CALL FOR PAPERS: „Junge Juristen entlang der Donau" - Rechtsvergleichende Konferenz zwischen den Donauregionen, Győr, 16-18. November 2026, Deadline for applications: 25. August 2026

 

Call for papers – Aufruf zur Einreichung von Beiträgen

„Junge Juristen entlang der Donau“
Rechtsvergleichende Konferenz zwischen den Donauregionen
Győr, 16.–18. November 2026

Veranstaltungsort:
Széchenyi István Universität Győr

Organisatoren:
Deák Ferenc Fakultät für Staats- und Rechtswissenschaften der Széchenyi Universität Győr, Magyar-Német Ifjúságért Egyesület – Deutsch-Ungarisches Jugendwerk e.V., Institut für Ostrecht

Partner:
Universität Regensburg, Universität Passau, Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hof, Universität Augsburg, Universität Wien, Andrássy Universität Budapest, Deutsch-Ungarischer Jugendrat

Das Deutsch-Ungarische Jugendwerk hat letztes Jahr das erste Deutsch-Ungarische Jugendparlament veranstaltet. Dieses Jugendparlament hat sich u.a. die Realisierung eines juristischen Forschungsprojekts für Jugendliche entlang der Donau zum Ziel gesetzt. Das Jugendwerk möchte dieses Vorhaben mit den Partneruniversitäten Regensburg, Augsburg, Passau, Wien, Győr und der Andrássy Universität Budapest sowie der Hochschule Hof und dem vom Jugendwerk gegründeten Deutsch-Ungarischen Jugendrat verwirklichen und so junge Rechtsstudierende zusammenbringen, um gemeinsam ein Verständnis für die verwandten Rechtssysteme zu erarbeiten.

Die Rechtsordnungen Deutschlands, Österreichs und Ungarns teilen gemeinsame europäische Ideen und Wurzeln, weisen jedoch in ihrer Struktur und der aktuellen rechtspolitischen Dynamik deutliche Unterschiede auf. Diese Unterschiede werden in der öffentlichen Debatte häufig diskutiert, während ein direkter fachlicher Austausch zwischen jungen Studierenden bislang nur vereinzelt stattfand. Insbesondere mit Blick auf gesamteuropäische Herausforderungen besteht ein wachsender Bedarf an Verständnis für die jeweiligen Systeme sowie an rechtsvergleichender Expertise. Diese rechtsvergleichende Konferenz bietet eine multilaterale Plattform, um einen strukturierten und wissenschaftlich fundierten Austausch zu ermöglichen.

In diesem Rahmen können unter Anleitung der fachlichen Experten und Expertinnen mehrere Rechtssysteme der Vergleichenden Rechtswissenschaft erarbeitet und nachvollzogen werden. Dadurch sollen außerdem die rechtsvergleichenden Kompetenzen der Teilnehmenden gestärkt sowie eine zukünftige Netzwerk-Plattform geboten werden.

Ziel der Organisatoren ist auch die spätere wissenschaftliche Veröffentlichung der Ergebnisse der Konferenz. Damit dient die Veranstaltung nicht nur als fachliches Treffen, sondern auch als Ausgangspunkt einer längerfristigen wissenschaftlichen Zusammenarbeit und eines jungen Juristennetzwerks.

Die Organisatoren halten es für wichtig, den wissenschaftlichen Dialog durch die Einbeziehung von Vertretern verschiedener wissenschaftlicher Disziplinen und geografischer Regionen, die mit dem breiten Thema in Verbindung stehen, zu stärken. Dabei ist es ein wesentliches Ziel, auch den interdisziplinären Austausch zu fördern und Perspektiven aus verschiedenen Rechtsgebieten, der Politik sowie den benachbarten Disziplinen zu eröffnen.

Das Programm der Konferenz baut auf thematischen Sektionen auf, in denen die jungen Teilnehmenden ihre Forschungen in Form von Kurzvorträgen präsentieren können.

Ausgewählte Schwerpunktthemen – Titel der Sektionen

1. Welchen Rahmen setzen die Verfassungen für die internationale Kooperation entlang der Donau?
   – Prof. Dr. Dr. Herbert Küpper, Andrássy Universität Budapest, Institut für Ostrecht (Regensburg)
2. In der Tradition des ius commune: vom römischen Recht zum heutigen Privatrecht in Europa.
   – Prof. Dr. Sebastian Martens, Universität Passau
3. Die Grenzen der Plattformregulierung in der Europäischen Union – ein ausgewogenes Verhältnis zwischen Meinungsfreiheit, Marktmacht sowie digitaler Verantwortung und Souveränität.
   – Prof. Dr. Beatrix Weber, Hochschule für Angewandte Wissenschaften Hof
4. Gleiche Regeln, unterschiedliche Gesellschaften: die Umsetzung der UN-völkerrechtlichen Konventionen in verschiedenen Ländern.
   – Dr. László Knapp, Széchenyi István Universität Győr
5. Strafe vs. Entrechtung – Rechte des Gefangenen im Strafvollzug, in Geschichte und Gegenwart.
   – Prof. Dr. Arnd Koch, Universität Augsburg
6. Minderheitenrecht mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Rechtsstatus von Vertriebenen in Ungarn und in Deutschland nach dem II. Weltkrieg.
   – Prof. Dr. Miloš Vec, Universität Wien

Wir sind auf der Suche nach Beiträgen, die sich aus möglichst vielfältigen fachlichen Blickwinkeln heraus den Sektionsthemen nähern. Das geplante Forschungssymposium bietet Gelegenheit, aktuelle Forschungsarbeiten zu den Themenfeldern der jeweiligen Sektionen zu präsentieren und zu diskutieren.

Teilnahmebedingungen

Der Aufruf zur Einreichung von Abstracts richtet sich an Studierende und junge Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler, die am Anfang ihrer akademischen Karriere stehen. So freuen wir uns auf Einreichungen von Studierenden und Promovierenden zwischen 18 und 35 Lebensjahren.

Für die Vorträge sind jeweils Zeitfenster von 15–20 Minuten vorgesehen, den Vorträgen folgt eine fachliche Diskussion. Die Präsentationen finden auf Deutsch statt. (Wir bieten ungarischen Muttersprachlern die Möglichkeit, komplexe Fragen mithilfe eines Übersetzers zu beantworten.)

Anschließend ist eine Publikation in Form einer wissenschaftlichen Studie (25.000–40.000 Zeichen) geplant, die die Konferenzergebnisse zusammenfasst.

