NOTICE: The Lawbook Exchange and the Corpus Iuris Civilis

The Lawbook Exchange has published the Standard Critical Edition of the Corpus Iuris Civilis in three volumes.

Their entry reads:

Reprint of the standard edition of the Corpus Juris Civilis and the basis for all modern English translations. Originally published from 1872 to 1895, this is one of the finest examples of German philology and legal scholarship. In this edition, sometimes called the "Berlin Edition," Krueger edited the Institutes, Mommsen edited the Digest; the Code and Novels were edited by Schoell and Kroll.

Commissioned by the Emperor Justinian in 530 CE, the body of writings known collectively as the Corpus Juris Civilis reformed, restated and preserved Roman law. Its subsequent influence on European and international jurisprudence is difficult to overestimate. It has four components. The Code is the reformed legal system. The Institutes is an elementary textbook about it. The Digest is a collection of commentary by leading jurisconsults. The Novels is a compilation of laws and amendments subsequent to the Code.

FIRST ANNIVERSARY OF THE ESCLH

The European Society for Comparative Legal History, founded on 5 December 2009 (St Nicholas' Eve) in The Hague, recently celebrated its first anniversary.

Over the past twelve months, we established this blog, held a very successful inaugural conference, and launched a collective project on Western legal traditions with the Ius Commune Casebook Series and Hart Publishing.

It's been a good year.

We want to thank all of those who have helped with our work and invite anyone who hasn't already become a member to do so now.

OFFER: Hart Publishing Discount for Comparative Law Blog Readers

Members should know about the following generous standing offer from Hart Publishing for Comparative Law Blog readers:
Hart Publishing is delighted to offer readers of the comparativelawblog 20% discount on their comparative law titles. To receive the discount on any comparative law book please quote reference ‘CLB’ when placing your order. If you are ordering online then please quote the reference in the special instructions field. Please note that the discount will not show up on your order confirmation but will be applied when your order is processed.

Call for Papers: 2011 Meeting of the American Society for Legal History

Call for Papers: 2011 Meeting of the American Society for Legal History

The 2011 meeting of the American Society for Legal History will be in Atlanta, Georgia, November 10-13, 2011. The ASLH invites proposals on any facet or period of legal history, anywhere in the world. In selecting presenters, the Program Committee will give preference to those who did not present at last year’s meeting. Among the people selected to present, limited financial assistance will be available for those in need—with special priority given to graduate students and post-docs, as well as scholars traveling from abroad.


Proposals for both panels and individual papers are welcome. As concerns panels, the Program Committee encourages the submission of a variety of different types of proposals, including:

• classical 3-paper panels (with a separate commentator and chair)
• incomplete 2-paper panels (with a separate commentator and chair), which the Committee will complete with at least 1 more paper
• panels of 4 or more papers (with a separate commentator and chair)
• author-meets-reader panels
• roundtable discussions

Panel proposals should include the following:

• A 300-word description of the panel
• A c.v. for each presenter (including complete contact info)
• In the case of paper-based panels only, a 300-word abstract of each paper (as well as a draft of the paper, if possible)

Individual paper proposals should include:

• A c.v. for each presenter (including complete contact info)
• A 300-word abstract of each paper (as well as a draft of the paper, if possible)

The deadline for submitting proposals is February 28, 2011. Proposals should be sent as email attachments to Amalia Kessler, at akessler@law.stanford.edu.

Those unable to send proposals as email attachments may mail hard copies to:

2011 ASLH Program Committee
c/o Amalia Kessler
Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Stanford, CA 94305-8610
U.S.A.

NOTICE: Leiter Poll on the Best US Law Faculties in Legal History

Professor Thomas P Gallanis has brought an interesting online poll to our attention. The poll is being conducted by law professor Brian Leiter on the best US law faculties in the area of legal history.

See http://leiterlawschool.typepad.com/leiter/2010/11/best-law-school-faculties-in-legal-history-the-poll.html

Perhaps we should organise a similar poll here ...

