JOURNAL: Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international XXVIII (2026), nr. 1 (May)

 

(image source: Brill)

Localising Civil Wars International Law, the Spanish Civil War, and the Institutionalisation of ‘Non-Intervention’ (Rémi Fuhrmann)
DOI 10.1163/15718050-12340234
Abstract:

The non-intervention policy adopted by European Powers during the Spanish Civil War is often relegated as a matter of realpolitik in which international law, if relevant at all, was only disregarded. This article posits that the non-intervention agreement (NIA) and its institutionalisation were an attempt to redefine the relationship between international law and civil war. However, the so-called non-intervention system and its underlying discourse of localisation, developed in the context of the Spanish civil war, were as much a legal innovation as they were a reactionary project subordinated to the interests and will of the powerful states. Through an ostensibly neutral international legal language which put the insurgents and the established government on the same a-legal footing in order to ‘localise’ the Spanish civil war, the discourse of localisation eventually failed in providing European powers a legal and technical escape out of the politics on the interwar period. Far from illustrating any inherent deficiency of the work of legal creativity in the context of collective security mechanisms, the exploration of the NIA rather points towards the banal and continuous problem of the monopolisation by a few states of the ability and authority to imagine and implement legal innovation.

On Creating a Space Power The United States, International Law, and the Shaping of Outer Space in the 1950s and 1960s (Eleni Ilia)
DOI: 10.1163/15718050-12340233
Abstract:

This article critically examines the early development of space law during the formative 1950s and 1960s, revealing how legal, diplomatic, and political forces converged to shape both the international governance of outer space and the emergence of the United States as the dominant space power. Moving beyond conventional narratives that celebrate space law as a triumph of multilateral cooperation, the article argues that early space law functioned as a strategic ‘world-making’ tool that constructed myths, narratives, and imaginaries that framed outer space not merely as a new physical domain but as a geopolitical canvas embodying Cold War power dynamics. Central to this process was the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), alongside key US lawyer-diplomats, who crafted legal principles that advanced American diplomatic and strategic interests while shaping global perceptions of space as the final frontier. By analysing archival records, diplomatic exchanges, and legal texts, the article reveals how competing worldviews and interests influenced early space law’s content and institutional design. It highlights the interplay between bilateral negotiations among superpowers and multilateral deliberations, exposing how unresolved legal questions were strategically postponed or reframed to maintain US influence. Ultimately, the article contends that space law’s origins were neither neutral nor inevitable but were actively produced by powerful actors weaving ideological projects into the fabric of international law. This legacy continues to inform contemporary debates on space governance, underscoring the enduring significance of early Cold War legal and political imaginaries.

The Beginnings of International Nature Conservation Law with the Svalbard (Spitsbergen) Treaty of 1920 A Transnational Initiative of European Natural and Legal Scientists (Julian Lubini)
DOI: 10.1163/15718050-bja10143
Abstract:

This article describes the genesis of Article 2 of the Svalbard Treaty of 1920. This convention, which came into force 100 years ago on 14 August 1925, not only subjects this Arctic Archipelago to the sovereignty of Norway, but also contains an agreement on nature conservation that, for the first time, is truly international, multilateral and global in protecting nature for its own sake. This article examines this special aspect of the history of international law using contemporary literature and archival sources. Particular attention is paid to previous initiatives by experts from various disciplines and national origins to protect Arctic nature. The project can be seen as a milestone in international nature conservation law, which was originally driven by efforts in Germany and Sweden in particular and was then enforced by Norway and the United States after the First World War. It is also regarded as paradigmatic for the formation of new international regimes, a feature that came to typify modern international law in its capacity to regulate specific interests and challenges.

Book reviews

•  Relations internationales et droit(s). Acteurs, institutions et législations comparées (1815–1914), edited by Raphaël Cahen, Sara L. Kimble, Pierre Allorant, Walter Badier and P. Sean Morris (Eliana Augusti)
• The Holy Alliance. Liberalism and the Politics of Federation, written by Isaac Nakhimovsky (Raphaël Cahen)

Read more with Brill.

REMINDER: Call for Nomination 2025 ESIL IG History of International Law Article Prize (ESIL Interest Group History of International Law) [DEADLINE 30 JUN 2026]

 

(image source: ESIL IGHIL)

The ESIL IG History of International Law invites nominations of an article with major impact on international legal history, published in 2023–2025 (English/French only).

Key rules:

• Nominated articles must focus on history and international law.
• No self-nominations.
• One nomination per person only.
• Submit via institutional email to esil.ighilprize@gmail.com with subject:

                    [FirstName_SURNAME_Paper title], + PDF of nominated article attached.

More details, including in French, about the prize can be found in our previous announcements.

Conveners

Anastasia Hammerschmied – Florenz Volkaert – Sze Hong Lam – Monica Garcia-Salmones

(source: ESIL IGHL)

BOOK: Nicolas RUIZ, Mariage et patrimoine dans la Lorraine du XVIIIe siècle [Histoire des temps modernes, ed. Lucien BÉLY, 13] (Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2026), 547 p. ISBN 9782406199700, €49

(image source: Classiques Garnier)

Prix Favard de Langlade 2022 de l’IIHN (Institut supérieur de l’histoire du notariat) et Prix de thèse établissement 2022 de l’université de Lorraine

Abstract:

Alors que l’ancien droit lorrain donnait au mari des pouvoirs menaçant sérieusement les droits de la femme, les actes du XVIIIe siècle mettent en évidence que les couples étaient soucieux du sort du survivant et que ceux qui passaient un contrat de mariage souhaitaient protéger les enfants du premier lit.

 Read more here: DOI 10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-19972-4.

 

VACANCY: Three PhD Positions in Legal History and Early Modern International Law (Brussels: Vrije Universiteit Brussel - VUB, DEADLINE: 8 JULY 2026)

(image source: VUB)

The European Research Council (ERC) Consolidator Grant project TREATYLAB – “The Labyrinth of Treaties: International Law Behind the Scenes of Early Enlightenment Diplomacy, 1712–1763” at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) is currently recruiting three fully funded full-time PhD researchers in the fields of legal history, diplomatic history, and early modern international law.

Hosted at the Faculty of Law and Criminology (Department Metajuridica), the project investigates the intellectual and practical foundations of eighteenth-century diplomacy through a substantial corpus of handwritten memoranda preserved at the Archives diplomatiques of the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in La Courneuve (France).

Each doctoral position combines:
• archival and doctrinal research
• participation in a large-scale digitisation project
• preparation of a doctoral dissertation (monograph)
• publication in peer-reviewed journals
• active collaboration within an international ERC research team

The research team consists of the Principal Investigator, a postdoctoral researcher, and three PhD researchers.

Available PhD projects:

(1) PhD1 – “They Called it Peace? The Use of Force and the Cycle of Truces, 1712–1763”
Focus: ius ad bellum, use of force, diplomatic legal argumentation.
PhD1 vacancy announcement 

(2) PhD2 – “The Latin and Atlantic Bond? Bourbon Law of Nations in Europe and America, 1712–1763”
Focus: Franco-Spanish relations, Bourbon diplomacy, law of nations, empire and trade.
PhD2 vacancy announcement 

(3) PhD3 – “Doctrine and Practice: Early Enlightenment Doctrine and Practical Legal Writing, 1712–1763”
Focus: the role of legal doctrine (Roman law, law of nations, public law, private law, etc.) in diplomatic practice.
PhD3 vacancy announcement

Eligibility:
Applicants should hold a Master’s degree in Law or History.