Die Veröffentlichungen werden voraussichtlich in den folgenden Fachzeitschriften erscheinen:

• Studien des Instituts für Ostrecht
• Schriftenreihe der Universität Győr
• Hofer Schriften zum Recht in Nachhaltigkeit, Compliance und IT (Sektion 3)

Geplanter Ablauf (Stand 08.07.2026, Änderungen vorbehalten)

Montag, 16.11.2026

• am Nachmittag individuelle Anreise der Teilnehmer
• anschließend Stadtführung und Get-together (VIP-Abendessen)

Dienstag, 17.11.2026

• 10:00–10:30 Uhr: Begrüßung
• 10:30–11:30 Uhr: Keynotes – Eröffnende wissenschaftliche Vorträge
  • Dr. Márta Görög, Justizministerin von Ungarn (angefragt)
  • Georg Eisenreich MdL, Staatsminister der Justiz (angefragt)
• 12:00–13:30 Uhr: Mittagspause
• 13:30–17:30 Uhr: Vorträge der jungen Studierenden und Promovierenden sowie Austausch in den jeweiligen Sektionen

Mittwoch, 18.11.2026

• am Vormittag individuelle Abreise der Teilnehmer

Unterkunft, Verpflegung und Reisekosten

Für Unterkunft und Verpflegung während der Konferenz ist gesorgt. Die Reisekosten werden nach der Konferenz erstattet und können in folgender Höhe übernommen werden:

• Teilnehmende aus Deutschland: bis maximal 250 €
• Teilnehmende aus Österreich: bis maximal 100 €
• Teilnehmende aus Ungarn: bis maximal 25 €

Wir empfehlen ausdrücklich die Anreise mit nachhaltigen Verkehrsmitteln wie Zug oder Fernbus. Wir können leider keine Kostenerstattung bei der Anreise mit dem Auto übernehmen.

Bitte beachten Sie außerdem, dass der Abschluss einer ausreichenden Kranken-, Haftpflicht- und Unfallversicherung sowie die Gültigkeit der benötigten Ausweisdokumente (Personalausweis/Reisepass) in der Verantwortung der Teilnehmenden liegen.

Bewerbung

Bitte senden Sie bis zum 25. August 2026 ein Abstract (max. 500 Wörter, Kurzbeschreibung des Forschungsprojekts und thematische Zuordnung zu einem der genannten Schwerpunkte) sowie eine kurze Biografie (max. 100 Wörter) an die E-Mail-Adresse:

donaukonf@sze.hu

Eine Rückmeldung über die Teilnahme erfolgt bis Mitte September.

Wir freuen uns auf interessante Vortragsideen und darauf, Sie im Herbst 2026 in Győr begrüßen zu können. Bei Rückfragen zur Ausschreibung stehen wir Ihnen unter donaukonf@sze.hu zur Verfügung!

Deák Ferenc Fakultät für Staats- und Rechtswissenschaften der Széchenyi Universität Győr

Magyar-Német Ifjúságért Egyesület – Deutsch-Ungarisches Jugendwerk e.V.

Institut für Ostrecht

 

CLH ARTICLE: Ralf MICHAELS, Comparative law today – tomes, themes, trends (Comparative Legal History, XIV (2026), nr. 1: June) [OPEN ACCESS]

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Abstract: 

This essay surveys recent themes and trends in comparative law scholarship, with a particular eye towards the connections between comparative law and legal history. The author observes a significant movement towards encyclopaedisation, marked by a proliferation of handbooks and encyclopaedias that attempt to systematise knowledge, though these works often struggle with comprehensiveness and persistent Eurocentrism. While traditional treatises continue to show fealty to established functionalist models, there is an observable shift away from the historical dominance of private law towards holistic, post-doctrinal, and interdisciplinary approaches. A primary concern raised is the ‘turn to method’, where the discipline has become increasingly self-absorbed with methodological pluralism and theory, sometimes resulting in ‘method without comparison’. Furthermore, the survey highlights the vital emergence of decolonial and postcolonial scholarship originating from the Global South, facilitating South-South comparison and challenging the field's colonial and Eurocentric foundations. Finally, the author examines the uneasy relationship between comparative law and legal history, questioning whether the discipline can move beyond viewing legal systems as separate entities towards a more integrated world law approach.

Of particular interest to readers of this blog is the essay's final section, "The Place of History", in which Michaels critically examines the uneasy relationship between comparative law and legal history – and the extent to which the latter remains underutilized in the former. Central to this discussion is Heikki Pihlajamäki's proposal to merge the two disciplines, which Michaels engages with directly and which will be further explored at the journal's online Dialogues event this October.

The piece has already sparked an online debate, with Jaakko Husa commenting on his social media (@husajaakko.bsky.social) that «Ralf Michaels has written an interesting, highly learned, and slightly provocative overall take on comparative law. He offers lots of food for thought even if one would disagree. Personally I admit enjoying greatly to be characterised as "the ironic pragmatist"».

To read the article in open access, please click here.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2026.2671591

CLH ARTICLE: Jan WITTLIN, Coverage of the Jewish people by legal solutions granting compensation related to population transfers in twentieth century Europe (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 252-276)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Abstract:

While population transfers were an inseparable part of European policy in the twentieth century, providing compensation for immovable property left behind faced formidable legal, political and economic challenges. Compensation schemes frequently failed to be implemented or left claims of significant groups of migrants or their descendants unsettled, often for several decades. The Jewish minorities, present in most European countries for many centuries and featuring a unique combination of ethnic, religious and nationality related factors were often amongst the most severely impacted. A comparative analysis of the legal frameworks of prominent cases in twentieth century Europe – the population exchanges between Greece and Türkiye in 1923, the post-war border shifts of Poland and the resulting Bug River claims, expulsions from former German territories after World War II and the loss of Carpathian Ruthenia by Czechoslovakia to the Soviet Union – focuses on finding factors impacting Jewish communities, common solutions and evolutionary trends.

