS]

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

This volume challenges conventional interpretations by demonstrating that Hans Kelsen was far from being a purely formalist thinker. Instead, it highlights his profound and enduring engagement with the threats facing constitutional democracies. The political and institutional upheavals of interwar Europe significantly influenced Kelsen's evolving vision of democracy, as this volume shows. His contributions to twentieth-century democratic theory include groundbreaking insights into multiparty systems, mechanisms of moderation, minority protections, and judicial review. Furthermore, Kelsen's reflections on the crises and collapses of democracies during the 1930s remain strikingly relevant, offering valuable perspectives on contemporary challenges such as polarisation and populism. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Read the full book here: DOI 10.1017/9781009230360.

BOOK: Laury SARTI, Mediterranean Connections: The Frankish Kingdoms and the Roman Empire (476–756) [The Medieval Mediterranean, 145, eds. Frances ANDREWS, Paul MAGDALINO, Jo Van STEENBERGEN, Larry SIMON, Daniel Lord SMAIL, Corisande FENWICK & Maria G. PARANI] (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2026), 240 p., ISBN: 978-90-04-74607-7, € 153.7

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

This monograph challenges the idea that Roman imperial authority in the West ended in 476. It shows how the Frankish realm maintained ties to the empire, with real separation only emerging in the late sixth century. Tracing enduring Frankish-Byzantine diplomacy, shared identities, religious controversy, and trade into the seventh century, it reveals a landscape of continued exchange rather than abrupt decline. Including previously overlooked sources, the study offers a new perspective on Frankish identity, imperial affiliation, and the evolving relationship between Rome, the empire, and the Merovingians from the fifth to the eighth century.

On the author:

Laury Sarti, Ph.D. (2012), University of Hamburg, is Heisenberg Fellow at Heidelberg University.

Table of contents:

1. Introduction

     1.1 Outline and Questions

     1.2 Prior Research

     1.3 Approach and Methods

2. The Empire's Western Territories

     2.1 Odoacer and Theodoric

     2.2 One Empire

     2.3 476 in Retrospective

     2.4 The Empire and the West

     2.5 Results

3. Kings of the Empire

     3.1 Clovis and Theudebert I

     3.2 Romans and Franks in Gaul

     3.3 The Empire's Kingdom

     3.4 Franko-Byzantine Exchanges

     3.5 Factors of Alienation

     3.6 Results

4. Christian Community 

     4.1 The Pope between East and West

     4.2 The Tree Chapters Controversy 

     4.3 The Monothelite Controversy

     4.4 Results

5. Mediterranean Connectivity

     5.1 Diplomatic Exchange in a 'Dark Age'

     5.2 Pilgrimages to the East

     5.3 Travel Routes and Trade

     5.4 Language and Knowledge Exchange

     5.5 Results

6. Conclusions

Find more on Brill.

BOOK: Bianca PREMO, La Ilustración a juicio. Litigantes y colonialismo en el imperio español [Historia del Derecho en América Latina, 1ª Edición] (México: Tirant lo Blanch, 2026), 514 p., ISBN 9788491198727

(image source: Tirant)

Abstract:

Este libro examina cómo las ideas ilustradas se pusieron a prueba en el mundo cotidiano de la justicia iberoamericana entre las personas esclavizadas e indígenas, y entre las mujeres del siglo XVIII. Se centra en los tribunales civiles, tanto en América como en España, como espacios clave de debate sobre los derechos naturales, la expansión de la esfera secular, el historicismo y la libertad.  El libro enseña cómo leer el archivo judicial para sacar a la luz las ideas de personas no letradas, y redibuja la geografía de la modernidad para replantear el origen de nociones habitualmente atribuidas a Europa del Norte.  Al entablar un diálogo con la historia del derecho, la historia intelectual y la historia social, subraya cómo la práctica legal transformó filosofías abstractas en herramientas prácticas. En conjunto, ofrece una reinterpretación poderosa de la Ilustración como un fenómeno forjado en el derecho colonial.

On the author:

Bianca Premo es Profesora Distinguida Universitaria de Historia en la Florida International University, en Miami, Estados Unidos.

Table of contents:

Introducción ¿Por qué es Ilustración?       

Ilustración sin el siglo XVIII        

Escritura, historia y escritura de la historia del Imperio español       

La república de los iletrados        

Una definición        

Verificable y refutable: Un panorama del libro       

Método comparativo        

Regiones       

Periodo de tiempo        

Casos y litigantes         

PARTE I: LIMONES Y LIMONADA: DEMANDAR EN EL IMPERIO ESPAÑOL

1. Agentes y poderes. Litigantes y escritores en los tribunales        

Poderes: Papel y protocolo        

Agentes: autoría y opciones de los litigantes        

“Dios no paga”        

Conclusión         

2. Derecho y Ley: Ilustración jurídica en la filosofía y las políticas      

El árbol de limones: Ilustración jurídica ecléctica        

Limones: Derecho moderno temprano en el Imperio español        

El árbol: Pensamiento jurídico de la ilustración        

Jurisprudencia colonial        

Bravo de Lagunas y la jurisdicción secular        

Bravo de Lagunas y la esclavitud        

Leyes sobre leyes        

“Desembarazados y libres”: Leyes sobre eficiencia judicial        

Jueces de bronce        

El crecimiento de la jurisdicción secular   

Agentes y poderes revisados        

Conclusión         

3. Números y valores: Conteo de casos en el imperio español        

Números        

Conteo de casos        

Conteo de causas        

Valores        

La cultura orientada a la justicia de los Montes de Toledo        

Umbrales y puertas: Las demandas de los subordinados coloniales 

Conclusión        

PARTE II: LUCES A PARTIR DE LITIGANTES 

4. Pleitos y demandas. Conflictos conyugales en tribunales civiles    

Justicia        

Derechos        

Una breve historia sobre los alimentos     

Secularización e individualidad: Jurisdicción y disputas maritales      

Derechos naturales y otras fuentes de derecho        

Los casos civiles de las mujeres como Ilustración        

Conclusión         

5. Ayer y hoy. Estatus y costumbres indígenas        

Ayer            

Armonía y justicia        

La lengua de la ley: Disputas legales en lengua zapoteca        

Hoy                

El mérito o la nueva ciencia del estatus    

Costumbre hoy        

Casos civiles indígenas como Ilustración   

Conclusión         

6. Ser y devenir: Libertad y demandas de esclavos        

El comienzo de la libertad: Periodización e historiografía        

Fines de las demandas por esclavitud       

Jurisprudencia        

Los esclavos en los tribunales eclesiásticos y civiles        

Del amparo a los papeles        

Autoconservación y sevicia        

La personalidad jurídica de los esclavos   

“La libertad que requieran los juicios”       

La etapa de libertad         

Conclusión: Los litigios de esclavos como Ilustración        

Conclusión. ¿Por qué no Ilustración?

Find more on: Tirant.