NOTICE: SOLON's Crimes and Misdemeanours becomes Law, Crime and History

I received the following message today from SOLON:

Dear All

when we launched the SOLON e-journal, Crimes and Misdemeanours, back in 2007, we had wanted to indicate through the title that this was a journal which was not just about crime - but even though we have always published material (think of some of the debate pieces!) that are more general law and history, it has become plain in the last year that the title has stood in the way of people offering us work, because some have not picked up (as we had hoped) on the 'Misdemeanours' element - after all, it does have a rather mixed meaning especially for an American audience, and we are an international network, especially now.

So after a great deal of agonising (especially over the new title), we have decided that the time has come to retitle the e-journal, laying Crimes and Misdemeanours gratefully to rest, and replacing it with a more straightforward, more inclusive title. So, the SOLON e-journal now becomes:

LAW, CRIME AND HISTORY

Having made that decision, we also debated again over whether there should be a final issue of Crimes and Misdemeanours, but it seemed more sensible, especially as several of the pieces in hand for it fitted better with the new title, to bury the old title immediately, and start 2011 afresh, publishing the first issue of Law, Crime and History in January 2011, so that it will be out in good time in advance of our next big confence, the 2nd Biennial War Crimes Conference (Justice - Whose Justice) in March at our usual London venue, IALS; permitting the conference report on that to come out in the summer. The second issue will be in good time for our next big conference of next year - Crime, Violence and the Modern State III (Law, Order and Individual Rights - Theory, Intent and Practice): in September at the Universite Lyon Lumiere, again permitting that conference report to feature in the next issue....

So LAW, CRIME AND HISTORY will appear for the first time in January 2011, with articles, debate piece, conference report and also, we hope some contributions from members of the network discussing what they are working on, as one of the things that SOLON wishes to do is to promote international as well as local interdisciplinary collaboration.

The broad intent of the e-journal remains the same: it will still be free to access and download, it remains a peer reviewed journal, and we are happy to publish both short pieces (including work in progress) and long pieces, as with Rob Falconer's article in what will now be the final issue under the old title. We look to publishing interesting and interdisciplinary papers, particularly welcoming those with a historical perspective (which is not the same as a historical chronology - a historical perspective or methodology is one which looks at even current and ongoing developments from the point of questioning why its happening this way, and not another....). We do hope that you will all consider submitting work to us, and that you will continue to read and support SOLON's e-journal under this new title!

Best

The Directors

(Kim Stevenson, Judith Rowbotham, Zoe James, Richard Williams, Lorie Charlesworth, George Mair, David Nash, Ann-Marie Kilday, Cassie Watson, Sarah Wilson, Samantha Pegg)

CALL FOR PAPERS: East Meets West: A Gendered View of Legal Tradition (10-12 March 2011)

The following information was posted recently on the Legal History Blog:

East Meets West: A Gendered View of Legal Tradition

Posted by Dan Ernst

Recently posted is a call for papers on gender and European legal history, which is important both for the conference it heralds and for news of the network of scholars that is organizing it.

The conference is "East Meets West: A Gendered View of Legal Tradition." It will be the sixth conference of the research network Gender Difference in the History of European Legal Cultures. It will be held at the Central European University in March 10-12, 2011. It is sponsored by the university's departments of Gender Studies, History, Legal Studies, and Medieval Studies.

Submit abstracts before December 15, 2010, to a member of the organizing committee: Dr. Grethe Jacobsen, Royal Library, Copenhagen, Denmark, gja@kb.dk; Prof. em. Dr. Heide Wunder, Bad Nauheim, Germany, dhwunder@t-online.de; Dr. Gerhard Jaritz, Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, Hungary, jaritzg@ceu.hu The organizers promise to send out responses by January 2011.

The "geographical frame" of the conference is "a global perspective with a basis in European legal cultures and with a special focus on Eastern Europe." Its chronological frame is from the Early Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century. The conference language is English.

The organizers have announced three themes: (1) "Gendered Legal Cultures: Theories and Methods"; (2) Gender, Community and Law, including property rights and economic influence, gendered work roles and guild membership, labour movements and the state; and (3) "Migration and competing legal cultures - towards a global perspective. " Presentations may take the form of papers, workshop presentations or panel discussions. The organizers stress that presenters should leave "plenty of room for discussion."