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.2025.2579473

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

BOOK REVIEW: Ignazio CASTELLUCCI on Law and diversity: European and Latin American Experiences from a legal historical perspective, vol. 1: fundamental questions, edited Peter Collin and Agustín Casagrande (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 373-381)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

The book reviewed here is the first of four volumes derived from two conferences held in 2019 at the Max-Planck-Institut für Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie within the framework of a research project also titled Law and Diversity: European and Latin American Experiences from a Legal Historical Perspective. This volume, edited by Peter Collin and Agustín Casagrande, deals, according to its sub-title, with ‘Fundamental Questions’ of ‘Law and Diversity’ in historic and societal terms: the idea behind it is to assess how the different laws and legal environments researched deal(t) with the notion of ‘diversity’ and associated concepts – eg, those of ‘difference’, ‘discrimination’, ‘equality’ and ‘inequality’ – and which societal elements have been the focus of legally relevant ‘diversities’ in the various historic experiences analysed alongside the related express or implied diversified legal disciplines. Three further volumes are expected as part of the project’s research output, dealing in more detail with private, public and criminal law issues associated with the research project’s main theme.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. For further information about the volume on our blog, please visit here

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580118

JOURNAL: Glossae. European Journal of Legal History XXII (2025) [OPEN ACCESS]

 

(image source: Glossae)

Los jueces de apelaciones de Canarias en el Antiguo Régimen (Mª Dolores Álamo Martell)

Abstract:

Considerando que el análisis histórico de la Administración de Justicia durante el Antiguo Régimen continúa siendo relevante para los historiadores de las instituciones, se examina la dimensión histórico-jurídico institucional y social de los jueces de apelaciones de la Audiencia de Canarias en el período 1526-1800 sobre la base de fuentes documentales inéditas. Además de sacar a la luz los 87 oidores que ocuparon la plaza de asiento en el tribunal isleño, los criterios de selección, el proceso y título de nombramiento, el juramento y la toma de posesión, la remuneración, la duración del cargo, su procedencia y cursus honorum, se destacan las obligaciones y prohibiciones que contribuyeron a la configuración de un estatuto jurídico fundamental cuya finalidad es garantizar el correcto ejercicio de la función judicial.

El indulto y su discreta presencia en la jurisprudencia del Tribunal Supremo (1870-1976) (Gabriela C. Cobo del Rosal Pérez)

Abstract:

El presente trabajo tiene por objeto el estudio de las sentencias del Tribunal Supremo -Sala de lo Penal- en torno al indulto desde los comienzos de la codificación penal en España. Se propone ofrecer más elementos para favorecer la comprensión del diálogo entre doctrina, legislación y jurisprudencia que suscita el indulto como una institución jurídica de excepción llamativamente longeva, capaz de convivir con el delito desde que éste existe y de sobrevivir a todos los modelos políticos por los que ha pasado España.

Alfonso de Cartagena, eximio jurista. Sobre un opúsculo compuesto en el concilio de Basilea (ca. 1436) (Luis Fernández Gallardo)

Abstract:

El propósito de este trabajo es estudiar un texto jurídico de Alfonso de Cartagena (1385-1456), el célebre obispo de Burgos converso, que desarrolló una intensa actividad en el concilio de Basilea como embajador de Castilla y en la burocracia conciliar (1434-1439). Allí, debido a su fama, fue requerido por el eminente canonista Ludovico Pontano, protonotario apostólico, para rebatir una repetitio que pronunció sobre un pasaje del Liber sextus (ca.1436-1438). Accedió y compuso un tratado en que rebate todas las tesis del italiano exhibiendo una vasta erudición jurídica: testimonio de sumo interés de la ciencia jurídica hispana de la época, que matiza además su rica personalidad intelectual. Se analiza la metodología, atenida a la propia de la ciencia jurídica escolástica y las fuentes, que revelan un dominio soberano del Derecho Civil, siendo mayor el número de citas de esta rama del Derecho Común que la de la canonística. No se citan glosadores excepto Accursio y Azzo. En cambio, son aducidos Aristóteles y Santo Tomás de Aquino. El sólido aristotelismo de Cartagena le permite rebatir una tesis fundamental de Ludovico Pontano: la naturaleza virtuosa de la concesión motu proprio. Su obra contiene planteamientos limitadores de la potestas papal junto con otros netamente valedores de la misma.

La prostitución en el Derecho penal contemporáneo español (1822-1995). Análisis legislativo y jurisprudencial (Isabel Ramos Vázquez)

Abstract:

A comienzos de la Edad Contemporánea española, se recuperó el sistema reglamentarista de prostitución, que toleraba la prostitución adulta, reglamentándola en casas públicas, y castigaba sólo ciertas conductas relacionadas con esta práctica. El sistema abolicionista trató de establecerse por una ley de 1935 sin ningún éxito, y otra ley de 1956 prohibió definitivamente las casas de tolerancia, poniendo fin al sistema reglamentarista, aunque se siguió permitiendo el ejercicio voluntario de la prostitución adulta. En este trabajo, se analiza el tratamiento penal de la prostitución en las leyes y la jurisprudencia contemporánea española desde la promulgación del primer Código penal de 1822 hasta el Código penal de 1995.

Jueces antiesclavistas y proesclavistas de la Real Audiencia de los Confines y de Guatemala (1543-1564) (José María Vallejo García-Hevia)

Abstract:

Se estudia la aplicación de las Leyes Nuevas de 1542-1543, obra de Las Casas, por la Audiencia Real de los Confines, creada en su capítulo XI, durante la vida de su promotor, el Apóstol de los Indios. Los magistrados gobernadores, encargados de imponerlas a conquistadores, pobladores y encomenderos, mantuvieron posiciones opuestas al practicar las ideas lascasistas y los mandatos regios sobre la abolición de la esclavitud indígena, la reforma del régimen de encomienda (trabajo nativo más tributo) con prohibición inicial –hasta su revocación en 1545- de la sucesión en los repartimientos de indios, y la tasación moderada de los tributos (caps. XXI, XXX, XXXVIII).

James Fitzjames Stephen y el campo semántico de la codificación en la Inglaterra victoriana (Victor Manuel Saucedo Maqueda)

Abstract:

James Fitzjames Stephen es conocido en la historia jurídica inglesa por su fallido proyecto de Código Penal debatido en el parlamento entre 1878 y 1883. Aunque las vicisitudes políticas y jurídicas de aquel han sido ya documentadas, dando lugar a un relato típico en la historiografía de la codificación, el concepto de código que yacía bajo el proyecto de Stephen aún no ha sido estudiado específicamente. Adoptando el punto de vista de la evolución del campo semántico del código en la historia del movimiento codificador en Inglaterra en el siglo XIX, se reconstruirá la noción de código de Stephen, quien recuperó la oposición semántica de esta al common law propia del planteamiento benthamiano sin, al mismo tiempo, renunciar al derecho jurisprudencial.