Conditions and benefits include:
• full-time doctoral scholarship (initial 12 months, extendable up to 48 months upon positive evaluation)
• expected starting date: 1 October 2026
• extensive home-working possibilities
• generous leave arrangements
• reimbursement of public transport commuting costs
• research training opportunities and an international academic environment

Application deadline: 8 July 2026

Applications should be submitted via the VUB academic vacancies website and must include:
• CV
• motivation letter
• diploma (not applicable for VUB alumni)

The selection procedure consists of: (1) an initial selection based on the application file; and (2) job interview

Further information on the project is available at: TREATYLAB project website & VUB academic vacancies website

SUMMER SCHOOL: Régulations économiques et économies informelles aux époques médiévale et moderne [14e école d'été d'histoire économique] (Susa, 25-27 AUG 2026) [DEADLINE 25 MAY 2026]

 

(image source: CTHDIP)

Abstract:

La 14e école d’été d’histoire économique qui se réunira à Suse (Piémont, Italie) les 25, 26 et 27 août 2026 aura pour thème « Régulations économiques et économies informelles aux époques médiévale et moderne ». Cette thématique permettra de poursuivre et d’approfondir celles qui ont été développées les années précédentes (la valeur des choses, la pauvreté, les biens communs, les moyens de paiement, la qualité, l’organisation du travail, les écritures de l’économie, entreprendre, la circulation des savoirs, le risque, les espaces du commerce, les économies de la nature, la guerre). La 14e école d’été d’histoire économique se propose d’aborder le thème fondamental de la régulation qui englobe pour les économistes l’ensemble des règles explicites ou implicites qui organisent et encadrent la production, l’échange et la consommation. La notion englobe ainsi la question de la fixation et de la formation des prix, les contrôles de qualité et de quantité ainsi que la mesure de la valeur. C’est par conséquent une notion qui englobe l’ensemble de la sphère économique. Son existence entraîne, par antithèse, l’existence d’une sphère informelle, qui échappe ou tente d’échapper à toute forme d’organisation ou de contrôle. Bien que la notion soit utilisée essentiellement par les économistes, elle s’applique également les époques médiévale et moderne.

Objectives and nature:

La nature du thème implique, outre la mobilisation d’historiens médiévistes et modernistes, la présence d’économistes et de juristes. De même, dans le cadre de notre partenariat avec les Archives Nationales, la participation d’un ou deux conservateurs rappelle la richesse des fonds des AN en lien avec la thématique de l’année. La méthode proposée est de faire présenter une série d’exposés par des spécialistes et de les mettre en débat. Elle permet également de faire dialoguer médiévistes et modernistes et comparer l’avancée de leurs réflexions sur un thème donné, voire d’infléchir les doctrines. Le but poursuivi est d’approfondir nos connaissances et nos réflexions tout en permettant à des doctorants ou à des postdoctorants de s’associer aux travaux par une participation active. La partition des doctorants et postdoctorants prendra la forme d’exposés et de prises de paroles dans le débat suivant les interventions.

Thematic description:

En économie, la régulation englobe l’ensemble des règles explicites ou implicites qui organisent et encadrent la production, l’échange et la consommation. La notion englobe ainsi la question de la fixation et de la formation des prix, les contrôles de qualité et de quantité ainsi que la mesure de la valeur. C’est par conséquent une notion qui englobe l’ensemble de la sphère économique. Son existence entraîne, par antithèse, l’existence d’une sphère informelle, qui échappe ou tente d’échapper à toute forme d’organisation ou de contrôle. Bien que la notion soit utilisée essentiellement par les économistes, elle s’applique également les époques médiévale et moderne. Par exemple, les tentatives carolingiennes de fixation des prix sont passées par une profonde réforme monétaire, par une redéfinition de la métrologie et par des formes d’encadrement des pratiques commerciales. Le second Moyen Âge a vu le développement des organisations de métiers qui, encadrant la production et définissant les qualités, ont caractérisé la vie économique jusqu’à la Révolution française avec la définition et l’octroi de privilèges. Le champ d’application de la notion concerne évidemment aussi la sphère fiscale, des catégories sociales et des produits particuliers étant taxés de façon spécifique ou, au contraire, exemptés. La noblesse et le clergé ne paient que peu ou pas d’impôts. Des produits comme le sel sont en revanche lourdement grevés. D’une façon qui n’est pas étonnante, ces ensembles de règlements, de normes et d’avantages qui veulent créer de l’ordre dans le domaine économique suscitent des pratiques déviantes concernant les modalités de l’échange (fraudes sur les prix, utilisation de mauvaises voire de fausses monnaies, mesures non approuvées par des autorités seigneuriales ou communales) ou de la production (fraudes sur la qualité des produits, sur les modalités de la fabrication dans le cas du textile). Les exemples abondent et l’existence de fraudes est avérée ; elles posent la question de l’efficacité des contrôles professionnels, étatiques ou seigneuriaux. La question de l’introduction des innovations dans le cadre d’économies fortement régulées et contrôlées comme celles des époques médiévale et moderne est aussi d’une importance extrême. Question d’histoire économique, la régulation économique et son corollaire l’économie informelle permettent de poser la question des cadres juridiques et moraux du développement de l’Occident latin du haut Moyen Âge à l’époque moderne en étudiant par exemple la définition de la propriété, les relations contractuelles, et le développement des juridictions civiles et commerciales. L’école d’été permettra de faire le point sur les recherches menées dans ces directions par les générations actuelles de chercheurs et de doctorants. Elle permettra de faire le point sur les questions liées à l’organisation des métiers ainsi qu’à celles liées aux échanges qu’ils soient commerciaux, dans le cadre de marchés institués, ou non commerciaux dans celui d’économies qui restent largement dominées par l’autoconsommation et la production familiale. Par ailleurs, elle permettra aussi de s’informer sur les recherches en cours sur le poids des banalités dans le cadre de l’économie seigneuriale et sur les normes sociales encadrant les pratiques de production et d’échanges. L’apport des doctorants et des post doctorants sera ici essentiel dans le partage de l’information sur les renouvellements en cours.

 Sessions:

1. L’historiographie médiévale et moderne
2. Le point de vue des économistes et des juristes
3. Régulation et encadrement des marchés
4. Régulation de l’innovation
5. Règlement des contentieux
6. Contournements : l’illicite et l’informel
7. Espace et territoire : encadrer et contrôler
ainsi que trois sessions de doctorants et post-doctorants.