Here is the call's interesting description of the sponsoring "network" and its history:

The European network was founded at a conference entitled ‘gender difference in European law/Geschlechterdifferenz in europäischen Recht’ held at the Max-Planck-Institut für europäische Rechtsgeschichte, Frankfurt, Germany, in February 2000 and organized by Heide Wunder, then professor at Kassel University. The network was named “Geschlechterdifferenz in europäischen Rechtskreisen / Gender differences in European legal cultures” at first but has since changed name to the international network “Gender Differences in the History of European Legal Cultures”.

The first conference has since been followed by four conferences held around Europe. The second conference took place at the Centro per gli studi storici italo-germanici, University of Trent, Italy, in October 2002, under the title ‘Il coste delle nozze/der Preis des Heiratens‘ and organized by professors Silvana Seidel Menchi and Diego Quaglioni. At the closing of this conference the theme of the third conference was agreed to be ‘Less Favored - More Favored: Gender in European Legal History, 12th - 19th Centuries / Benachteiligt - begünstigt: Geschlecht in der Europäischen Rechtsgeschichte, 12. - 19. Jahrhundert.’ This conference took place at the Royal Library, Copenhagen, in September 2004 and was organized by dr. phil. Grethe Jacobsen, professor Inger Dübeck and (then) Ph.D. candidate Helle Vogt. The fourth conference, at the Institute of Mediterranean Studies, Rethymno, Crete, in September 2006, had as its theme ‘Gender, family and property in legal theory and practice: The European perspective from the 10th to the 20th century’ and was organized by professor Aglaia Kasdagli.

At the conclusion of this conference the themes for the fifth conference was decided to be 1) Gender constructions in non-juridical discourses and their impact on jurisprudence and jurisdiction; 2) Comparing legal cultures: Differences and similarities, concepts and methods; and 3) Gendered legal cultures in global perspective: Encounters and conflicts, transfers and interactions. The fifth conference was held in Frankfurt and organized by Dr. Karin Gottschalk, Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It had as its title ‘New Perspectives on Gender and Legal History: European Traditions and the Challenge of Global History’.

The network has its roots in the current flowering, often gendered, research in European Legal history, found in several European countries. The organizers of the conference have been especially committed to bring together young scholars and established scholars from all areas of Europe in the hope that it will inspire them to include a gendered perspective in their research and also situating their work in a broad European context. The search for common traits across chronological and geographical borders will also reveal which local features are unique and therefore of general interest. As can be seen from the places where the conferences have been held, the network has moved across Europe and away from Western Europe, which traditionally has been the focus for much legal history. The papers from the conferences has covered topics in European legal history ranging in time form the Early Middle Ages to the 20th century, and geographically from Iceland to Turkey. A few papers have dealt with Baltic and Eastern European legal history. However, much more awareness of this research is needed and the organizers expect that by placing the next conference in Budapest we will attract papers as well as scholars dealing with these topics

How did we miss this?

NOTICE: Colonies and Postcolonies of Law Conference (18 March 2011)

I just received information on the following:

COLONIES AND POSTCOLONIES OF LAW
History Department, Princeton University Friday, March 18th 2011


The conference addresses the centrality of law in the construction of colonial rule. We aim to examine how colonial law emerged as colonialists interacted with diverse populations in the colonies. The study of the relationship between law and colonialism has taken two broad trajectories.

On one hand, scholars have highlighted how law provided the instruments for the creation of the colonial state, allowing it to exercise a vast amount of power in restructuring the colony. Conversely, law opened up avenues of resistance for colonized populations. This conference aims to go beyond this dichotomy by focusing on law as a site of constant negotiation which produced new forms of bureaucracy and documentation practices. As colonial legal systems cast long shadows and formed the bedrock of the national legal systems today, this conference will also examine how these colonial legal regimes influence postcolonial nations. The last few years has seen a growth of interest in colonial legal history to which this conference hopes to contribute by bringing junior scholars together in conversation.

NYU Professor of History Lauren Benton will deliver a keynote address at the conference.

Sub themes

Defining Legality: Criminals, Outlaws and Rebels - New categories of legality emerged during the colonial period such that criminals and rebels became interchangeable notions. What makes a ‘rebel’ and a ‘criminal’? What counts as evidence of a crime? How were penal regimes created? How did colonial regimes contribute to the construction of the international laws of war and human rights?