La progresiva restricción del ius ad bellum: de la guerra como Estado al sistema de Naciones Unidas (Leandro Martínez Peñas)

Abstract:

La regulación jurídica del uso instrumental de la guerra por parte de los Estados es una de las más antiguas y ampliamente debatidas preocupaciones del derecho internacional, habiendo experimentado una evolución constante, paralela a la evolución del mismo fenómeno bélico al que va aparejado. De la guerra justa al ius ad bellum, se ha producido una progresiva restricción del derecho de los Estados a recurrir a la fuerza militar, que alcanza su punto culminante con el sistema establecido por la Carta de Naciones Unidas.

La captación de la voluntad testamentaria en el ius commune de la Edad Moderna (Maurici Pérez Simeón)

Abstract:

El derecho romano era muy tolerante con la influencia sobre la voluntad de los testadores, especialmente si no conllevaba engaño. Sin embargo, los autores del ius commune, especialmente en el marco del novus usus Pandectarum, hicieron mucho más fácil la anulación de testamentos por captación de la voluntad a través de una redefinición sustancial de dolus malus. Los códigos civiles españoles actuales parecen indicar una vuelta al enfoque romano originario, pero los tribunales españoles se han mantenido fieles a los elementos esenciales de la tradición del ius commune.

La naturaleza jurídica del precio en el contrato de compraventa: Un antiguo ius controversum de la jurisprudencia romana proyectado en las criptomonedas (Albert Gómez Jordán)

Abstract:

El presente estudio trata de arrojar luz sobre un debate actual de la doctrina civilística española e internacional alrededor de las criptomonedas y la posibilidad que puedan ser consideradas métodos de pago y precio en el contrato de compraventa; una materia que interesa desde un punto de vista jurídico también a especialistas del ámbito mercantil, administrativo, penal y fiscal. El fenómeno actual de las criptomonedas ha revivido una antigua discusión entre las escuelas sabiniana y proculeyana en relación con la naturaleza jurídica del precio del contrato de compraventa; esto es, si el precio debía consistir tan solo en dinero o si bien podía consistir también en otros bienes (Gai. 3,141). Las divergentes opiniones doctrinales en la civilística acerca de la naturaleza jurídica de las criptomonedas (es decir, si deben considerarse monedas digitales o activos inmateriales) nos han llevado a profundizar en las fuentes romanas y en la formación histórico-doctrinal del Código civil español a los efectos de definir los límites entre compraventa y permuta, reflexionar sobre la verdadera naturaleza jurídica del precio como elemento real del contrato de compraventa y, concretamente, a analizar si las criptomonedas pueden llegar a ser consideradas precio en dicho contrato.

La institución procesal de la res iudicata en el tiempo: Una retrospección histórico-normativa a su origen, evolución y consolidación en el ordenamiento español (Jessica Naranjo Rodríguez)

Abstract:

La previsión legal de una eficacia atribuida a lo juzgado sobre futuros pleitos idénticos o conexos representa una conquista jurídica. Son exigencias derivadas de la seguridad jurídica las que imponen evitar un nuevo proceso sobre lo que judicialmente fue decidido, así como que el resultado de una actividad jurisdiccional previa vincule al juez de otro proceso si aquel es un antecedente lógico de este. La necesidad de evitar una reiteración o contradicción entre pronunciamientos judiciales —que, al fin y al cabo, es a lo que obedece aquellos dos propósitos— se advierte ya Roma, en donde la res iudicata va consolidándose como una institución jurídica que responde a aquellas exigencias concretas y que, en épocas históricas sucesivas, es recibida hasta enraizar normativamente en los diversos ordenamientos jurídicos del continente europeo, como es el caso del ordenamiento español.

El artículo 10.1 del Código penal chileno de 1874: El influjo del modelo español (Nuria Domingo Roig)

Abstract:

En este estudio se propone un análisis comparado de la evolución normativa del trastorno mental transitorio como eximente de responsabilidad penal en España y Chile. Se expone la regulación de los Códigos penales, las similitudes y las diferencias entre países y la evolución doctrinal chilena. Se percibe una gran influencia española en Chile desde el siglo XIX hasta hoy, en el ámbito normativo y doctrinal, pero no se ha utilizado expresamente la formulación de trastorno mental transitorio en la legislación chilena, aunque Chile incorporó esta institución antes que España. Se ha conceptualizado de forma diferente en ambos países.

Book reviews 

• Guillermo Vicente y Guerrero (coordinador), Derechos, mitos y libertades en la formación de la modernidad política en la España contemporánea, Valencia, Tirant Humanidades, 2024, 511 pp. [ISBN 978-84-1183-457-5] (José María Lahoz Finestres)
• Rafael Ramis Barceló y Pedro Ramis Serra, Actos y graduados de la Universidad de Alcalá  (1544-1562), Madrid,  Dykinson, 2024, 707  pp.[ISBN  978-84-1070-387-2]; Rafael  Ramis  Barceló  y  Pedro  Ramis  Sierra, Actos  y  graduados  de  la  Universidad de Alcalá (1523-1544), Madrid, Dykinson, 2020, 563pp.[ISBN 978-84-1377-018-5] (José María Lahoz Finestres) 
• Luka Breneselović, Die wissenschaftskritischen Zuordnungen von Franz von Liszt. Ein Beitrag zum Verständnis der Modernen Schule des Strafrechts, Duncker & Humblot, Berlín, 2020, 583 pp. [ISBN: 978-3-428-15978-9] (José Franco-Chasán)
• Juan Javier del Granado y Felipe Westermeyer, Common law y Equity: derroteros de la tradición jurídica de Occidente, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México –Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, México, 2024, 181 pp.+ XXI[ISBN 978-607-30-8810-7 (libro electrónico)] (Francisco Cuena Boy)
• Srđan Šarkić, A History of Serbian Mediaeval Law, Brill, Leiden, 2023, 616 pp. + XIV [ISBN: 978-90-04-54385-0] (Paolo Angelini)
• Dirk Heirbaut, Redefining Codification. A Comparative History of Civil, Commercial, and Procedural Codes, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2025, 462 pp. [ISBN: 9780198947370.001.0001] (José Franco-Chasán)
• Erika Prado Rubio, Aproximación histórico-jurídica a los crímenes de lesa humanidad, Dykinson, Madrid, 2024, 189 pp. [ISBN: 9788410708679] (Manuela Fernández Rodríguez)
• Antonio Bádenas Zamora, Las tentativas para abolir la pena de muerte en la España de Isabel II (1833-1868), Dykinson S.L., Madrid, 2025, 153 pp. [979-13-7006-119-7] (Gabriela C. Cobo del Rosal Pérez)
• Aniceto Masferrer, El adulterio en la codificación penal española: contribución del Tribunal Supremo y su doctrina legal a su proceso configurador (1870-1978), Editorial Aranzadi La Ley, Las Rozas de Madrid, 2024, 298 pp. [ISBN: 978-84-10308-43-5] (Julián Gómez de Maya)
• Federico Gallegos Vázquez, El reinado de Wamba. Estudio jurídico-institucional del reino visigodo durante el siglo VII, Asociación Veritas para el Estudio de la Historia, el Derecho y las Instituciones, Valladolid, 2025, 277 pp. [ISBN 978-84-09-68968-2] (Leandro Martínez Peñas)
• Ewelina Rogalska, Structures of European Civil Codes, Augsburger Schriften zur Rechtsgeschichte, vol. 43, LIT Verlag, Münster, 2024, 360 pp. [ISBN:978-3-643 91680-8] (José Franco-Chasán)
• Brian Buchhalter Montero, Ideología y proceso en los Anteproyectos de Ley de Enjuiciamiento de Falange (1938), Agencia Estatal Boletín Oficial del Estado, Madrid, 2025, 152 pp. [ISBN: 978-84-340-3088-6] (Patricia Plana de Juan) 
• Aitor Fernández Delgado, El officium legati en época justinianea: un estudio histórico-jurídico, Dykinson, Madrid, 2025, 310 pp. [ISBN: 978-84-1070-804-4] (Álex Corona Encinas)

