BOOK REVIEW: Panikos PANAYI, Legal responses to mass migration: from the nineteenth century to World War II, eds. Luigi NUZZO, Michele PIFFERI, Giuseppe SPECIALE and Cristina VANO (Abingdon: Routledge, 2025) (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1 (June), pp. 162-165)

(image source: Taylor&Francis)

This long, edited volume containing sixteen essays tries to address the question of legal responses to mass migration from the end of the nineteenth century until the post-Second World War period, an ambitious task. The editors, all Italian legal or legal history scholars, divide the volume into three sections covering 'Discourses', 'Policies and Institutions', and 'Legal Practices’; although the choice of location of the individual pieces is not always clear, especially in the case of those in sections 2 and 3. The chapters come from a 'collaborative research project on Legal History and Mass Migration' (xvi), focusing on the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Although the editors sought to take an interdisciplinary approach, most of the contributions are written by either legal scholars or legal historians. The main focus is Italy and the Italian diaspora, and most of the authors work in Italian universities. 

Section I contains five chapters, beginning with Eliana Augusti's ‘From Vitoria to Kant: A Genealogy of ius migrandi’, an interesting philosophical-legal discussion about the concept of ius migrantis, traced through a series of philosophers down to the present. The author demonstrates command of the evolution of migration policy, and the essay is well conceptualised and clear in its explanation of the various authorities with which it engages, adding an interesting perspective on migration and migration law and rights. Chapter 2, by Giulio Abbate, on 'Emigration and Colonisation: The Debate in Italy at the End of the Nineteenth Century', tackles the issue of legal attitudes towards the relationship between emigration and colonisation, which initially focused upon emigration only taking place as a result of trade but gradually moved towards the idea that it could be linked to conquest because it would bring civilisation. Chapter 3, by Virginia Amorosi, on ‘Leaving Italy: Transoceanic Migration and Legal Discourse in the City of Napoli (1901-1910)’, despite its title and the fact that much of this essay focuses upon Naples, actually covers a wide range of discourse which falls under the broad description of 'legal', focusing not simply on Naples but also more broadly on Italy, including the concern about the loss of people as a result of emigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Chapter 4, by Francesco Rotondo, on 'The "Peculiar Paradox" of the Criminalisation of Italian Immigrants in Argentina in the Late Nineteenth Century' examines this process by focusing upon a series of individuals who concentrated up on perceived criminality and sickness against the background of a significant increase in the movement of people into Argentina at the end of the nineteenth century [...]

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

DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671635

CALL FOR PAPERS: Legal Response to Mass Migration between the 19th century and the WWII (DEADLINE: 30 March 2021)

 

(Source: Legal History and Mass Migration)

We learned of a call for papers from the research project “Legal History and Mass Migration”.

Confronted with mass migration, since the mid-19th century Western legal culture was forced to face migrants not just as a sum of individuals, but as a phenomenon demanding new legal concepts and mechanisms appropriate to govern and regulate groups and collective subjects. European migrants moving towards colonies and the East led to a reconceptualization of traditional international law doctrines on state sovereignty in order to de-territorialize Western citizens who occurred to be in the Eastern countries, freeing them from the imperium of the local authority and entrusting them to their own consular courts. Whereas immigration into Western countries led to the adoption of protective legal strategies and exclusion mechanisms to bar the dangerous others, emigration of European citizens towards colonized regions and Eastern countries prompted the elaboration of exceptional safeguards and privileges for ‘civilizing’ migrants. The new challenges of mobility led jurists and legislators to reshape the peculiarity of ius migrandi through terminological as well as conceptual revisions (e.g. the notions of citizenship, sovereignty, territorial state, undesirable and dangerous alien), the elaboration of new disciplines such as international labor law and international migration law, and the creation of special administrative bodies or jurisdictions (e.g. immigration officers; board of inspectors; consular courts; inspectors of emigration; arbitral commissions for emigration).

The Legal History and Mass Migration project (PRIN 2017) invites proposals for papers relating to the theme of the juridical response to mass migration between the mid-19th century and WWII. Papers can be based on different methodologies and may refer to a broad variety of subjects, including, by way of example:

application of methodologies such as global legal history, comparative legal history, critical analysis of law to the study of migration issues;

relationship between local rules and international migration law;

tensions between human rights’ recognition and border control policies;

non-Western legal approaches to migration issues;

construction of legal discourses, theories, justifications to support, contrast, govern, or limit mass migration;

models of citizenship and integration or exclusion of alien immigrants in different countries;

role of case law and/or resort to special tribunals with jurisdiction in migration issues as means of departing from ordinary rules and constitutional protections;

institutional and informal mechanisms (such as ‘soft law’, role of unions or charitable institutions, nets of assistance of national citizens abroad etc.) adopted to deal with mass migration problems in different countries of both departure and destination;

impact of mass migration on national and international labour law;

racial paradigms and immigration laws;

local/global economic impact of migration and its legal regulation;

exploitation of criminal law concepts, discourses, practices to stir the public conviction about the social danger of mass migration

 

Proposals for papers are due by 30 March 2021 and should be submitted by e-mail at legalhistoryandmassmigration@gmail.com  in Word format, following this order:

 

a) author(s)

b) affiliation

c) e-mail address

d) title of abstract

e) body of abstract (apx 350 words)

Accepted papers will be presented at an international conference which will be held at the University of Naples in December 2021.

 

Support for selected participants: funding for travel expenses and accommodation may be available. Please indicate with your paper proposal if you would like to be considered for a support, and if so, your expected expenses. All funding decisions will be made independently of paper acceptance.

 

Papers and pre-circulation: Please note that the conference panels will be structured around a short summary of speakers’ pre-circulated papers, followed by more extended discussion. It is our intention that accepted speakers will submit papers of no more than 4,000 words for circulation by Friday 22 October 2021.

For general inquiries, please email: info@legalhistoryandmassmigration.com

Conference Committee: Luigi Nuzzo (University of Salento), Michele Pifferi (University of Ferrara), Giuseppe Speciale (University of Catania), Cristina Vano (University of Naples Federico II).

 

More info here