Procedure:

Des places sont disponibles pour les jeunes chercheurs – doctorants ou post-doctorants – en histoire économique médiévale ou moderne, en économie, sociologie, géographie ou archéologie. Les langues de travail étant l’anglais et le français, les candidats devront avoir une connaissance minimale des deux langues (l’expression orale se fera dans la langue de son choix). Il sera demandé aux candidats une communication orale de 20 minutes en rapport avec le sujet des journées. Cette communication se fera à partir de la présentation d’un fonds d’archives ou d’une source d’histoire économique qui a été au cœur de leur recherche. L’organisation prendra en charge l’intégralité des frais de séjour lors des journées. Les frais de déplacement (aller-retour) seront remboursés jusqu’à 200 euros. Le nombre des places étant limité, les candidatures seront examinées et sélectionnées par le comité scientifique de la manifestation. Le dossier (en anglais ou en français) comprendra : – Un curriculum vitae détaillé – Une présentation (2 pages minimum) du sujet de doctorat, des sources utilisées et de la communication orale envisagée. Les dossiers de candidature sont à envoyer avant le 25 mai 2026 (réponse le 1 juin) à Emmanuel Huertas (Univ. Toulouse Jean-Jaurès) : emmanuel.huertas@univ-tlse2.fr

Scientific committee:

Anne-Laure Alard-Bonhoure | Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, LAMOP Michela Barbot | CNRS/ENS Paris-Saclay, IDHE.S Patrice Baubeau | Université Paris Nanterre, IDHE.S Marc Bompaire | École pratique des Hautes Études, SAPRAT Julie Claustre | Université Paris-Cité, Echelles Anne Conchon  | Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, IDHE.S Laurent Feller | Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, LAMOP Alessio Fiore | Université de Turin Florent Garnier | Univ. Toulouse Capitole, CTHDIP Agnès Gramain | Université de Lorraine, BETA Jérôme Hayez | CNRS, LAMOP Emmanuel Huertas | Université Toulouse Jean Jaurès, FRAMESPA Jean-François Moufflet | Archives Nationales Cédric Quertier | CNRS, EFR

Associated research centres:

LAMOP (UMR 8589, Paris 1, CNRS) FRAMESPA (UMR 5136, Toulouse Jean-Jaurès, CNRS) IDHE.S (UMR 8533, Paris 1, Paris Nanterre, ENS Paris-Saclay, CNRS) ECHELLES (UMR 8264, Paris Cité, CNRS) BETA (UMR 7522, Strasbourg, Lorraine, INRAE, CNRS) CTHDIP (EA 789, Univ. Toulouse Capitole) École française de Rome (EfR). La manifestation se déroule sous le patronage de l’Association Française d’Histoire économique (AFHé).

Associated institutions:

Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Université de Toulouse Jean-Jaurès Université de Turin Université Paris Cité Université Toulouse Capitole Archives Nationales IUF CNRS

More information here. 

 

CONFERENCE: Faire référence: penser le droit au prisme de l'autorité [XVIIIe Congrès de l'Association Internationale de Méthodologie Juridique] (Liège: Université de Liège, 25-26 JUN 2026)

 

(image source: ULiège)

Description:

Le XVIIIᵉ Congrès de l’Association internationale de méthodologie juridique (AIMJ) se tiendra à Liège les 25 et 26 juin 2026 et sera consacré au thème : « Faire référence : Penser le droit au prisme de l’autorité ». Le congrès examinera la manière dont l’autorité structure le droit, ses institutions, ses discours et ses pratiques. L’autorité y est entendue comme un pouvoir légitime, reconnu par une communauté, et distinct de toute forme d’autoritarisme. Cette notion, pourtant centrale au fonctionnement du droit, reste étonnamment peu explorée par la théorie juridique.

Axes:

(1)Comment le droit institue des autorités ? Cet axe interroge la manière dont les concepts juridiques (propriété, famille, contrat, autorité parentale, lien de subordination, etc.) structurent des rapports de domination légitimés par le discours juridique. Il s’intéresse aussi à l’émergence des autorités administratives indépendantes, à leur légitimité fondée sur l’expertise, et aux effets de la soft law sur la production normative. Les contributions sont invitées à examiner ces institutions, leur histoire, leurs fondements et les critiques adressent différentes écoles de pensée.

(2) Comment le droit s’appuie-t-il sur l’autorité ? Le second axe analyse le fonctionnement interne du droit : sa structure hiérarchique, ses mécanismes de référence, la normativité des décisions juridictionnelles, la valeur des motifs jurisprudentiels ou encore le dialogue des juges. Il explore aussi les transformations contemporaines — modes alternatifs de règlement des différends, contractualisation, négociation — qui tendent à horizontaliser les rapports entre la justice et le justiciable. 

(3) Comment se construit l’autorité des auteurs et de la doctrine ? Cet axe examine la place de la doctrine et son pouvoir de structuration du droit. Il s’intéresse aux mécanismes sociaux qui produisent l’autorité épistémique de certains auteurs, aux dynamiques de consécration, aux hiérarchies internes du champ doctrinal et aux tensions entre neutralité affichée et engagement des chercheurs. Il interroge ce qui fait qu’une opinion doctrinale devient « autorisée ».

More details here. 

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Alan Rodger Postgraduate Visiting Researcher (Glasgow: University of Glasgow, DEADLINE 26 JUN 2026)

(image source: wikimedia Commons)

Abstract:

The Alan Rodger Endowment at the University of Glasgow invites applications for the post of Alan Rodger Postgraduate Visiting Researcher, tenable for one semester at the University of Glasgow School of Law, during the 2026/27 academic year. The successful applicant will reside in Glasgow for the duration of the post, and will receive full access to the physical and electronic resources of the University’s libraries, as well as a stipend of £2,000. The successful applicant will be encouraged to speak to students and at research seminars. The successful applicant will be working towards a Ph.D. (or equivalent research doctorate) in Roman law or legal history, and will not have earned a Ph.D. (or equivalent research doctorate), nor attained a permanent academic appointment, by the time he or she takes up residence in Glasgow. Within the broad fields of Roman law or legal history, any subject is acceptable, but please be aware that the successful applicant is expected to conduct research in areas where the resources of the University of Glasgow may profitably serve. Good facility with spoken English is desirable but not required. Candidates from the University of Glasgow are not eligible.

Procedure:

Full information on the post is available from the flyer at the link to the right. Briefly, an application includes: – a cover letter; – a curriculum vitae; and – a piece of written work (5,000 – 10,000 words). The cover letter should give (1) the applicant’s name, postal address, and email address; (2) the expected date of completion of the doctorate; (3) a description of the applicant’s area of research (ca. 500–1,000 words); and (4) the names, and contact details, of two persons who are willing to serve as referees. Applicants should not submit references themselves, nor ask their referees to supply them. Applications will be reviewed by an academic panel. 

Materials are submitted electronically to Prof E. Metzger at ernest.metzger@glasgow.ac.uk, with the subject line ‘Alan Rodger PVR’. The deadline is 26 June 2026.

(source: Glasgow University) 

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Postdoc 2026-2027 (Paris: Alliance Sorbonne Université/Initiative Europe, DEADLINE 14 MAY 2026)

 

(image source: Sorbonne Université)

Abstract:

Ce projet devra s’inscrire dans l’un des Pôles et des axes de l’Initiative Europe : https://initiative-europe.sorbonne-universite.fr/poles-et-axe-de-recherche L’Initiative Europe vise à encourager les collaborations intellectuelles entre différents collègues de l’Alliance Sorbonne Université. Dès lors, les projets devront s’inscrire dans une forme d’interdisciplinarité. Le candidat ou la candidate devra avoir préalablement pris contact avec une ou un directeur de recherche intégré à l’Initiative Europe, qui doit donner son accord écrit afin d’être référent(e) pendant la durée du projet. Le/la post-doctorant(e) recruté(e) devra s’insérer dans les activités collectives de l’Initiative Europe.