Informaciones

• Memoria de Don Antonio Pérez Martín (Julián Gómez de Maya)
• V Congreso de la Sociedad Española de Historia del Derecho (Fernando Hernández Fradejas)
• Nuevos profesores titulares y catedráticos de Universidad de Historia del Derecho y de las Instituciones (Fernando Hernández Fradejas)

Entrevistas

• Entrevista a Agustín Bermúdez Aznar (Fernando Hernández Fradejas)

Read all content in open access here.

 

BOOK REVIEW: Laetitia GUERLAIN on La Société de législation comparée. Études sur 150 ans d’histoire, edited by Nicolas Cornu Thénard and Sylvain Soleil (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 343-346

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

The Société de législation comparée (SLC), founded in 1869, is the doyen of learned societies devoted to comparative law, and continues to celebrate its anniversaries, as evidenced by the present volume, prepared on the occasion of its 150th anniversary. This work is part of a well-established process of self-celebration: the SLC began by devoting two volumes to its 50th anniversary, published in 1922, while the festivities organised for its 80th anniversary were reported in the Revue internationale de droit comparé in 1949. Finally, a two-volume Livre du centenaire de la Société de législation comparée was published in 1969. 

Was another volume needed to review the history of this now well-known society? Beyond the texts published on the occasion of its anniversaries, the historiography devoted to the history of comparative law in France is now rich. To illustrate this, let us mention three recent publications: Le droit comparé au xxie siècle, a book published in 2015 that includes discussion of the SLC; Yannick Falélavaki's PhD dissertation on legal comparatism, defended in 2016; and a volume of the legal history journal Clio@Themis dedicated to the history of comparative law, published in 2017. To these three examples could be added a substantial number of papers, dealing with more specific aspects of the history of comparative law. While the book does not revolutionise the state of our knowledge, it does make a valuable contribution to the history of comparative law in two respects: not only do the proposed articles interrogate in detail the history of the SLC, they also address the more recent, lesser-known periods.

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

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580111

BOOK REVIEW: Emily KADENS on La dynamique juridique des réseaux marchands: Hanses, nations, agences, filiales et comptoirs, edited by Luisa Brunori (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2 (December), pp. 318-323)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

This collection of essays, as Luisa Brunori’s introduction explains, explores the legal landscape of merchant institutions from the medieval to the modern periods. The book, which is the third component of the PHEDRA project (‘Pour une Histoire Européenne du DRoit des Affaires’), originates from a colloquium held in Lille (France) in November 2021. A central thesis of the project is that commercial law is inherently supra-national and supra-legal. Commercial law, the volume argues, cannot be understood through analysing national systems alone, nor by merely comparing those systems. Instead, one must look to transnational merchant networks, such as Hanses, nations, trading posts, and factors, to study how business norms influenced and were influenced by formal commercial law.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. For further information about the volume on our blog, please visit here

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580114

BOOK REVIEW: William BARBEY on Elgar encyclopedia of comparative law edited by Jan M. Smits, Jaakko Husa, Catherine Valcke and Madalena Narciso (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 2)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Reviewing a collective work, an encyclopaedia no less, is not an easy task. How do you start your reading? Is one supposed to read it from cover to cover, from the first to the last entry in the order of print? Or is one to focus on the most important entries (and in that case how does one select them)? Put in another way: how can a single reviewer do justice to the work of more than 200 eminent scholars?

I once read that in order to criticise a book, you do not have to read all of it: like the cooking of a steak, one bite is all it takes to tell if the chef was off his game. Nonetheless if the dish is properly made, and if you enjoy even your greens, you will probably be more than tempted to order a pudding.

Not entirely sure of the merit of such a method, I narrowed down a few entries (as if selecting from a menu) according to my own fields of interests (eg ‘comparative jurisprudence’, ‘legal families’, ‘legal history and comparative law’, ‘codification’, ‘estoppel’, ‘trust law’, ‘subjective right(s)’) and out of curiosity (eg ‘Islamic law’, ‘gift’, ‘Iceland’). And so, I dived right into it – just to see if it would satisfy my appetite.

After a while, the many cross-references guided me towards more and more new entries I had at first neglected. And being in the habit to look up words in a (printed) dictionary only to forget the one word I was looking for in the first place (having encountered numerous more interesting definitions in the meantime), I ended being quite astray from my original path, transported to other times and other places: ‘Constitutional Court (Germany)’, ‘lex mercatoria’, ‘Europe small jurisdictions (Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco)’, ‘supervening events and force majeure’.

For a scholar, to be lost in the material is not a curse but a gift. It is the very essence of comparative research: discovering and revealing connections between per se unrelated themes or jurisdictions. One has to be curious and willing to confront oneself to unknown territories (‘it is simply impossible to master all methods that are needed in order to explore all the law at all times and places’, writes Agustín Parise, vol 1, 359). Above all it demands to go beyond one’s comfort zone.