Competing Legitimacies: Religious Law and Colonial Authority - The colonial state grappled with existing legal systems in the colony. Some systems were delegitimized while others were bolstered under the purview of colonial rule. By privileging certain forms of legitimacy, colonial states challenged traditional norms and institutions such as customary rights and religious laws. Why were certain legal systems granted legitimacy under the colonial rule? How did certain religious texts and figures emerge as more authoritative than others? How did the process of translation change understandings of key religious concepts? What forms of tensions were created between traditional authorities and the emerging modern legal profession in the colony?

Private Lives and Public Law - The modern colonial state crafted new boundaries between the public and private. For example, colonial projects of social reform transformed marital and kinship relations. How did the colonial legal regime come to delineate the private and the public sphere? How did colonized populations engage with this process of delineation? How did the changing legal order affect colonial subjects, in particular women, who often emerged as the sites for legal reform? Did postcolonial nations adopt colonial legal conceptions of the private and public spheres?

Constructing Borders - Colonial law demanded certainty of boundaries and jurisdiction, yet it operated within a plural legal order and had limited capacity to police frontiers. How were legal borders fixed? How did colonial populations choose between competing forums granted by neighboring jurisdictions? How did the emergence of the postcolonial nations complicate colonial mapping and jurisdictional jostling?

Law and Capital - The centrality of trade and capital to the colonial project is increasingly overshadowed by cultural and social histories. Law, in the form of land revenue, forest laws and mercantile regulations, was in fact, central to the economic project of the colonial state. Can law be used to bring economic histories in conversation with the social and cultural? What economic practices came to be legitimized with the colonial reordering of the economy? How did colonial law engage with older kinship based mercantile networks such as those of the Arabs, Chinese, Parsis and Marwaris?

Paper proposals should include a title, a 350-word abstract, institutional affiliation and contact information. Please submit proposals to coloniesoflaw@gmail.com by December 15th 2010.

Organizers: Nurfadzilah Yahaya and Rohit De, History Department, Princeton University

NOTICE: Rose on Legal History as an Academic Discipline

Jonathan Rose's 'Studying the Past: The Nature and Development of Legal History as an Academic Discipline' is now available on SSRN:

This paper pursues two themes. First, it argues that there is a commonality between the general interest in the past, the interest of historians, and interest of legal historians. Second, it shows that several ideas about the past commonly appear in all three contexts. In pursuing this themes, the paper begins by reviewing the initial study of past and the emergence of history and legal history in academia. It explores the various reasons that the early historians and later academic historians and legal historians studied the past and the different ways in which they used it. The paper then pursues in more detail the development of Anglo-American legal history as a scholarly tradition. It identifies three types of academic legal history: classical, liberal, and critical and discusses their natures and different uses of the past. Finally, the paper explores the substantial legal history scholarship and its relevance to scholars who are not legal historians. The paper concludes by stressing the importance of studying the legal past.

NOTICE: Irish Legal History Society Autumn Discourse

The Irish Legal History Society has announced details for its Autumn Discourse 2010

Mr Myles Dungan will deliver a paper entitled: “Ruffian Print: United Ireland, Censorship and Jury Packing 1881-1883”.

Mr Dungan is an Irish broadcaster who has presented a number of RTE television and radio programmes. He is also a former Fulbright Fellow and the author of a number of history books, most recently Conspiracy: Irish Political Trials, published in 2009 by the Royal Irish Academy.

Proceedings commence on Friday 12th November 2010 at 5.00 p.m. Tea and coffee will be available from 4.30 p.m.

Venue: The National University of Ireland, 49 Merrion Square, Dublin 2.
Further details about the Irish Legal History Society can be found at www.ilhs.eu

NOTICE: The Irish Legal History Bursary

Funding is available from the Irish Legal History Society for postgraduate students engaged in researching any aspect of Irish legal history.

The Irish Legal History Society was established in 1989 to advance knowledge of the history of Irish law, especially by the publication of original documents and scholarly works relating to the history of Irish law, including its institutions, doctrines and personalities, and the reprinting or editing of works of sufficient rarity or importance.