 Les tâches suivantes pourront lui être demandées :

Organiser un séminaire annuel de l’Initiative Europe
Collaborer avec des équipes de recherche de différentes disciplines
Publier les résultats de sa recherche dans des revues académiques et les présenter lors de conférences internationales
Contribuer à la création et au dépôt d’un projet de recherche (ANR, ERC, Horizons, COST).
Coordonner la diffusion des travaux avec l’Initiative Europe, en particulier avec les Presses de Sorbonne Université
Participer aux différents événements de valorisation du travail post-doctoral : Fête de la science, journée de formation doctorale, écoles thématiques, etc.
Rédiger un rapport détaillé des résultats à la fin du contrat.

 Calendar:

Entre le 26 mars et le 14 mai 2026 : dépôt des projets de post-doctorat par les candidat(e)s. Phase 1, entre le 3 et le 15 mai : examen des dossiers par le Directoire de l’Initiative. Phase 2, le 26 mai : sélection des candidats jugés admissibles après audition. Début du contrat au 1er septembre 2026.

Mandatory files:

 CV détaillé du candidat. Projet de recherche s’insérant dans les axes et priorités de l’Initiative de 4 à 5 pages, bibliographie comprise, comprenant des propositions précises pour l’animation de la recherche au sein de l’Initiative. Lettre de soutien d’une directrice ou d’un directeur de recherche au sein de l’Initiative Europe.

Procedure:

Les projets post-doctoraux sont à envoyer directement par les doctorant(e)s ou docteurs depuis moins de 3 ans à l’adresse suivante : initiative-europe@sorbonne-universite.fr, en mettant en copie : celine.spector@sorbonne-universite.fr et laurent.warlouzet@sorbonne-universite.fr

Read more here. 

 

 

BOOK: Samuel MOYN & Meredith TERRETTA (eds.), The Cambridge History of Rights, vol. V: The Twentieth and Twenty-First Centuries [The Cambridge History of Rights, eds. Nehal BHUTA, Anthony PAGDEN & Mira L. SIEGELBERG] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026), €140,05

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

The concept of a right, and the idea of human rights, were familiar abstractions on the brink of the twentieth century. But the history of political mobilization since shows that human rights had a transformative capacity in that century that no prior age had demonstrated. Through the twentieth century, human rights became institutionalized internationally in laws, movements, and organizations that transcended state-based citizenship and governance – which irrevocably changed the politics around them. Rights continued to evolve as the imperial world order transitioned to a postcolonial world of sovereign states as a primary form of political organization. Through twenty-six essays from experts around the world demonstrating how this period is historically distinctive, volume five of The Cambridge History of Rights is a comprehensive and authoritative reference for the history of rights in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Table of contents:

General editor introduction Nehal Bhuta, Anthony Pagden and Mira L. Siegelberg Introduction Samuel Moyn and Meredith Terretta 1. Genealogies and human rights Ben Golder Part I. Rights, Politics and Mobilization Around the World: 2. Women's rights in international politics, 1900 –1967 Jean Quataert deceased 3. Rights and empire Miguel Bandeira Jerónimo and José Pedro Monteiro 4. Human rights and self-determination Umut Özsu 5. Rights and communism Ned Richardson-Little 6. Regional rights projects and decolonization in the twentieth century Anne-Isabelle Richard and Stella Krepp 7. Hierarchies of rights Barbara Keys 8. Human rights and cold war foreign policy Michael Cotey Morgan Part II. Forms and Fora of Rights Claiming: 9. Visions of human rights Adam Etinson and Jiewuh Song 10. On the critique of rights Jessica Whyte 11. Race, rights and the politics of petitioning Emma Stone Mackinnon 12. Transnational NGOs and human rights Jan Eckel 13. The 1993 world conference on human rights and the new rights ecosystem 14. Transitional justice, legal non-performatives and the sentiments of moving on Kamari Maxine Clarke Part III. Rights Causes and Their Evolution: 15. Rights without subjects: a history of children's human rights Linde Lindkvist 16. Development as the imperialism of 'free' trade: rights, liberalism and the engineering of African economies Alden Young and Tinashe Nyamunda 17. Economic and social human rights in the twentieth century Steven Jensen 18. Christianity, religious rights and decolonization Justin Reynolds 19. (Trans)gender identity and international human rights law Sandra Duffy 20. Resistance and insistence: making postcolonial indigenous rights Miranda Johnson 21. Health Sara Silverstein 22. Human rights and warfare Boyd van Dijk 23. The rights of artificial intelligence Jim Davies 24. Rights and environmental change Kerri Woods 25. Memorialisation, commemoration, and rights Bonny Ibhawoh 26. Empires of real estate: neoliberal legality and the right to housing Brenna Bhandar.

Read more here: DOI 10.1017/9781108938839.

SEMINAR: Illuminismo giuridico–Lumières Juridiques [Convegno di studi italo-francese] (Bergamo: Università degli studi di Bergamo, 7–9 MAY 2026)

(image source: Università degli studi di Bergamo)

More information is available on UNIBG website

BOOK: Mark PETERSON, The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution: A Thousand-Year History (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2026), 408 p. ISBN 9780691180014, 25 GBP

 

(image source: Princeton)

Abstract:

The American Revolution occurred at a time when Britain’s constitutional order failed to adapt to the extraordinary growth of its colonies. The framers designed an American constitution to succeed where Britain’s had faltered, planning for continuous population and territorial expansion that would eventually cross the continent. Yet by the end of the nineteenth century, it was already ill-suited for an increasingly urban, industrialized society, and the transformations of the twentieth century have pushed it to a breaking point. This book charts the history and aims of the American constitution from its origins in an agrarian past to the grave crisis we face today. Mark Peterson traces the American constitutional tradition to the control of land in medieval England, showing how the founders incorporated the aspirations of Magna Carta with the administrative principles of the Domesday Book, a meticulous survey and valuation of landed property commissioned by William the Conqueror. This framework encouraged the growth of democratic self-government in a young nation. It also institutionalized the colonization of territory and the expulsion of Indigenous peoples, establishing a legal blueprint for transforming tribal lands into revenue-yielding real estate for settlers. Peterson’s riveting narrative paints an arresting picture of a dynamic republic whose frame of government has changed enormously to meet the challenges of the modern age but whose written constitution has changed very little. Marking the 250th anniversary of American independence, The Making and Breaking of the American Constitution reveals how this widening disconnect threatens the very existence of our democracy. It calls for a constitution that sustains the ideals developed over the past thousand years while meeting the challenges of the future.

 On the author:

Mark Peterson is the Edmund S. Morgan Professor of History at Yale University. He is the author of The City-State of Boston: The Rise and Fall of an Atlantic Power, 1630–1865 (Princeton) and The Price of Redemption: The Spiritual Economy of Puritan New England.