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

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2580119

REMINDER ONLINE SEMINAR: Journal Comparative Legal History - Dialogues on Customary Law - 5 NOV 2025: 17:00-18:00 (CET) [TEAMS]

 

Comparative Legal History

Dialogues on Customary Law

5 November 2025 – 17:00-18:00hs (CET)

The journal Comparative Legal History is an official academic forum of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. Based in Europe, it welcomes contributions that explore law in different times and jurisdictions from across the globe. Submissions are currently welcome and are being assessed on a rolling basis.

The journal will host a one-hour public session to discuss customary law in the context of comparative legal history. Editors (past and present) will present exploratory points, and all attendees will be invited to join in a general discussion.

Customary laws were prevalent in Europe during the Middle Ages. In recent years there has been a resurgence in research projects concerning customary laws, and a number of questions need to be raised. To what extent are customary laws something that still needs to be studied? To what extent customary laws ought to be taught at universities to complement core modules such as family law, the laws of inheritance and property law to frame these topics in their historical context? To what extent is there merit in having journals and monograph series concentrate on comparative customary law? How should studies be undertaken? These, and other questions will be explored during this public session.

The event is free and open to the public, and it will take place via Teams.

Registration is required by sending an email to clhdialogues@gmail.com.

BOOK REVIEW: Rotem GILADI on Nazi antisemitism and Jewish legal self-defense: the turn to law in liberal democracies, 1932–39 by David Fraser (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 1 (June), pp. 169-173)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Jewish turns to law – whether as a profession, a means of social mobility and integration, or a venue where emancipatory claims could be formulated or put forward to negotiate the challenges of modernity – remain largely unexplored in legal-historical research. There is no denying the rich insights displayed by biographies, prosopographies, institutional histories, and works focusing on particular case studies written over the past three decades or so; yet browsing through the catalogues of Jewish personal or institutional archives recording the past two centuries reveals that this richness serves to obfuscate many more lives (in particular of those who have not reached the status of luminaries), associations, foci of advocacy, legal strategies, court cases, or lawmaking enterprises. At the same time, studies of Jewish legal responses to the rise of National Socialism have recently inclined towards international law, international institutions, and international advocacy action. While certain episodes of Jewish legal activism at the national level are well-documented, many others remain under-researched (9).

David Fraser’s meticulously researched comparative legal history represents an important contribution to these lacunas in the extant literature. It narrates not only a range of what may be described as Jewish ‘legal self-defence’ across various jurisdictions but also how Jewish individuals and institutions communicated across national borders to share information, knowledge and advice when responding to the rise of the antisemitism of the 1930s. Throughout the book, action and reaction are juxtaposed to frame Jewish legal advocacy as a local, but also inter- and trans-national, response to a local and inter- and trans-national threat. To that end, Fraser first carefully recreates the thick socio-political contexts, discourses, and imaginations of Catholic police officers, conservative nationalists, journalists, army veterans, fringe and mainstream politicians, and professionals of the ‘Antisemitic international’ (11) to foreground a ‘socio-legal comparative history of … Jewish attempts in the 1930s “Anglosphere” to counter the rise in fascist and Nazi antisemitism’ (1). To that end, the first two chapters (2–3) provide a convenient, compact comparative survey of some of the features of the ‘Antisemitic international’: its tropes, texts – in particular, the Protocols of the Elders of Zion – German ties, circulation, agents, the networks they formed, and their modus operandi. These chapters also reflect on the challenges, choices, and pitfalls of Jewish legal resistance in jurisdictions outside the Anglosphere.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. For further information about the volume on our blog, please visit here.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2500220

BOOK REVIEW: Mateusz BIECZYŃSKI on Artistic canons and legal protection: developing policies to preserve, administer and trade artworks in 19th-century Rome and Athens by Chiara Mannoni (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 1 (June), pp. 164-169)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Chiara Mannoni’s Artistic Canons and Legal Protection: Developing Policies to Preserve, Administer and Trade Artworks in 19th-Century Rome and Athens offers an exploration of the interplay between law, culture, and art during a transformative historical period. Focusing on two pivotal European cities, Rome and Athens, Mannoni argues that nineteenth-century legal frameworks were not merely reactive to the burgeoning art market but actively shaped the artistic canonsFootnote1 they aimed to safeguard. Her analysis bridges legal and art history, providing a fresh perspective on how laws influenced both the preservation of national heritage and the circulation of art within an evolving international market.

The book consists of an introduction, three chapters, and a conclusion. Each chapter presents a different aspect of the trade in antiquities and the legal restrictions imposed upon it, following a chronological order. The first chapter focuses on protective legislation, with particular emphasis on the significance of the Chirografo Chiaramonti (1802), an Act that introduced early preventive measures to regulate the export of antiquities and established the groundwork for cultural heritage protection in the Papal States, and the Edict Pacca (1834), which expanded these protections by introducing stricter controls on the removal and sale of cultural artifacts, emphasising the public interest in preserving Rome’s historical legacy. Both were designed to safeguard the cultural heritage of Rome. Similarly, the Gesetz of 1834 for Greece marked an important milestone in codifying legal protections for antiquities, aiming to prevent the widespread looting and unauthorised export of Greece’s rich archaeological heritage. Chapter two examines administrative chronicles, detailing the practical application of these legal measures within the Papal States, Athens, and the Greek provinces. Finally, in the third chapter, the author moves on to analyse the practices surrounding the trade of ancient artworks in both territorial contexts, discussing their influence on the shaping of the European art market and aesthetic preferences.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. For further information about the volume on our blog, please visit here.

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2500219

ONLINE SEMINAR: Journal Comparative Legal History - Dialogues on Customary Law - 5 NOV 2025: 17:00-18:00 (CET) [TEAMS]

 

Comparative Legal History

Dialogues on Customary Law

5 November 2025 – 17:00-18:00hs (CET)

The journal Comparative Legal History is an official academic forum of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. Based in Europe, it welcomes contributions that explore law in different times and jurisdictions from across the globe. Submissions are currently welcome and are being assessed on a rolling basis.

The journal will host a one-hour public session to discuss customary law in the context of comparative legal history. Editors (past and present) will present exploratory points, and all attendees will be invited to join in a general discussion.

Customary laws were prevalent in Europe during the Middle Ages. In recent years there has been a resurgence in research projects concerning customary laws, and a number of questions need to be raised. To what extent are customary laws something that still needs to be studied? To what extent customary laws ought to be taught at universities to complement core modules such as family law, the laws of inheritance and property law to frame these topics in their historical context? To what extent is there merit in having journals and monograph series concentrate on comparative customary law? How should studies be undertaken? These, and other questions will be explored during this public session.