Up to €1,000 is available annually to subsidise the travelling expenses of postgraduate students undertaking research into Irish legal history.

Applications are now invited for the 2011 Bursary. The closing date for applications for the new round is 30 January 2011. Applicants should download the application form from the Society’s website, http://www.ilhs.eu/scholarships_and_bursaries.asp.

Queries about the Bursary should be directed to Dr. Níamh Howlin (n.howlin@qub.ac.uk) or Dr. Thomas Mohr (thomas.mohr@ucd.ie).

Full details on eligibility for the Bursary, as well as about the Irish Legal History Society and an online membership form, are available at http://www.ilhs.eu/.

NOTICE: New Books From Ashgate Publishing

Christine Corcos of the Law and Humanities Blog recently posted a list of 'new books available or due out soon from Ashgate Publishing'. As the books were also historical, I thought they post them here as well:

• Cathrine O. Frank, Law, Literature, and the Transmission of Culture in England, 1837-1925 (2010)
• Christopher Frank, Master and Servant Law: Chartists, Trade Unions, Radical Lawyers and the Magistracy in England, 1840-1865 (2010)
• Kelly Hager, Dickens and the Rise of Divorce: The Failed Marriage Plot and the Novel Tradition (2010)Henry Ansgar Kelly, Law and Religion in Chaucer's England (2010) (Variorum Collected Studies Series; CS957)
• Dennis R. Klinck, Conscience, Equity and the Court of Chancery in Early Modern England (2010)
• Bridget M. Marshall, The Transatlantic Gothic Novel and the Law, 1790-1860 (January 2011)

Conference Southern African Society of Legal Historians, 17-20 January Stellenbosch

As previously announced the Southern African Society of Legal Historians will hold its Conference in tandem with the Conference of the Society of Law Teachers of Southern Africa (SLTSA) from 17 to 20 January 2011 in Stellenbosch, South Africa. We would like to thank all our colleagues who have expressed an interest in participating in the conference and have sent us their abstracts.

Should you wish to attend the conference, please register for the SLTSA conference which would automatically register you for both conferences. Please send us an e-mail confirming that you have registered to attend the SLTSA Conference and that you are a delegate for the SA Society of Legal Historians Conference.

To register, please visit the website of the Faculty of Law, University of Stellenbosch at www.sun.ac.za/law , click on the “SLTSA Conference 2011” link and follow the given instructions. The standard registration fee is payable before 1 November 2010 and the late registration fee is payable before 1 December 2010.

Please book accommodation as soon as possible. Kindly note that University residences will not be available on account of the arrival of the first year students on 21 January 2011. However, there are a number of guest houses and hotels in Stellenbosch.


Should you have any queries, please do not hesitate to contact:
Polina Finney
Secretary and Treasurer
Southern African Society of Legal Historians


Tel: +27 12 429 8408
Fax: +27 12 429 8587
Mobile:+ 27 76 550 6438

NOTICE: Hatzimihail on Barolus and the Conflict of Laws

The Legal History Blog just posted the following on one of our own:

'Bartolus and the Conflict of Laws' is a recent article by Nikitas Hatzimihail, University of Cyprus - Department of Law; Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). It was published in the Revue Hellenique de Droit International (2007). The abstract ends in mid-sentence, unfortunately, but I am posting as is. For more, please download the article:

The treatment of issues pertaining to the personal and territorial reach of local statutes by Italian jurist Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1314-1357) has been widely regarded as foundational to the conflict of laws. This article presents a detailed examination of the Bartolan text and places it in historical and political context. It also establishes a working text and improves on previous English translations.

The article approaches Bartolan thought from two angles. It considers the principal notions in modern doctrinal literature regarding Bartolan and medieval conflict of laws (was Bartolus a unilateralist? did he think in terms of territoriality or personality, form/substance, party autonomy or decisional harmony?). Bartolan doctrine is also examined in terms of structure, systematicity. The legal and political environment of his time: the role of the ius commune and the quest for...

