(image source: BlueSky)
Editorial (Agustín Parise & Matthew Dyson)
Why the rule of law? A historical perspective (Fernanda Pirie) [OPEN ACCESS]
DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2418274
Abstract:
Why do we expect law to bring about better and more just societies? Around the world, systems of accountability are weak and dictators find ways to avoid the constraints of both national and international laws. Yet we continue to call for better laws and for aggressors to be tried for war crimes. This article brings a historical approach to this puzzle, considering some of the earliest known laws, from Mesopotamia, Rome, the Hindu and Islamic worlds and China. Drawing analogies with anthropological analysis of ritual, I suggest that such laws may portray an imagined world, one that people feel it worth invoking in the face of threats to the social order, uncontrolled aggression and the abuse of power. The paradox is that we believe in the rule of law and that we insist it should constrain power in practical and effective ways to be worth creating at all.
Revisiting the history of colonialism and international law in Indonesia: the legacies of G. J. Resink (Eka An Aqimuddin) [OPEN ACCESS]
DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2419233
Abstract:
Power is exercised through truth claims, as seen in the case of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia. Gertrudes Johan Resink, a scholar of international law, successfully exposed the history of Dutch colonialism in Indonesia and demonstrated the pre-existence of international law before European expansion by considering the role of international law in Indonesia’s history. This article examines Resink’s legacy and the potential for elaborating further on his ideas in Indonesia’s history of international law. Although this article deals with a specific context, the Indonesian experience can contribute to the history and development of international law in the region more generally.
Moral rights and the protection of classics: A study of §51 in the Swedish Copyright Act of 1960
DOI 10.1080/2049677X.2024.2418680
Abstract:
This article examines §51 of the Swedish Copyright Act 1960, generally known as ‘the protection of classics’ in relation to international discourses on copyright in the mid-twentieth century. The provision in §51 protects works of cultural significance by deceased authors and artists against reproductions that are considered offensive, even if the works are in the public domain. This article analyses the arguments and motives that led Swedish legislators to draft §51 and contextualises them internationally. The origin of the protection of classics is rooted in the notion of a paying public domain, a provision which existed in various countries in the twentieth century that allowed the state to collect royalties for works in the public domain. In Swedish copyright law this economic right was reinterpreted as a moral right to protect classical works. Unlike conventional moral rights, this right aimed at protecting the interests of the public rather than the integrity of the author. The protection of classics, and to an extent the notion of a paying public domain, can be seen not so much as a regulation of intellectual property but more as a statement about cultural heritage. By showing how the protection of classics operated within the international discourse on copyright law of the twentieth century, this article explores the relation between moral rights, a paying public domain and cultural heritage.
Book reviews
- A global history of crime and punishment, vols 1–6A global history of crime and punishment, vols 1–6, edited by Sara McDougall and Clive Emsley, London and New York, Bloomsbury, 2023, £ 440 (hbk), ISBN 978-1472584847; vol 1: Crime and punishment in antiquity, edited by Adriaan Lanni, xii + 224 pp., ISBN 978-1472584618, vol 2: Crime and punishment in the Medieval Age, edited by Karl Shoemaker, xii + 260 pp., ISBN 978-14725625, vol 3: Crime and punishment in the Renaissance, edited by Laura Stokes and Michael Menna, xii + 219 pp., ISBN 978-1472584632, vol 4: Crime and punishment in the Age of Enlightenment, edited by Xavier Rousseaux, x + 278 pp., ISBN 978-1472584724, vol 5: Crime and punishment in the Age of Empire, edited by Mark Finnane, xii + 247 pp., ISBN 978-1472584823, vol 6: Crime and punishment in the Modern Age, edited by Paul Lawrence, x + 239 pp., ISBN 978-1472584830 (Heikki Pihlajamäki)
- Juristische Glossierungstechniken als Mittel rechtswissenschaftlicher Rationalisierungen. Erfahrungen aus dem europäischen Mittelalter – vor und neben den großen ‘Glossae ordinariae’ edited by Susanne Lepsius (Abhandlungen zur rechtswissenschaftlichen Grundlagenforschung. Münchener Universitätsschriften. Juristische Fakultät, Band 103), Berlin, Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2022, vi + 333 pp, ISBN 9783503209347 (print) €79.95; 9783503209354 (eBook) €72.90 (Orzaio Condorelli)
- Scripting justice in late medieval Europe: legal practice and communication in the law courts of Utrecht, York and Paris and Law as performance: theatricality, spectatorship, and the making of law in ancient, medieval, and early modern EuropeScripting justice in late medieval Europe: legal practice and communication in the law courts of Utrecht, York, Paris, by Frans Camphuijsen, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022, 312 pp., €129.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-9463723473; Law as performance: theatricality, spectatorship, and the making of law in ancient, medieval, and early modern Europe, by Julie Stone Peters, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2022, 368 pp., £95.00 (hbk), ISBN 978-0192898494 (Clare Egan)
- Le droit des exilés: Généalogie du droit d’asile au XVIIe siècle by Naïma Ghermani, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 2023, 387 pp., € 25 (pbk), ISBN 978-2130833314 Nicholas Terpstra (Nicholas Terpstra)
- Early modern natural law in East-Central Europe edited by Gábor Gángó (Early Modern Natural Law 5) Brill, 2023, 403 pp., €127.20 (hbk), ISBN 9789004545823 (Pärtel Piirimäe)
- Self-governance and Sami communities: transitions in early modern natural resource management by Jesper Larsson and Eva-Lotta Päiviö Sjaunja, Cham, Palgrave MacMillan, 2022, 248 pp., open access (ebk), ISBN 978-3030874988 (Tenille E. Brown)
- Administrating Kinship. Marriage impediments and dispensation policies in the 18th and 19th centuries by Margareth Lanzinger, translated by Christopher Roth, Legal History Library, 63, Leiden, Brill/Nijhoff, 2023, 420 pp., €149.00 (hbk), Open Access (ebook), ISBN 978-90-04-43107-2 (Mia Korpiola)
- Otros códigos. Por una historia de la codificación civil desde España by Carlos Petit, Madrid, Dykinson, 2023, 641 pp., €55.10 (paperback), ISBN 978-8411700740 (Agustín Parise)
- Colonialism and codification: a legal history of the Caribbean and the Americas by Peter van den Berg, The Hague, Eleven, 2022, 409 pp., €73.00 (pbk), ISBN 978-9462363311 (Lindsay Stirton)
- The life and death of states: Central Europe and the transformation of modern sovereignty by Natasha Wheatley, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 2023, 424 pp., $45 (hbk), ISBN 978-0691244075 (Priyasha Saksena)
- Supreme courts under Nazi occupation edited by Derk Venema, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, 2022, 340 pp., €129, ISBN 978-9463720496 (C. H. van Rhee)
- Communities and the(ir) law edited by Werner Gephart and Daniel Witte, Frankfurt am Main, Vittorio Klostermann, 2023, 346 pp., €59.00 (pbk), ISBN 978-3465046097 (Richard K. Sherwin)
- La Historia del Derecho en la Universidad del siglo XXI edited by the Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Dykinson, 2023, 304 pp., €25.00 (hbk), ISBN 9788411701945 (José Franco-Chasán)
Read the full issue here.
