JOB: Postdoctoral Researcher (University of Helsinki: Centre of Excellence in Law, Identity and the European Narratives)

(image source: Tripadvisor)

The University of Helsinki is the oldest and largest institution of academic education in Finland, an international scientific community of 40,000 students and researchers. In international university rankings, the University of Helsinki typically ranks among the top 100. The University of Helsinki seeks solutions for global challenges and creates new ways of thinking for the best of humanity.

The Faculty of Arts (https://www.helsinki.fi/en/faculty-of-arts) of the University of Helsinki is Finland’s oldest institution for teaching and research in the humanities and the largest in terms of the structure and range of disciplines. It is also a significant international community fostering research, education and cultural interaction.

The Faculty of Arts invites applications for the position of

POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHER

for a four-year fixed term period from 1 January 2019 onwards (or as agreed) to contribute to the subproject Migration and the narrative of Europe as an “Area of freedom, security and justice” of the Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Law, Identity and the European Narratives (EuroStorie, www.eurostorie.org).

The CoE is a part of the Centre of European Studies at the Department of Political and Economic Studies of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The purpose of the CoE is to launch a new, third generation inquiry that critically explores the emergence of narratives of Europe as responses to the crises of the twentieth century and how these narratives have shaped the ideas of justice and community in Europe. It studies the foundational stories that underlie the contested idea of a shared European heritage in law and culture, such as the ideas of rule of law, equality, tolerance, pluralism and the rejection of totalitarianism, and their relevance for current debates on identity and history.

The subproject Migration and the narrative of Europe as an “Area of freedom, security and justice” constitutes one of three subprojects of the CoE. The subproject tackles such topics as the role of broadly understood forced displacement in the production of the idea of Europe and, on more abstract level, in generating scientific knowledge and cultural and political ideas; the idea of Europe and European democracy, human rights and the rule of law, emerging from the experience of historical and contemporary exiles, refugees and asylum seekers; the idea of Europe developed under the conditions of forced displacement in relation to the official narratives of the policy papers produced under the auspices of the Council of Europe and the European Union.

QUALIFICATIONS

An appointee to the position must hold a doctoral degree in one of disciplines relevant to the project theme (including but not limited to international human rights law, anthropology, human geography), the ability to conduct independent scientific research and possess the teaching skills required for the position. The candidate should preferably have strong experience in ethnographic and post-colonial methodologies. The period following the completion of doctoral degree must not exceed five years, excluding family leave and equivalent periods of absence. An appointee must be able to provide a clear contribution to the theme of the CoE and to its general development, together with full-time researchers, postdocs, visiting faculty, Ph.D. students, and graduate students working as research assistants. To fulfil the research requirements of the position, the applicant chosen is expected to be physically present on a regular basis and actively participate in the research and teaching activities of the CoE. An appointee is expected to contribute 2-5 months of the annual work time to joint projects at the CoE, develop her/his own and our common research agenda, and contribute to collective academic tasks such as teaching, seminars and joint academic papers.

SALARY AND TRIAL PERIOD

Annual gross salary for a postdoctoral researcher varies between 41,000 and 50,000 euros, depending on the appointee’s qualifications and experience. There is a six-month trial period for the position.

Health care services and standard Finnish pension benefits are provided for the University employees.

HOW TO APPLY

Please submit your application, together with the required attachments, through the University of Helsinki Recruitment System via the Apply for the position button below. Applicants who are employees of the University of Helsinki are requested to leave their application via the SAP HR portal.

Applicants are requested to enclose with their applications the following documents in English as a single pdf file:

1) A curriculum vitae (max 4 pages).
2) A numbered list of publications on which the applicant has marked in bold her or his five key publications to be considered during the review.
3) A statement (max 2 pages) outlining how the applicant’s expertise could contribute both to research conducted at the CoE and to this specific subproject.
4) A summary (max 2 pages) on the applicant’s scholarly activities including original research at an international level, international academic networks, local co-operation, success in obtaining research funding, experience in research management.