NOTICE: XIV INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MEDIEVAL CANON LAW

XIV INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF MEDIEVAL CANON LAW

Toronto

5–11 August 2012

Call for Papers

The Fourteenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law will be held 5–11 August, 2012, at Saint Michael's College in the University of Toronto, Canada. The program committee invites proposals for papers in any area of Medieval Canon Law, including the following:

Sources and Texts
Canonical Doctrine
Institutions, Legislation, Procedures
Application and Influence
Law, Theology and the Schools

Please include the following information with your proposal:

Your Name and title (Ms./Mr., Dr., Prof., etc)
Your institutional affiliation
The title of your proposed paper
A brief (one paragraph) summary of the proposed paper
Your email address
Your postal address

In addition to individual papers, the program committee will also entertain proposals for special sessions (3 papers) and panel discussions on a particular topic.

The deadline for proposals is August 15, 2011. Proposals (in a PDF file, or in Word or WordPerfect format) should be sent as an email attachments to joe.goering@utoronto.ca. Those unable to send proposals as email attachments may send a hard copy to:

Joe Goering
Department of History
University of Toronto
100 St. George St.
Toronto, ON M5S 3G3
Canada

NOTICE: Journal of European History of Law

The European Society for the History of Law has announced the publication of the first volume of its Journal on European History of Law.

Articles include:

• Foundation of „The European Society for History of Law“
• Entstehung der wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaft „The European Society for History of Law“
• Christian Neschwara: Franz von Zeiller und das Strafrecht
• Gábor Hamza: Das römische Recht und die Privatrechtsentwicklung in Ungarn im Mittelalter
• Balázs Pálvölgyi: Hungarian views on the French proposal to the planned international accord concerning the crimes of political terrorism (1934)
• Stanislav Balík: Brief History of the Constitutional Court of the Czech and Czechoslovak Republic and its role in upholding the rule of law
• Kai Müller: Die Einheit von Wirtschafts- und Sozialpolitik in der Ära Honecker. Anspruch, Realität, Scheitern
• Jaromír Tauchen: „Beneš-Dekrete“ von einer rechtlich historischen Perspektive
• Martin Bermeiser: Die Tschechoslowakei zwischen 1945 und der Mitte der 1960er aus einem deutschen Blickwinkel
• Karel Schelle: Zu den Anfängen der tschechoslowakisch-polnischen Beziehungen
• Vilém Knoll: Legal personality of natural persons in the Czech medieval private law Brief Summary
• Jiří Bílý: The legal position of the Dalmatian merchants in medieval Lübeck
• Renata Veselá: Protektorat Böhmen und Mähren und die Änderungen im Familienrecht
• Miroslav Frýdek: Terminology of Roman Criminal Law – crimen et delictum
• Lucie Bendová Bednářová: The Crime of the Forced Abortion (The culpability of foeticide in the first quarter of twentieth century)

Note that there are also book reviews and 'Reports from the History of Law'

NOTICE: Chair in Civil Law and Comparative Legal History (University of Tübingen )

The University of Tübingen is advertising for a chair in civil law and comparative legal history. The notice reads as follows:

Professur W 3 für Bürgerliches Recht und Vergleichende Rechtsgeschichte

Juristische Fakultät

An der Juristischen Fakultät der Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen ist die

Professur W 3 für Bürgerliches Recht und Vergleichende Rechtsgeschichte

zum 1. Oktober 2011 zu besetzen.

Habilitation oder gleichwertige wissenschaftliche Leistungen sowie didaktische Eignung werden vorausgesetzt. Die Universität Tübingen strebt eine Erhöhung des Anteils von Frauen in Forschung und Lehre an und bittet deshalb entsprechend qualifizierte Wissenschaftlerinnen nachdrücklich um ihre Bewerbung.

Schwerbehinderte Bewerberinnen und Bewerber werden bei gleicher Eignung bevorzugt berücksichtigt.

Bewerbungen mit den üblichen Unterlagen werden bis zum 11. Oktober 2010 erbeten an den Dekan der Juristischen Fakultät, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz, 72074 Tübingen.