Read more here. 

PODCAST: Wim DECOCK, "Le marché du mérite: la morale du capitalisme" (France Culture: Entendez-vous l'éco, 6 APR 2026)

 

(image: Illustration du jésuite allemand Athanasius Kircher (1601/1602–1680) datant de 1667. ©Getty; source: France Culture)

Abstract:

Justifier les profits à l'heure où le commerce fait la richesse des nations a constitué, à la fin du XVIème siècle, une petite révolution juridique et théologique. A la tête de ce renversement intellectuel, on trouve le théologien jésuite Leonardus Lessius (1554-1623). S'il n'est pas économiste à proprement parler, la tâche principale de Lessius "en tant que théologien et en tant que prêtre" est finalement d'"accompagner les individus, d'accompagner les âmes. Il va essayer de donner des conseils à des individus par rapport à des transactions, des contrats particuliers", explique Wim Decock. Ainsi, "il va régulièrement faire le lien entre son approbation de certains contrats et le bien-être général de l'économie, le bien commun, l'utilité publique de certaines pratiques individuelles. Donc même s'il ne résonne pas comme un Antoine de Montchrestien ou autres premiers protoéconomistes qui pensent vraiment à développer et accroître la richesse nationale, (..) il va indirectement essayer de penser la prospérité à l'échelle de la société dans son entièreté". Historien du droit, Wim Decock nous emmène au cœur des Pays-Bas, à une époque où marchands, hommes d'affaires et jésuites posent les bases mêmes de notre économie actuelle.

 Listen to the conversation here.

BOOK: Ari Z. BRYEN, The Judgment of the Provinces: The Roman Empire and the Origins of Law and Society [Studies in Legal History, eds. Lisa FORD, Thomas McSWEENEY& Reuel SCHILLER] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026), 450 p., ISBN 978-1-009-73037-2

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

Roman law is justly famous, but what was its relationship to governing an empire? In this book, Ari Z. Bryen argues that law, as the learned practice that we know today, emerged from the challenge of governing a diverse and fractious set of imperial subjects. Through analysis of these subjects' political and legal ideologies, Bryen reveals how law became the central topic of political contest in the Roman Empire. Law offered a means of testing legitimacy and evaluating government, as well as a language for asking fundamental political questions. But these political claims did not go unchallenged. Elites resisted them, and jurists, in collaboration with emperors, reimagined law as a system that excluded the voices of the governed. The result was to separate, for the first time, 'law' from 'society' more broadly, and to define law as a primarily literate and learned practice, rather than the stuff of everyday life.

On the author:

Ari Z. Bryen, Vanderbilt University, Tennessee

Table of contents:

The Rhetoric of Inclusion
     Part 1: Law as Documents
          2. Becoming the Roman Provinces
          3. Arguing from Archives
     Part 2: Law as Dialogue
          4. Criminal Justice and the Challenge of Logos
          5. Law among the Degraded
The Practices of Exclusion
     Part 3: Law as Ecstasy
          6. The Transcendent Body Politic
          7. The Politics of Amazement
     Part 4: Law as Books
          8. Writing about Governance, from Cicero to Ulpian
          9. Radical Bureaucracy 
Epilogue: Why Premodernity?

Find more on CUP.  

BOOK: David SCHNEIDERMAN, A Sociology of International Investment Law. Themes from Max Weber [The History and Theory of International Law, eds. Anthony PAGDEN, Francesca IURLARO, Nehal BHUTA & Benjamin STRAUMANN] (Oxford: OUP, 2026), 240 p. ISBN 9780198982708, 105 GBP [OPEN ACCESS]

 

(image source: OUP)

Abstract:

A Sociology of International Investment Law applies methods associated with the sociologist Max Weber to illuminate aspects of international investment law - a regime made up of thousands of treaties that protect foreign investors from state action diminishing the value of their investments. By applying many of Weber's key themes associated with legal modernity - legitimacy, rationality, domination, bureaucracy, and charisma - the book conscripts tools of analysis that enable the testing of many of investment law's operating assumptions. A Sociology of International Investment Law Law is premised on the belief that theory informs practice and that enlisting aspects of Weber's work illuminates the contemporary practice of, and debates over, international investment law. Utilizing Weber's themes and methods, results in a deeper appreciation of the connections of international investment law has with classical social theory. The book also reveals how the field fails to measure up to many of the analytical challenges that Weber's sociological interventions provoke. This book offers an exploration of the commonalities, differences, and blind spots shared by this relatively new international legal field with one of the most influential theorists of modernity.

On the author:

David Schneiderman is Professor of Law and Political Science (courtesy) at the University of Toronto where he teaches courses on Canadian and US constitutional law, comparative constitutional law, and international investment law. He is a prolific author of articles, book chapters and books, including, Constitutional Review and International Investment Law: Deference or Defiance? 

Read more here.

SEMINAR: Il corpo nel processo penale tra Roma e Ragusa (Padova: Università di Padova, 6 MAY 2026)

(image source: RLW)

Il corpo nel processo penale tra Roma e Ragusa

 Università di Padova: Dipartimento di Diritto privato e Critica del Diritto

Seminario: In presenza (Università di Padova, Palazzo del Bo - Aula Mocenigo)

Mercoledì, 6 maggio 2026, dalle ore 14:30

Relatori: Miriam Padovan (Università degli Studi di Udine), e Mirza Hebib (Università di Sarajevo)

Seminario organizzato nell’ambito dell’insegnamento di Diritto penale romano (prof. Marco Falconi)

BOOK LAUNCH: Bill DAVIES & Morten RASMUSSEN (eds.), The History of European Union Law: Constitutional Practice, 1950 to 1993 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2026) (London: UCL Laws, 24 FEB 2026) [RECORDING]

 

Abstract:

On Tuesday, 24 February 2026, the Global Centre for Democratic Constitutionalism (GCDC), along with the European Institute, organised a panel event to celebrate the launch of The History of European Union Law: Constitutional Practice, 1950 to 1993 (Cambridge University Press), edited by Dr Bill Davies (American University, Washington DC) and Dr Morten Rasmussen (University of Copenhagen). Following introductory remarks by the event chair, Dr Megan Donaldson (UCL Laws, GCDC), Dr Rasmussen provided an overview of the book. He explained that the book – the first of its kind – is grounded in extensive archival research and traces the historical development of EU law, with a focus on constitutional practice. The book’s rich empirical basis enables the identification of key actors and provides insight into the inner workings of EU institutions, allowing the authors to trace the complex and multifaceted processes that contributed to the development of EU law. According to Dr Rasmussen, the picture presented decentres the position of the Court of Justice of the EU (CJEU), as the Court was surrounded by a wide range of institutions and actors – including European and national institutions, lawyers, and academics – all of whom shaped the trajectory of EU law. Dr Rasmussen further described the book as offering a revisionist account that complicates the core narratives of the discipline of EU law. It argues that an uneasy standoff was negotiated between a rejection of European constitutionalism and an acceptance of the legal order developed by the CJEU. This implies that European constitutionalism has not yet become the foundational legitimating principle of the EU. The historical analysis also shows that while constitutional practice has led to a relatively effectual and coherent legal order, it rests on a politically fragile basis.