Instructions to applicants for teaching and research positions, please https://www.helsinki.fi/en/faculty-of-arts/faculty/instructions-to-appli....

FURTHER INFORMATION

Further information on the position, and about research theme Migration and the narrative of Europe as an “Area of freedom, security and justice” may be obtained from Dr. Magdalena Kmak, magdalena.kmak@helsinki.fi. Further information about the recruitment process can be obtained from HR Specialist Anni Kauppinen, anni.kauppinen@helsinki.fi. Technical support for using the University’s electronic recruitment system or the SAP HR portal: rekrytointi@helsinki.fi.

More information here. The application did not contain any specific deadline, but was posted on Monday 29 October 2018.

(source: Twitter)

BOOK REVIEW: Michael GEYER (Chicago) reviews Jennifer PITTS, Boundaries of the International (H-Net)

Michael Geyer (Chicago) reviewed Jennifer Pitt's Boundaries of the International, announced earlier on this blog.

First paragraph:
It is a categorical error to conceive of the global society of nations as a European system of states writ large. The world is not Europe; it never has been and never will be. Neither does the world follow Europe’s model; not even Europe follows its own purported model. Jennifer Pitts’s remarkable study, The Boundaries of the International, calls this categorical fallacy “parochial universalism” and demonstrates that it has deep roots in European thought.[1]

Read further here.

BOOK: Chenxi TANG, Imagining World Order : Literature and International Law in Early Modern Europe, 1500-1800 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2018). ISBN 9781501716911, $59.95

(Source: Cornell University Press)

Coming December, Cornell University Press is publishing a book on literature and international law in Early Modern Europe.

ABOUT THE BOOK

In early modern Europe, international law emerged as a means of governing relations between rapidly consolidating sovereign states, purporting to establish a normative order for the perilous international world. However, it was intrinsically fragile and uncertain, for sovereign states had no acknowledged common authority that would create, change, apply, and enforce legal norms. In Imagining World Order, Chenxi Tang shows that international world order was as much a literary as a legal matter. To begin with, the poetic imagination contributed to the making of international law. As the discourse of international law coalesced, literary works from romances and tragedies to novels responded to its unfulfilled ambitions and inexorable failures, occasionally affirming it, often contesting it, always uncovering its problems and rehearsing imaginary solutions.

Tang highlights the various modes in which literary texts - some highly canonical (Camões, Shakespeare, Corneille, Lohenstein, and Defoe, among many others), some largely forgotten yet worth rediscovering - engaged with legal thinking in the period from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. In tracing such engagements, he offers a dual history of international law and European literature. As legal history, the book approaches the development of international law in this period —its so-called classical age—in terms of literary imagination. As literary history, Tang recounts how literature confronted the question of international world order and how, in the process, a set of literary forms common to major European languages (epic, tragedy, romance, novel) evolved.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chenxi Tang is Professor of German, University of California at Berkeley. He is the author of The Geographic Imagination of Modernity: Geography, Literature, and Philosophy in German Romanticism.

More information here.
(source: ESCLH Blog)

LECTURE: ‘Le pacte Briand-Kellog à l’heure de ses 90 ans – La consécration d’une idée révolutionnaire’ by Professor Giovanni Distefano (University of Geneva, 27 November 2018)

(Source: Wikipedia)

We learned that Professor Giovanni Distefano will give a public lecture on the Kellog-Briand pact in Geneva next month:

The ESIL Lecture Series hosts broadcasts of presentations on international law topics held at partner institutions, enabling the presentation to reach a wider audience of ESIL members and non-members alike.