The event is free and open to the public, and it will take place via Teams.

Registration is required by sending an email to clhdialogues@gmail.com.

BOOK REVIEW: Lyndsay CAMPBELL on English law, the legal profession, and colonialism: histories, parallels, and influences edited by Cerian Griffiths and Łukasz Jan Korporowicz (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 1, June, pp. 150-153)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Originating in and building on a 2021 conference, this collection contributes to the growing literature on the histories of empire, focusing on the movement of English law and the history of the legal profession in the colonial context. It features chapters from scholars around the world at a whole range of career stages. The conclusion, by Cerian Griffiths and Łukasz Jan Korporowicz, indicates that the project is an attempt to tug British Empire history into the theoretical orbit of European-style Global Legal History, to shed light on a field that ‘has traditionally been the poor relation to its civil law cousin’ (258) and to present research on the ‘early modern and modern eras which often receive less interest than medieval historical studies’ (259). I had to chew on these statements for a bit, and also the omission, in the same paragraph, of the forty-six-year-old Osgoode Society for Canadian Legal History from the editors’ list of academic associations that have contributed to the development of the history of the common law world over the past 40 years (Canada is mostly absent from the book, which perhaps explains this omission). In any case, although at least in theory Global Legal History seems to purport to do everything, a single collection cannot. More importantly, I take it that the editors’ point is to underline the focus on the mobility of law and people, to look beyond the nation and the local in our questions and approaches.

English Law, the Legal Profession, and Colonialism opens with a helpful introduction by Michael Lobban, who describes the book's major thematic preoccupations, including how legal ideas travelled within the British Empire (between the ‘centre’ and the ‘periphery’ and also among colonies), the tension between authoritarianism and liberalism, and how that tension wove through conceptions of the nature and purpose of the rule of law, given that the law and legal principles that travelled around the empire landed in places that were unlike England, to varying degrees and in various ways. The chapters that follow, although somewhat uneven in readability, direct our attention not only to public law and notable juridical personalities but also to the network of personal and commercial relationships – structured through legal rights and principles – that were so crucial to the decisions individual people made in shaping legality in the British Empire.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. For further information about the volume on our blog, please visit here

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2500210

BOOK REVIEW: Ron HARRIS on An empire of laws: legal pluralism in British colonial policy by Christian R. Burset (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 1, June, pp. 146-149)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

Christian Burset’s first book, An Empire of Laws, is brilliant. It should be of particular interest to the readers of this journal, as it makes an important addition to the theoretical toolkit available to comparative legal historians. The book explores Britain’s legal policy at a crucial time in the history of the British Empire. During and following the Seven Years’ War (1756–63), Britain expanded its Empire. Hitherto, most of the British colonies were settled by British farmers and plantation and slave owners, which brought about an opportunity for the English common law to be received in the colonies. However, these new territories were formerly ruled by the Spanish, French, or Mughal Empires. Accordingly, the question arose as to whether the common law should be extended to these newly acquired colonies, notwithstanding that they were not settled by English immigrants in large numbers, or at all. Should the new colonial rulers maintain the pre-existing legal systems of these colonies? Alternatively, should a mixture of the differing legal systems be implemented? Thirteen years later, Britain lost many of its former settler colonies in the American War of Independence. At this juncture, much of the Empire was not comprised of British settlers, and imperial legal policy became a major issue. Burset makes a significant scholarly contribution by explaining the background and the issues at stake in this formative period, 1760-1780.

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

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2500209

BOOK REVIEW: Joshua GETZLER, on The making of modern property: reinventing Roman law in Europe and its peripheries 1789–1950 by Anna di Robilant (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 1, June, pp. 138-145)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

In this ambitious monograph Anna di Robilant describes how European jurists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries drew from the doctrines of Roman classical law and ius commune traditions in order to craft a new ‘Romanist-bourgeois’ form of property. She shows how a succession of gifted scholars steeped in Roman legal tradition produced a concept of property as dominium or absolute command, designed to secure the widest possible control of resources by individual owners. The hallmark of this dominium was the power to assign and dispose of assets as expressions of subjective right grounded in the free will of the autonomous owner. This juridical project of Romanist-bourgeois property joined to an ideological inheritance drawn from idealist philosophy (Kant, Hegel) and political economy (Smith, the Physiocrats), according to which a person’s interests were best expressed by choice of conduct in relation to external things and persons, yielding property and obligations as the basic legal building blocks of society. Each of these streams of liberal thought – the legal, the philosophical, and the economic – emphasized the benign operation and interaction of the wills of autonomous actors who could, within the guidance of a modernised legal order, constitute a cooperative society based on voluntary relations between equals. On di Robilant’s account, Romanist-bourgeois property as individualised dominium was not only projected as a positive contribution to freedom in a well-ordered society; it was also an act of creative destruction, aiming to clear away illiberal obstacles left over from the past. Romanist-bourgeois property would dissolve or displace the older feudal forms of holding that were associated with hierarchy, inequality, domination, and inefficiency, and permit the forces of capital and labour to interact with utmost freedom and rationality. Like modern economic analysts of the law today, Roman-bourgeois theory appealed to a lofty sense of autonomy, allied to a yen for efficiency and prosperity.

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

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2500208

BOOK REVIEW: Francesco SERPICO on Current trends in the historiography of inquisitions: themes and comparisons, edited by Irene Bueno, Vincenzo Lavenia and Riccardo Parmeggiani (Comparative Legal History, XIII (2025), nr. 1, June, pp. 132-137)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

The International Research Centre on the Inquisitions (INQUIRE) was established in 2020 at the Department of History and Culture at the University of Bologna. With an interdisciplinary methodological approach and free from nationalistic paradigms, the centre aims to promote the study of the Inquisitions by organising conferences, seminars and workshops, sponsor publications and editions of sources in digital formats, strengthen international collaboration, encourage comparisons and facilitate dialogue between researchers. The opening volume in the new series promoted by INQUIRE, which consists of contributions collected during the first annual conference with the addition of two further papers, endeavours to provide a complete overview of the main historiographical themes of the last decades of the medieval and modern Inquisitions in 18 chapters.