Panel:

Professor Erin Delaney (UCL Laws, GCDC) then remarked that one of the book’s great strengths is in its methodology, as its extensive and impressive use of archival material advances a thick account of the historical development of European law. She highlighted the value of this historical approach, but wondered whether a wider interdisciplinary lens might further enrich the analysis. Additionally, she contended that the book’s method invites further inquiry as to what the historical account tells us about (i) the range and depth of constitutional practices and their relationship to federalism, and (ii) what constitutes a process of constitutionalisation. Broader questions, she suggested, include whether the EU represents a failed process of federalisation or constitutionalisation, how these two processes interact, and what to expect about an ongoing dialectic of constructed constitutionalism through a document/convention-based process. Professor Piet Eeckhout (UCL Laws, European Institute) commented that the book’s chapters on the role of the CJEU and other institutions were particularly interesting and prompt reflection on the pivotal moments of Van Gend en Loos and Costa – two cases that provided the tools needed to facilitate European integration. Professor Eeckhout suggested that the key point for EU lawyers is the divergence between two paradigms. One group of scholars seeks to frame EU law in constitutional terms, while another views the EU as transcending the nation state (including constitutions) and creating a ‘new legal order’, as reflected in the language used in Van Gend en Loos and Costa. Professor Nicola Countouris (UCL Laws) emphasised the importance of historical research to understand European integration. He found Chapter 9 of the book to be particularly useful to understand the growing Euroscepticism of Scandinavian countries with regard to social integration. In particular, Professor Countouris highlighted the uniqueness of the Scandinavian social democratic model and the role of state administration in preserving this model against some of the challenges posed by EU integration. This was illustrated through two examples from Denmark: the introduction of the AMBI levy and equal pay legislation, with the Danish civil service playing a crucial role in managing and accompanying their implementation. In this light, Professor Countouris suggested that resistance to labour law directives may be rooted just as much in the Scandinavian model that allows bureaucracy to perform certain types of economic tasks as in a deeper ideological adversity towards European integration. Responding to the comments, Dr Rasmussen made some reflections. First, he clarified that the concept of constitutional practice used in the book is not intended to contribute to legal scholarship on constitutional theory. Rather, it is simply a descriptive concept of the practice and opinions of a broad range of actors. Second, on the relationship between federalisation and constitutionalisation, he posited that while the CJEU may have pursued a form of judicial constitutionalism, other actors such as the European Commission and a majority of the European Parliament were seeking to advance a gradual federalisation through the Treaty of Rome, which would lay the groundwork for a federal European union. Finally, he observed that the Danish case exemplified broader trends across Member States, where governments often found ways to adapt or circumvent EU law before 1986. After the Single European Act that launched the Single European Market, Member States had to come to terms with the legal order the CJEU had built.

PROGRAMME: "The Making of Law: Perspectives and Methods of Comparative Legal History" [Sixth ESCLH Postgraduate Conference in Comparative Legal History] (Valencia: Valencia University, 3-5 MAY 2026)

   

 

Sixth Postgraduate Conference in Comparative Legal History:

“The Making of Law: Perspectives and Methods of Comparative Legal History”

3–5 May 2026, Valencia University, Spain
Call for Papers

The European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH) is pleased to announce its Sixth Postgraduate Conference. The conference will be held from 3 to 5 May 2026 at Valencia University, Spain. The ESCLH wants to overcome the narrow nationalism and geographical segregation of legal history in contemporary European scholarship and professional organisations. The society, thus, aims to promote comparative legal history, the explicit comparison of legal ideas and institutions in two or more legal traditions. The Postgraduate Conferences of the ESCLH give advanced PhD students and post-doctoral-researchers who work in the field of comparative legal history the opportunity to present their research to a panel of experts. Furthermore, the conference will give all participants the opportunity to build academic networks.

This conference is organized by Aniceto Masferrer on behalf of the European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH), with the support of the The Alan Watson Group: The Making of the Western Law, the Institute for Social, Political and Legal Studies, and the research project entitled “Tradición e influencias extranjeras en la Codificación penal española: contribución de la jurisprudencia en la evolución de la Parte General (1870-1995)” (PID2023-148177NB-I00) (funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.

Sunday Dinner, at 20:45: Restaurante Santa Rita, c/ Zurradores 10 46001 Valencia

Monday 4 May 2026

9:00 Opening of the conference Prof. Dr. Matthew Dyson (Univ. Oxford, England; European Society for Comparative Legal History, Former President)

Chair: Prof. Dr. Matthew Dyson (Univ. Oxford, England)

9:10 Julia (Weiyao Han) (Univ. Cambridge) A Constitution for the Oceans? Prize Courts and the Divided Origins of Maritime Legal Order 

9:50 Wojciech Wydmański (Univ. Varsaw – Silesia) The codification of arbitration law in Poland during the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939): A Comparative Approach 

10:30 Emmanuel Leroux (Univ. Paris Panthéon-Assas) How did the Congress of Vienna establish a new European legal order? (1814-1815) 

11:10 Coffee break

Chair: Prof. Dr. Alessia Di Stefano (Univ. Catania, Italy)

11:30 Inés García Barrachina (Univ. Valencia) University as a Forum or an Ideological Actor? A Historical-Comparative Study of Political Struggles over University Autonomy (France, the United States and Spain) 

12:10 Matthew Parish (Univ. Cambridge) The European and Civilian Influence on English Law’s Turn to Systematisation in the Eighteenth Century 

12:50 Helene Hu (Univ. Lille) The legal aspects of the French concession in Shanghai

13:30 Lunch break (Restaurante Galileo Club Gastronómico, Avda. de los Naranjos s/n, Valencia)

Chair: Prof. Dr. Janwillem (Pim) Oosterhuis (Univ. Maastricht, The Netherlands) 

15:30 Giulio Biaggini (Univ. Zurich) Redefining Normativity: The Making of International Law in the Swiss-Allied Washington Accord of 1946 

16:10 Francesco Fonte (Univ. Macerata) Uncovering Hidden Vectors in Science and Practice. A Bibliometric analysis of ‘La Rivista del diritto commerciale e del diritto generale delle obbligazioni’ and its transnational influences in Liberal Italy (1903-1922) 

16:50 Umberto De Luca (Univ. Macerata) Who Makes the Court? Legal Transfer and the Contested Making of Juvenile Justice in Italy (1890 - 1922)

20:15 Dinner (Restaurante Casa Eulogio, c/ Cerrajeros 3, 46001 Valencia

Tuesday 5 May 2026

Chair: Prof. Dr. Aniceto Masferrer (Univ. Valencia) 

9:00 Marie De Beul (Univ. Ghent) The Justice of the Peace as a Proximity Judge: Past, Present and Future 

9:40 Benedek Varga (Univ. Szeged) From Market Freedom to State Intervention: A Comparative Doctrinal and Case-Law Analysis of Overpricing Misdemeanors 

10:20 Pawel Kazmierski (Univ. Krakow – Jena) Anti-religiosity in the first instance? Religious issues in the divorce jurisprudence in the German Democratic Republic and People’s Poland on the example of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (1945-1958) and Pomorze Zachodnie (1945-1956) 