Giovanni Distefano (Professor at the Faculty of Law at the University of Neuchâtel) will give a lecture on Le pacte Briand-Kellog à l’heure de ses 90 ans – La consécration d’une idée révolutionnaire, on 27 November 2018 at 18.15 at the University of Geneva

MORE INFORMATION

More information here.
(Source: ESCLH Blog)

CALL FOR PAPERS AND INTEREST PROPOSALS: ESIL Annual Conference Sovereignty: A State of Flux?/Souveraineté: un concept en mouvenement ? (Athens, 12-14 SEP 2019); DEADLINE 31 JAN 2019

(image source: whyathens)

The time is ripe to revisit sovereignty, a concept so broad and yet instrumental to the current structure of the international legal order. The aim of the conference is to encourage a vigorous and fruitful exchange of ideas that will appeal to academics, researchers, students, and practitioners. The Society invites the submission of papers (and panel proposals from ESIL Interest Groups) addressing the following topics:

• Agora I: Beyond Sovereignty: ABNJ and the Law of the Sea

• Agora II: Exercising Sovereignty: Managing Migratory Flows

• Agora III: Expanding Sovereignty: Extraterritoriality as a Tool

• Agora IV: Apportioning Sovereignty: Delimitation as a Sovereignty Exercise

• Agora V: Questing Sovereignty: The Role of Non-State Actors

• Agora VI: Extending Sovereignty: Space Activities and New Frontiers

• Agora VII: Enforcing Sovereignty: The Rapidly Expanding International Tax Law

• Agora VIII: Defending Sovereignty: Protectionism in International Trade and Investment

• Agora IX: Attacking Sovereignty: Security, Terrorism and the Use of Force

• Agora X: Circumventing Sovereignty: The Challenges of Environmental Regulation

In addition, all ESIL Interest Groups will be invited to arrange pre-conference events on Thursday 12 September and Calls for Papers for those events will be available in 2019.

Abstracts by e-mail to: esilathens2019@law.uoa.gr. (Important: indicate clearly the agora for which the abstract is to be considered e.g. Athens 2019: submission for agora VII).  The deadline for submissions is 31 January 2019.

(source: ESIL Secretariat)

More information here.

SSRN PAPER: John C. HARRISSON, 'The Constitution and the Law of Nations', Georgetown Law Journal XVI (2018), 1659-1705

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Abstract:

Under the original understanding of the Constitution, customary international law features in the U.S. legal system as general law. It is not law of the United States within the meaning of Articles III or VI of the Constitution, and so does not serve as a basis for federal question jurisdiction or override contrary state law. Under the original understanding, the Constitution does not confer the protections of the international law of state-state relations on either foreign states or governments that have been recognized as such by federal political actors. Congress may confer those protections by statute, but in the absence of statute or treaty, they rest on general law. The Constitution’s text indicates that the laws of the United States referred to in Articles III and VI consist entirely of federal statutes. The Federal Convention’s drafting process indicates that members of the convention had that understanding of the text they produced. That process also indicates that the drafters probably understood the laws referred to by the Take Care Clause of Article II to consist of federal statutes. Prominent figures in the ratification debates treated Articles III and VI as using the term “laws of the United States” to refer to statutes. The First Congress drafted the Judiciary Act of 1789 on the assumption that the laws of the United States referred to in Articles III and VI were federal statutes. During the 1793 prosecution of Gideon Henfield for non-statutory criminal violations of the United States’ neutrality, a number of leading figures took the position that the federal courts could entertain prosecutions under unwritten law. It is unlikely, however, that any of them meant to assert that the law of nations was law of the United States within the meaning of Articles III or VI.

Fulltext on SSRN.

(source: Legal History Blog)

CONFERENCE: La dénonciation des traités : techniques et politiques (Paris: Ecole Normale Supérieure, 9 NOV 2018)

(image source: ENS)

Salle des actes

Organisée par Florian Couveinhes-Matsumoto et Raphaëlle Nollez-Goldbach

9h – Accueil et Café
9h15 – Mot de bienvenue : Raphaëlle Nollez-Goldbach, Directrice des études Droit et Administration publique de l'École Normale Supérieure

Séance du matin
Présidence : Geneviève Bastid-Burdeau, Professeure à l'Université Panthéon-Sorbonne

1) Introduction
9h20 – La dénonciation et ses règles : quelques enjeux théoriques et politiques
Florian Couveinhes-Matsumoto, Maître de conférences à l'École Normale Supérieure
9h40 – La dénonciation et ses règles : questions terminologiques et pratiques
Nathalie Clarenc-Bicudo, Maître de conférences à l'Université Paris Descartes.