CALL FOR PAPERS JUSTICE IN WARTIMES AND REVOLUTIONS: EUROPE, 1795-1950

International Conference organised by the Centre for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society (Cegesoma, Brussels), IRHIS (Université de Lille 3), CHDJ (Université catholique de Louvain) and Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

3-day conference, in English and French, to be held in Brussels, in September 2011

Organising Committee : D. Luyten (Cegesoma), S. Faber (VUAmsterdam), H. Leuwers (Lille3), X. Rousseaux (UCL), M. De Koster (UCL/UGent/VUAmsterdam)

With the support of the Interuniversity Attraction Pole “Justice & Society: Socio-political History of Justice Administration in Belgium, 1795-2005” (Belgian Science Policy)


War and revolutions generate transformations of judicial institutions and practices, and bring about shifts in the occupation of positions within different sections of the judicial system, which then often undergoes expansion. These transformations can either have lasting effects or only be temporary, in which case the former judicial system is restored. Such restauration can be complete, but often the phase of war and occupation will remain to have an impact, because certain changes are consolidated, because it is no longer possible to simply restore the previous situation, or because new elements are embedded into the former system. War and revolutions are times and contexts of exception, that bring about exceptional measures, or in other words: fundamental innovations. These innovations can be import products from other countries or judicial systems, or can spring from doctrines and ideologies that differ drastically from, or even inverse formerly prevailing ideas and values, in which case the question arises to what extent innovation was merely a discursive shift.

This introductory sketch of the subject brings us to the following subthemes, which will structure the conference:

1) Changes in the judicial system: The focus here is not that much on legal changes, but rather on innovations reflecting fundamental shifts in the concept and system of justice, and that have been imported from other systems, states or ideologies. Central points of attention are the degree of innovation, the process of transfer and circulation of models and ideas, and the actors shaping and steering this process. One might consider, for example, nationalization measures in Eastern Europe and the appearance of various forms of patrimonial and fiscal sanctions, which have recently been the object of a growing body of research. Wars and revolutions also generate entirely new problems, that are impossible or very difficult to solve with the ‘normal’ judicial instruments and instead demand original solutions that, then, appear as ‘strange’ or external to the initial justice system. Within the context of this conference, particular attention needs to be paid to the heritage of the French Revolution.

2) Changes in practices: Here, the different institutional bodies making up the judicial world and their actual practices are at the centre of the attention. Did revolutions and wars bring about structural changes in the organisation and functioning of the courts, the penitentiary sector and crime control agencies? Or did other institutions or organs take on tasks that under normal conditions are executed by the justice system? On the other hand, questions should also concern the subjects and clients of the different judicial bodies: how did the context of judicial crisis and change alter their interactions with the justice system? This point refers to the blurring of boundaries between traditional categories of tolerable/intolerable, legal/illegal and good/bad behaviour at times of occupation and war, but also to possibly different uses of justice by civilians in such contexts.

3) Changes in judicial personnel and judicial professions: here the question is raised whether or not wars and revolutions brought about significant lasting changes in the personnel structure of the justice system and in the occupational position of the actors of justice (magistrates, lawyers, ministers of Justice, police forces, pentitentiary personnel, etc.). Which changes were aspired (political-ideological, legal doctrines, democratization, gender-dvision…), and which were actually translated into practice? Which mechanisms were activated en which were the central dynamics of the process of change? Here, the question of ‘purification’ initiatives and mechanisms, for example, deserves particular attention.

In terms of geographical focus, the whole of Europe is taken into consideration; papers on Eastern or Mediterranean Europe are particularly welcome. All judicial domains can be treated, but priority is given to the civil law domain (f.e. property law, civil law policy) on the one hand, and to penal law, the criminal justice sytem and all directly related and interdependent fields of justice (fiscal law, juvenile justice system, etc.) on the other. As time frames, the periods from 1795 to 1815, from 1914 to 1920, and from 1939 to 1950 have been chosen.

We hope that this project will meet with a wide response and will stimulate a lively debate.

Proposals for papers (maximum 500 words, accompanied by a short CV) are to be sent before 15 December 2010, via e-mail to dirk.luyten@cegesoma.be & margo.dekoster@uclouvain.be

The proceedings of the conference will be published.

CALL FOR PAPERS: EUROPEAN FORUM OF YOUNG LEGAL HISTORIANS (Maastricht, 13-16 April 2011)

I'm pleased to post the call for papers for the XVIIth European Forum of Young Legal Historians:

The international graduate and post-graduate conference ‘European Traditions: Integration or Disintegration?’ of the European Association of Young Legal Historians will take place at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, from 13-16 April 2011, Wednesday-Saturday (www.maastrichtuniversity.nl).

The European Forum of Young Legal Historians has grown into the leading conference for young researchers in legal history in Europe and the world. Maastricht University, a truly international university at the heart of Europe, and currently celebrating its VIIth Lustrum provides the perfect location for the XVIIth Forum.

European legal traditions have always known centralising and de-centralising forces: Justinian’s Corpus iuris, the Medieval ius commune of Roman and Canon law, the usus modernus pandectarum, the current European harmonisation efforts all have an integrative character to a certain extent. Simultaneously the ius proprium, as in customary law, including the English Common law, as well as, most particularly, the national codifications of the 19th century, and the study of these laws, demonstrates the diversity of European legal traditions.

We are interested in papers and posters addressing these often contrasting developments, including their religious, philosophical, political, social or economic background. Interdisciplinary and comparative approaches are therefore most welcome.

You are strongly encouraged to give your presentation in English, as it is the current European lingua franca; French and German are also accepted, but be aware that this will reduce your audience.

Apart from the regular presentations, we will again have a ‘poster session’ or ‘poster walk’ during one of the afternoons: in several rounds you will be able to present and discuss your poster with various small groups of interested participants. Particularly PhD-candidates just starting with their research are encouraged to submit a poster outline, since the poster session will be a wonderful opportunity to obtain feedback on your project at an early stage.

Submissions with a close connection to the theme are preferred, though traditional legal history subjects are also welcome, especially in respect of the poster session.

Regular participation fee will be € 100; participants giving a paper or presenting a poster pay € 75.

Please send your application (an abstract of max. 500 words and/or an outline of a poster and a short academic CV) to forum2011@aylh.org

Deadline: 1 November 2010

Further information on the Association of Young Legal Historians and past Forums is available on www.aylh.org.  

We look forward to your application and to welcoming you in Maastricht in Spring 2011.

Emanuel van Dongen, Hester van der Kaaij, Mariken Lenaerts, Tanja van der Meer, Fé van Noortwijk, Janwillem Oosterhuis, Serban Vacarelu, Stefan Weishaar

Maastricht University
Department of Foundations and Methods of Law
Bouillonstraat 1-3, 6211 LH Maastricht
P.O. Box 616, 6200 MD Maastricht
The Netherlands
www.maastrichtuniversity.nl

NOTICE: The Creation of the Ius Commune: From Casus to Regula

I'm delighted to announce the publication of The creation of the ius commune: from casus to regula. Edited by Professors John Cairns and Paul Du Plessis, both of Edinburgh University, it

discusses in detail how medieval scholars reacted to the casuistic discussions in the inherited Roman texts, particularly the Digest of Justinian. It shows how they developed medieval Roman law into a system of rules that formed a universal common law for Western Europe. Because there has been little research published in English beyond grand narratives on the history of law in Europe, this book fills an important gap in the literature.

With a focus on how the medieval Roman lawyers systematised the Roman sources through detailed discussions of specific areas of law, it considers:

•the sources of medieval law and how to access them
•the development from cases to rules
•medieval lawyers’ strategies for citing each other and their significance
•growth of a conceptual approach to the study of law

With contributions from leading international scholars in the field, this book therefore fills an important gap in the literature.


The contents include:
 
Introduction: Themes and Context (Cairns and Du Plessis)
1. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Legal Technicalities (Bezemer);
2. The Citation and the Ius Commune (Helmholz);
3. Medieval Family Law (Waelkens);
4. Legal Reasoning in Contract and Delict (Gordley);
5. The Buyer’s Remedy for Latent Defects (Hallebeek);
6. Commercial Law (Ernst);
7. The Law of Unjustified Enrichment (Schrage/Dondorp);
8. The Law of Succession (Ryan);
9. The Roman Law of Property and the Reality of the Middle Ages (Rüfner);
10. Fault-lines between contract and property in the medieval law of pledge (Du Plessis);11. Malicious litigation and the rise of the legal profession (Brundage).


For additional information see the Edinburgh Studies in Law site or Amazon.co.uk/com.