11:00 Coffee break

Chair: Prof. Dr. Varga Norbert (Univ. Szeged, Hungary) 

11:20 Giorgia Bucaria (Univ. Cambridge) The Toolbox of English Lawyers: Res Corporales and Res Incorporales in Late Medieval Land Law

 2:00 Błażej Bawolik (Univ. Varsaw) The Doctrine of Statism in the Practice of Law-Making and Law Application in Central and Eastern Europe (1935–1939): The Case of the Second Polish Republic and the Kingdom of Romania 

12:40 Mathias Boussemart (Univ. Paris-Nanterre) Printed Knowledge and the Making of Law: Parliamentary Libraries in Revolutionary and Post-Revolutionary Europe

13:20 Closure of the conference
13:30 Lunch (Restaurant, Faculty of Law)

BOOK: Bastiaan D. VAN DER VELDEN, The Legal Framework of Slavery in the Dutch Republic and Its Colonies (London: Routledge, 2026), 622 p. ISBN 9781003706755[OPEN ACCESS]

 

Abstract:

This open-access monograph addresses in a comparative way one of the central questions in legal history: how did law structure and condition the lives of enslaved people in the Dutch Republic between 1579 and 1794? By exploring Roman-Dutch law and its transregional applications, the study foregrounds the normative framework that sustained systems of unfreedom across metropolitan and colonial settings.

The book investigates the influence of Roman law on slavery in the Dutch Republic and in territories administered by the Dutch West India Company, the Society of Suriname, and the Dutch East India Company. 

Methodologically, the study draws on the Bellagio-Harvard Guidelines on the Legal Parameters of Slavery to construct a systematic analytical framework. These Guidelines serve as an instrument for identifying the legal powers constitutive of slavery and the private-law mechanisms through which they could be exercised and enforced. On this basis, the book develops a structured questionnaire to facilitate an interregional comparison, enabling an in-depth analysis of similarities and divergences across the four jurisdictions under consideration: Curacao, the Netherlands, Suriname, and The Cape.

The project thus constitutes a form of internal, or more precisely interregional, comparative legal history. By tracing how Roman law functioned as both a foundational and adaptable source within distinct local configurations, the study illuminates the dynamic interplay between learned law and local legislation. In doing so, it contributes to broader debates on legal pluralism, imperial governance, and the juridical construction of slavery in the early modern world.

Read the whole book for free here: DOI 10.4324/9781003706755.

BLOG TEAM: New Composition as of 4 May 2026

Pursuant to our most recent call for bloggers, the ESCLH Blog Team has been extended.

We are happy to welcome as new bloggers:

• Fuad-Meša Čičić: graduated in law (LL.B.) summa cum laude and is currently completing his LL.M. in Civil law (legal-historical focus) at the University of Pristina (Kosovo). His master's thesis examines the transfer of risk in the contract of sale in classical Roman law (periculum rei venditae), approaching from legal-historical and legal-theoretical perspectives. His research interests include ancient legal history, the historical development of private law (partic. the law of obligations), as well as customary law in the Balkan context. Professionally, he serves as a Judicial Clerk at the Constitutional Court of Kosovo. He is also a member of several scholarly associations dedicated to legal history and related fields (incl. ASLH, ESHL, and the AIP)
• Paweł Kaźmierski, LL.M.: doctoral candidate at the Doctoral School in the Social Sciences of the Jagiellonian University in Kraków and at the Faculty of Law of the University of Jena (cotutelle). He holds MA in Polish law and LL.M. in German law. His research interests focus on the comparative legal history, history of Socialist law, history of Family law and law and religion.
• Benedict Vanlanduyt: doctoral researcher affiliated with KU Leuven and KU Leuven Campus Kortrijk (Belgium). She holds degrees in Medieval and Ancient Philosophy and in Law from KU Leuven, where she completed the Research Master Programme in Law, graduating magna cum laude. Her master’s dissertation examined the role of auxiliary states in the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748) within the broader history of public and international law. She currently investigates the restitution of private property seized or confiscated in the Low Countries between 1550 and 1750 during times of war. The project focusses on the relation between legal doctrine and practice, by conducting archival research, analyzing treaties and investigating negotiation history. 

The other members of the current team remain on board, save for Marco Castelli, who has decided to focus on the peer reviewed journal Comparative Legal History. We are grateful for Marco’s loyal service and commitment to the blog. Over the past five years, he contributed over 340 posts (ergo 1,44 a week, if one discounts the Winter and Summer blogging breaks).

We kindly remind our readership that proposals for contributions can be submitted to esclhblog@gmail.com. We only publish suggestions in MS Word or RTF format, with an image. PDFs or formatted documents will be returned to the sender. Please be patient: blog posts are usually scheduled well in advance, only calls for paper or vacancies with a fixed term limit have priority. Publications of books or journals are spread out across time. 

REMINDER CALL FOR PAPERS: International Conference: Contested Seas. War, Commerce, and the Making of the Law of the Sea (c. 1400–1800) (Ostend: VUB/VLIZ, 19-20 NOV 2026) [DEADLINE 15 MAY 2026]

(Image source: VUB-CORE blog)

International Conference:

Contested Seas: War, Commerce, and the Making of the Law of the Sea (c. 1400–1800)

19-20 November 2026, Ostend, Belgium

Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Campus Ostend / Flanders Marine Institute (VLIZ)

Conveners:

Stefano Cattelan & Frederik Dhondt
(Vrije Universiteit Brussel – Faculty of Law and Criminology, Research Group CORE)

Keynote speakers: 

Surabhi Ranganathan (Lauterpacht Centre, University of Cambridge)
Indravati Félicité (Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg)

Concept and Rationale: The early modern law of the sea did not emerge as a coherent or pacified body of rules. Rather, it took shape as a fragmented and deeply contested legal regime. It was forged through recurrent warfare, commercial rivalry, and persistent struggles over jurisdiction and enforcement at sea. The pelagic arena was characterised by overlapping jurisdictions, uneven enforcement, and profound asymmetries of power (Benton, 2010). The freedom of the seas (‘Mare Liberum’) did not operate as a stable peacetime principle. It was repeatedly restricted, negotiated, and redefined in moments of conflict, particularly through disputes concerning maritime jurisdiction, economic warfare, neutral navigation, and prize-taking.

Hence, several methodological questions arise. Can we chart the deeper structures and long-term evolutions of the law of the sea and, at the same time, remain historically grounded and relevant to contemporary debates?

Recent scholarship has challenged the idea that the law of the sea gradually restrained violence at sea. Instead, norms were forged, tested, and transformed through concrete conflicts over sovereignty, jurisdiction, and neutral navigation (e.g. Steinberg, 2001; Benton, 2010; Schnakenbourg, 2015; Calafat, 2019; Cattelan, 2025). This perspective invites a rethinking of the law of the sea not as a dependent variable of early modern conflict, but as one of its crucial products. The present conference builds on this emerging insight and seeks to explore its broader implications across different regions, actors, and legal contexts.