For any scholar researching the subject of the Inquisitions, there is always the risk of disorientation and confusion when faced with the quantity of works produced. It would be difficult to make even a rough estimate of the number of contributions that have analysed the structure and function of the inquisitorial tribunals throughout their centuries-old journey (from the Middle Ages to the present) and their immense geographical diffusion (a network that at its peak stretched from Rome to Madrid, from Mexico to Chile and from Brazil to the Indian shores). For this reason, the studies that address the bibliographical and historiographical aspects and focus on discerning the main lines of interpretation constitute a challenge for those who produce these works.

To read the full review, please click here. Online access is free for members of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. For further information about the volume on our blog, please visit here

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2500207

BOOK REVIEW: Manuel BASTIAS SAAVEDRA on The Cambridge history of Latin American law in global perspective, edited by Thomas Duve and Tamar Herzog, and A companion to Latin American legal history, edited by Matthew C. Mirow and Victor Uribe-Uran (Comparative Legal History XIII (2025) nr. 1, June, pp. 112-122)

(Image source: Taylor&Francis)

There has been an increasing interest in the legal history of Latin America in recent decades. Largely restricted to law faculties and considered to be the domain of legal scholars until the late twentieth century, since the early 2000s legal history has steadily become an established research field in the context of a wider historiography concerned with questions of colonialism and empire, race and status, slavery and labour, Indigenous peoples, nation and state-building, among others.

Many parallel developments can arguably account for this. One longer-term development has been the influence that prominent legal historians, such as Paolo Grossi, Víctor Tau Anzoátegui, Michael Stolleis, António Manuel Hespanha, and Bartolomé Clavero, have had in rejuvenating the field, not only through their works but mainly through their students and adherents, who have come to occupy positions in both history and law departments and have driven the emergence of a new legal history in the Latin American context. Another somewhat parallel development was the interest that social and ethnohistorians – mostly in Latin America and the United States of America – were taking to the use of judicial archives and sources, promoting what has been alternatively called sociolegal history and history of justice. Finally, a more recent development worth mentioning was the appointment in 2009 of Thomas Duve as director of the Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte, which gave one of the world’s leading legal historical institutions a global historical agenda with regional focus on Latin America and encouraged both scholarly output and networking in the field.

The publication in 2024 of the two edited volumes that are the subject of this review can be seen as confirmation of this trend. But it also marks an inflection point in the historiography of law in Latin America, since what had been developing through the discrete accumulation of research across two decades has now become a field that is engaging in critical self-reflection about its objectives, methods, aims, and its future.

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

DOI: 10.1080/2049677X.2025.2500187

CALL FOR PAPERS: Ius Commune in the Making: Meaning in Law [Ius Commune Workshop on Comparative Legal History] (Amsterdam: UvA, 27 NOV 2025) [DEADLINE 1 AUG 2025]

 

Ius Commune Workshop on Comparative Legal History

Ius Commune in the Making: Meaning in Law

27 November 2025

 

(Amsterdam door Robinson, Joseph - 1807 - The Royal Library: The National Library of Denmark and Copenhagen University Library, Denmark - CC BY-NC-ND; source: Europeana).

The 29th Ius Commune Conference will take place in Amsterdam (27-28 November 2025), and a Workshop will be devoted to “Meaning in Law.”

 

The workshops on “Comparative Legal History – Ius Commune in the Making” aim to reveal and understand the nature and effects of various legal formants in the development of law. Indeed, forces of legal formants are too often lost or hidden beneath a superficies of commonalities. History is a living laboratory. In the past, we explored the role of legal actors (2014), legal sources (2016), force of local laws (2017), methods and dynamics of law (2018), networks (2019), paradigmatic shifts (2020), great debates in the history of law (2021), the concept of innovation in law (2023), and manifestations of nature in law (2024).

 

This upcoming workshop is dedicated to the different conceptions of “meaning” in law. What is understood by meaning? On a working level, it may be taken up as “interpretation” of rules or juridical acts, or as “qualification” of facts. There it provides for a wide realm of comparative historical research. It does cover in essence everything, concerning individual and societal intention and action - and whatever over time is part of the legal domain. Legal methodology is just around the corner, and so is political philosophy - to any individual person, or to institutions such as legislators, judges, and professors. To get to the meaning of a legislative, judicial, or jurisprudential norm: why are some schools of thought, such as textualism, originalism, contextualism, or sociological jurisprudence, preferred over others?

 

Maxims or principles enlighten the cobbled roads towards meaning in law. In claris cessat interpretatio - if words are clear, interpretation stops; even so: though the Praetor’s edict could be perfectly clear, still its interpretation should not be neglected, Ulpian makes clear (D 25.4.1.11). Matters not dealt with in law, may be derived by analogy - Julian (D 1.3.12) - if such makes sense in the light of what has been prescribed. At the same time, concepts may have a range of consecutive (legal history) and parallel (comparative law) meanings in the legal domain - even in the same society or jurisdiction. Contracts have been similarly understood based on texts or contexts; understanding contracts gave birth to similar maxims, which methodological toolboxes show, albeit with large differences, both of the civil law and the common law traditions. The meaning of a rule or a fact is, however, not only determined by the method of logical and/or empirical reasoning - but also by (tradition of) explicit consensus, customs, and religion. Is there a hierarchy? In any way - all modes of finding and justification of meaning are interrelated, react and overlap, and ultimately may contribute. Traditional customs, specifically proven, meeting rational standards and natural, canonical aequitas might not only be accepted, but might even trump mandatory statutes; natural aequitas similarly might give birth to an actio utilis where traditional and consensual law did not. What is meaning in law? Certainty too often seems to be in contemporary law the prime virtue. It is not. There is hierarchy here. In the quest for a good life, veritas and fides have more important seats at the table - always headed by the bright sun of justice.

 

Senior researchers and PhD candidates are invited to submit an abstract of a paper related to the above-mentioned theme. Abstracts (max. 400 words) should be sent to Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl) no later than 1 August 2025. Shortly after that, the authors will be informed whether their papers are selected for a presentation during the Workshop. All contributions should be in English. Co-authored papers will be also considered. The organizing committee will give preference to early-career researchers when facing submissions of similar quality.

 

Researchers from within and outside the Ius Commune Research School will be eligible to present abstracts. Please also forward this call to colleagues who might be interested.

 

Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact a member of the organizing committee,

Harry Dondorp (j.h.dondorp@vu.nl)

Wouter Druwé (wouter.druwe@kuleuven.be)

Michael Milo (j.m.milo@uu.nl)

Pim Oosterhuis (janwillem.oosterhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl)