CHAPTER: Jan DUMOLYN & Jo VAN STEENBERGEN, 'Studying Rulers and States across Fifteenth-Century Western Eurasia', in: Jo VAN STEENBERGEN (ed.), Trajectories of State Formation across Fifteenth-Century Islamic West-Asia. Eurasian Parallels, Connections and Divergences [Rules & Elites, vol. 18] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2020), pp. 88-155, ISBN 978-90-04-43131-7, OPEN ACCESS

(image source: Brill)

First paragraph:

In this second chapter we seek to embed the preceding chapter as well as the other contributions to this volume within various interpretative traditions of state formation studies in order to determine a heuristic ground for better understanding the parallels, connections and divergences of fifteenth-century ‘statist’ appearances in the historiography of Islamic West-Asia, and of Western Eurasia more generally.1 The main questions at stake are as follows: how have researchers operationalized concepts of ‘the state’, of its formation and of its transformation within the various historiographical traditions; what conscious or unconscious presuppositions and assumptions have driven this operationalization; and how has social theory been applied in this process in various ways. This discussion of some of the major conceptual debates on ‘the state’ in the study of fifteenth-century Western Eurasia will be pursued in a pragmatic way. It will be oriented towards identifying and explaining some of the most widely or most explicitly used models of state formation within different research traditions. The rationale here complements that of the first, empirical chapter in aiming to make fifteenth-century Islamic West-Asia’s political history more accessible and intelligible to wider audiences while also inviting specialists of these different traditions to rethink what they know about their subjects within wider or unexplored frameworks.

Read the whole chapter (and edited volume) for free here.

SSRN PAPER: Mark TUSHNET, Critical Legal Studies and the Rule of Law (forthcoming in Martin LOUGHLIN & Jens MEIERHENRICH (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law (Cambridge: CUP, 2018)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Prof. Mark Tushnet (Harvard Law School) published "Critical Legal Studies and the Rule of Law" on SSRN. The text is part of a forthcoming Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law (eds. Martin Loughlin and Jens Meierhenrich).

Abstract:

This brief essay, to appear in the Cambridge Companion to the Rule of Law (Marti Loughlin & Jens Meierhenrich eds.), describes what critical legal scholars said – or perhaps more accurately – would have said – about the concept of the rule of law. Describing critical legal studies as a project in American legal thought rather than analytical jurisprudence, it argues that “the rule of law” is an ideological project, and can come in various versions – liberal, social democratic, and more. It addresses Morton Horwitz’s critique of E.P. Thompson’s assertion that the rule of law is an unqualified human good, and situates the CLS critique of the rule of law within more general discussion of the rule of law by Hayek and Fuller. It concludes by applying ideology-critique to the rule of law, arguing that in whatever form it takes the rule of law contributes to a culture of justification, which may indeed be an unqualified human good.

Download paper here.

BOOK: Markus D. DUBBER & Christopher TOMLINS (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of European Legal History (Oxford: OUP, forthcoming)

The Legal History Blog signalled a chapter by Markus D. Dubber on "Colonial Criminal Law and Other Modernities: European Criminal Law in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Century", to be published in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of European Legal History (edited by the author with Christopher Tomlins).

Abstract:

This paper has two parts. The first part reflects on various traditional approaches to the historical study of European criminal law in the nineteenth and twentieth century. The second part lays out an alternative, two-track, conception of "modern" European criminal legal history. It does this by taking an upside-down - or outside-in - view of the subject, by focusing on an understudied, but fascinating, project of European criminal law: the invention, implementation, and evolution of colonial criminal law.

 More information on SSRN.

CHAPTER: Anne ORFORD, 'International Law and the Limits of History', in: Wouter WERNER, Alexis GALÁN & Marieke DE HOON (eds.), The Law of International Lawyers: Reading Martti Koskenniemi. Cambridge: CUP, Aug 2015

(image source: SSRN)

Prof. Anne Orford (Melbourne) posted 'International Law and the Limits of History', a forthcoming chapter in The Law of International Lawyers: Reading Martti Koskenniemi (eds. Wouter Werner, Alexis Galán and Marieke De Hoon, CUP).

Abstract:

This chapter explores the effect that the turn to history has had on the field of international law. The publication of Martti Koskenniemi’s history of the international legal profession, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, is often presented as representing a moment at which the field of international law took a ‘turn to history’, or more precisely, a turn in its mode of writing history. Of course, international law has always had a deep engagement with the past. Past texts and concepts are constantly retrieved and taken up as a resource in international legal argumentation and scholarship. Thus the ‘turn to history’ trope marks a turn to history as a critical method, rather than a turn to history as a substantive engagement with the past. Koskenniemi himself introduced The Gentle Civilizer as a ‘move from structure to history in the analysis of international law’ and ‘a kind of experimentation in the writing about the disciplinary past’. In later work, however, he became much conventional in his exposition of history as method, arguing against the ‘sin of anachronism’ and urging critical scholars to focus on the meaning of texts for their authors’ ‘contemporaries’. A similar turn to history as method more broadly begin to shape new writing about international law over the decade following The Gentle Civilizer’s publication. This chapter suggests that the turn to history as method that followed in the wake of The Gentle Civilizer was an abandonment of the critical potential of that initial work. What marked out The Gentle Civilizer as a singular achievement was Koskenniemi’s attempt to hold together the history of international law, the sociology of international law, and the practice of international law. If the attempt to hold together those genres is abandoned, the critical potential of historical work in international law is lost. The chapter concludes by exploring what the historicizing of international law as a critical gesture might mean for the field going forward.

More information on SSRN.
(source: Legal History Blog)

BOOK CHAPTER: Malgosia FITZMAURICE, "History of Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice", in: S. BESSON (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Sources of International Law (forthcoming)

 

(image source: holland.com)

International Law Reporter signalled the publication of Malgosia Fitzmaurice (Queen Mary)'s chapter on the history of article 38 of the International Court of Justice's Statute in the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Sources of International Law (S. Besson, ed.).

Abstract:

This contribution to the Handbook presents and analyses history of Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice (the ‘ICJ’ or the ‘Court’). History of Article 38 is the starting point leading to reflections on how as it stands at present. Therefore, the main theme of this Chapter is to look at sources of international law through prism of their historical development. Such an approach also includes contenders to ‘new’ sources (acts of international organisations, unilateral acts of States, soft law) which have emerged long after the twelve ‘wise men’ (at times ‘angry twelve men’) of the Committee of Jurists have completed their task of drafting of this Article.

More information on SSRN.