This conference invites contributions that approach the law of the sea as a historically produced normative regime, examined as (1) a body of legal argument, a set of institutional (2) practices, and a (3) field of political struggle. It seeks to foster dialogue across legal history, international law and the histories of ideas, diplomacy, warfare, and empire, bringing together scholars attentive to different sources, actors and objects (doctrine, archives, institutions, legal reasoning, institutional practice, and material interests). The conference situates the law of the sea within broader processes of state formation, imperial competition, and global connectivity, including its interaction with commercial and maritime legal practices (Félicité, 2024).

This conference takes a broad analytical perspective, to seal a series of three encounters organised under the aegis of FWO Junior Fundamental Research Project G016122N. While earlier meetings in this series focused primarily on neutrality as a legal status, diplomatic strategy, and social practice —particularly from the perspective of small and medium powers— the present symposium shifts the analytical focus: recurrent conflicts over neutrality, belligerent rights, maritime jurisdiction, and enforcement mechanisms did not merely test existing norms. These instances were crucial to the historical formation of the law of the sea as a contested legal regime. In this sense, neutrality is approached as a formative force in the making of the law of the sea across judicial, diplomatic, and commercial arenas.

The conference aims to offer a synthetic reinterpretation of the relationship between mare liberum and mare clausum, peace and war, neutrality and coercion, situating the early modern law of the sea within the longer history of international law without assuming linear trajectories or teleological outcomes. It also invites reflection on the enduring legacies of early modern maritime practices for later codification efforts and contemporary debates on ocean governance in an increasingly polycentric world (Mawani, 2023; Ranganathan, 2016, 2020).

Finally, the conference welcomes contributions addressing different maritime regions and circuits, including —but not limited to— the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and Indian Ocean worlds, as well as interactions between different legal orders and actors (Anand, 1983; Khalilieh, 2019; Subrahmanyam, 2024; Po, 2018). We particularly welcome contributions on cross-cultural legal encounters and concrete sites of norm production, such as courts, diplomatic practices, commercial litigation, port regulations, and contractual arrangements.

 

Key Questions

The conference invites contributions addressing one or more of the following questions:

• What kind of legal regime was the early modern law of the sea?
  How can it be understood as a historically contingent and contested normative order rather than a coherent or stabilised body of rules?
• How did warfare shape the law of the sea?
  In what ways did recurring conflicts over maritime jurisdiction, belligerent rights, neutrality, blockade, contraband, and prize-taking contribute to the production and transformation of legal norms at sea?
• How was the law of the sea articulated, applied, and contested in daily practice?
  What roles did courts, diplomatic channels, port authorities, consular institutions, and commercial actors play in the everyday functioning of this legal regime?
• How did neutrality operate as a formative force within the law of the sea?
  How were legal boundaries between peace and war at sea shaped by disputes and agreements involving neutral navigation?
• How did individuals and non-state actors exercise legal agency at sea?
  The mobilisation of multiple normative orders —public, commercial, and customary by merchants, shipmasters, insurers, chartered companies, or private entrepreneurs — to pursue commercial, political, or strategic objectives is central here.
• How did different connected spaces and regions shape a distinct legal practice?
  How did practices take shape across and between different maritime regions and circuits, including interactions between European and extra-European legal orders?
• What are the longer-term implications of early modern practices of the law of the sea?
  How did early modern solutions and conflicts inform later codification efforts and continue to resonate in contemporary debates on ocean governance?

 

Thematic Areas (Indicative)

The following thematic areas, which constitute the thematic translation of the questions highlighted above, articulate different dimensions of the early modern law of the sea as a contested legal regime produced through conflict, commerce, and legal practice. They are intended to be read as analytically connected rather than as parallel or autonomous agendas. They are indicative rather than exhaustive.

 

1. The sea as a legal and spatial order

Maritime jurisdiction; territorial waters; ports, straits, and littoral zones; sovereignty and access; legal pluralism at sea; competing claims to control, passage, and enforcement.

2. War, commerce, and neutrality in the law of the sea

Naval warfare and economic conflict; blockade, contraband, and continuous voyage; prize-taking and adjudication; neutrality as legal status, diplomatic strategy, and practical resource; coercion, enforcement, and asymmetries between belligerents and neutrals.

3. Institutions and practices producing the law of the sea

Courts (including admiralty and prize courts); diplomatic correspondence; consular jurisdictions; port authorities and regulatory regimes; chartered companies; litigation, arbitration, and everyday legal practice. Contributions grounded in specific sources or sites of norm production are particularly welcome.

4. Agency and normative pluralism within the law of the sea

The role of individuals and non-state actors —such as merchants, shipmasters, insurers, private entrepreneurs, and colonial intermediaries— in mobilising a plurality of normative orders, including the law of nations, domestic legislation, commercial and maritime law, urban statutes, customary norms, and private contracts.

5. The law of the sea across regions, empires, and legal encounters

Comparative and transregional perspectives; interactions between European and extra-European legal orders; cross-cultural legal encounters; circulation, translation, and contestation of norms governing maritime space in different oceanic worlds.

6. From early modern practice to modern/contemporary ocean governance

Long-term continuities and ruptures in the law of the sea; armed neutrality and collective enforcement; early modern legacies in later codification efforts and contemporary debates on ocean governance.

 

Disciplinary Scope: The conference welcomes contributions from legal history, the history of international law, maritime and naval history, diplomatic and political history, economic history, and international law scholarship with a historical or theoretical orientation. Interdisciplinary, critical, and transregional approaches are particularly encouraged. Early-career researchers are warmly invited to submit proposals.

Format: The conference is conceived as a focused, discussion-oriented event. Draft papers will be circulated in advance to facilitate in-depth exchange. Presentations will be kept at 20 minutes for each speaker in order to prioritise collective discussion and comparative discussion.

Submission Guidelines: please submit an abstract of no more than 350 words and a short biographical note of up to 150 words to: stefano.cattelan@vub.be.
Submission deadline: 15 May 2026
Notification of acceptance: 1 June 2026
Draft papers (for pre-circulation among participants): 20 October 2026

Publication: Following the conference, selected contributions will be submitted to a special issue in an international peer-reviewed journal (preferably open access).

Practical Information: The organisers aim to secure funding to cover organisational costs and, where possible, to offer limited support for travel and accommodation, particularly for early-career researchers and scholars without access to dedicated research funds. Further practical information will be communicated to accepted participants.

 

Indicative references:

Alimento, Antonella (ed.), War, Trade and Neutrality: Europe and the Mediterranean in the Seventeenth and Eighteen Centuries (Milano, 2011).

Id., and Stapelbroek, Koen (eds.), The Politics of Commercial Treaties in the Eighteenth Century (Cham, 2017).

Anand, Ram P., Origin and Development of the Law of the Sea. History of International Law Revisited (The Hague/Boston/London, 1983).

Benton, Lauren and Perl-Rosenthal, Nathan (eds.), A World at Sea: Maritime Practices and Global History (Philadelphia, 2020).

Benton, Lauren, A Search for Sovereignty. Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900 (Cambridge, 2010).

Calafat, Guillaume, Une mer jalousée: contribution à l’histoire de la souveraineté (Méditerranée, XVIIe siècle) (Paris, 2019).

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