2) La « doctrine Trump » du retrait des traités
10h10 – À la recherche de la « doctrine Trump »: une doctrine cohérente du « meilleur
deal » ou des positions imprévisibles ?
Maya Kandel, chercheuse au Centre d'analyse et de prévision du MAE
10h30 – Les raisons et les implications de la « dénonciation » état-unienne de l’accord
sur le nucléaire iranien ?
Charlotte Beaucillon, Professeure à l'Université Panthéon-Sorbonne
Discussion

3) Dénoncer pour s’opposer au texte des traité ou pour les renégocier ?
11h20 – Motifs juridiques et motifs politiques de la dénonciation
Emmanuel Bourdoncle, Doctorant à l'Université Panthéon-Assas
11h40 – Dénoncer pour initier une nouvelle pratique ? L’exemple des dénonciations et innovations conventionnelles en matière d’investissement
Arnaud de Nanteuil, Professeur à l'Université Paris Est Créteil
Discussion

Pause déjeuner : 12h30 – 14h.

Séance de l'après-midi
Présidence : Denis Alland, Professeur à l'Université Panthéon-Assas

4) Dénoncer pour s’opposer à des organisations et des juridictions internationales
14h – Les retraits de signature et les retraits de retraits du Traité de Rome, des précédents en droit international ?
Raphaëlle Nollez-Goldbach, Directrice des études Droit et Administration publique de l'École Normale Supérieure
14h20 – Les retraits des États-Unis et d’Israël de l’UNESCO
Alexis Marie, Professeur à l'Université de Reims
14h40 – Les dénonciations et menaces de dénonciation des instruments régionaux de protection des droits de l’homme
Philippe Frumer, Chargé de cours à l'Université libre de Bruxelles
15h – Le Brexit et ses effets sur les engagements internationaux du Royaume-Uni et de l’Union européenne
Emanuel Castellarin, Professeur à l'Université de Strasbourg
Discussion
16h Conclusions. Geneviève Bastid-Burdeau, Professeure à l'Université Panthéon- Sorbonne

More information here.

BOOK: Arnaud BARTOLOMEI et al., (eds.), De l’utilité commerciale des consuls. l’institution consulaire et les marchands dans le monde méditerranéen (XVIIe-XXe siècles) (Rome: Publications de l’École française de Rome, 2017). ISBN 9782728312603

(Source: École française de Rome)

Publications de l’École française de Rome published a new book on consuls in the Mediterranean world between the 17^th-20^th century.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Les vingt-huit études rassemblées ici s’intéressent aux multiples rôles joués par les consuls et l’institution consulaire auprès des marchands actifs dans l’espace méditerranéen du XVII^e au XX^e siècle. Ce livre offre tout d’abord une présentation et une analyse des fonds et des sources disponibles pour mener à bien cette enquête historique, depuis les abondantes correspondances jusqu’aux manuels consulaires. Il met également à l’épreuve des pratiques et des usages les prérogatives juridictionnelles des consuls concernant le règlement des contentieux marchands et la certification des transactions et des contrats dans l’Empire ottoman comme en Europe occidentale. L’ouvrage propose ensuite d’observer la variété des contextes d’exercice des consuls et les stratégies commerciales différenciées de leurs autorités de tutelle, de la République de Gênes à la Suède, en passant par le Royaume-Uni, les États-Unis d’Amérique, la République des Sept-Îles ou le Royaume de France. Plusieurs études soulignent enfin les marges de manœuvre politiques, diplomatiques et économiques de consuls qui évoluent dans des relations de pouvoir et des réseaux d’affaires aux contours mouvants. En posant de la sorte la question de l'utilité commerciale des consuls, ces différents chapitres invitent à jeter un regard nouveau sur l’histoire de la fonction consulaire et sur les mécanismes de régulation politiques et institutionnels du commerce international aux époques moderne et contemporaine.

Cet ouvrage a été publié avec le concours du GIS Histoire et Science de la Mer.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Arnaud Bartolomei (ed.)

Agrégé d’histoire et ancien membre de la Casa de Velázquez, Arnaud Bartolomei est actuellement  maître de conférences en histoire moderne et contemporaine à l’Université Côté d’Azur et membre du Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine. Ses recherches portent sur les pratiques et les institutions du commerce à distance dans les espaces européens, atlantiques et méditerranéens au XVIIIe et au XIXe siècle.

Guillaume Calafat (ed.)

Guillaume Calafatest maître de conférences à l’Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (Institut d’Histoire Moderne et Contemporaine). Ancien élève de l’École Normale Supérieure, agrégé d’histoire, ancien membre de l’École Française de Rome, ses recherches portent sur les échanges marchands et maritimes et leurs régulations dans la Méditerranée de  l’époque moderne.

Mathieu Grenet (ed.)

Docteur en histoire de l’Institut Universitaire Européen de Florence, Mathieu Grenet est maître de conférences en histoire moderne à l’INU Champollion d’Albi, chercheur au sein de l’UMR 5136 FRAMESPA et membre du projet ERC « Mediterranean reconfigurations ». Il s’intéresse en particulier aux mobilités internationales, aux contacts interculturels et aux constructions identitaires à l’époque moderne.

Jörg Ulbert (ed.)

Jörg Ulbert est maître de conférences en allemand à l’Université de Bretagne Sud. Ses recherches portent sur l’histoire des services consulaires français aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles ainsi que sur les rapports franco-allemands à l’époque moderne.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Arnaud Bartolomei

Introduction

Chapitre 1 – Les sources de l'enquête

Jörg Ulbert

Les sources de l’enquête. Introduction

Anne Mézin

Les archives des consulats français à l’étranger conservées aux Archives nationales

Patrick Boulanger

Au service du royaume en Méditerranée… Les correspondances des consuls de France des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles dans les archives de la CCI Marseille Provence

Jérôme Cras and Bérangère Fourquaux

Les fonds conservés au Centre des Archives diplomatiques de Nantes (CADN)

Pascal Even

Les archives consulaires à l’administration centrale du ministère des Affaires étrangères et du Développement international

Arnaud Bartolomei and Vivien Faraut

L’exploitation de la correspondance consulaire. Apports et enjeux d’un traitement quantitatif des données

Pierre-Yves Beaurepaire and Silvia Marzagalli

Exploiter et éditer une correspondance consulaire. Premier retour d’expérience à partir du cas Fölsch

Viorel Panaite

Les consuls de France dans le Levant au cours de l’ambassade de François Savary de Brèves à Constantinople (1593-1605) à partir d’une source ottomane conservée à la Bibliothèque nationale de France

Jörg Ulbert

Les manuels consulaires français d’avant 1914 comme sources des études consulaires

Chapitre 2 – Les juridictions du consul : une institution au service des marchands et du commerce ?

Guillaume Calafat

Les juridictions du consul : une institution au service des marchands et du commerce ? Introduction

Guillaume Calafat

La juridiction des consuls français en Méditerranée : litiges marchands, arbitrages et circulations des procès (Livourne et Tunis au XVIIe siècle)

Arnaud Bartolomei and Anne Brogini

De la réglementation aux pratiques marchandes : l’enregistrement des actes dans les chancelleries consulaires françaises (XVIIe-XIXe siècles)

Julien Sempéré

Un consulat sans chancellerie : le cas du consulat français de Barcelone (1679-1716)

Salvatore Bottari

Consoli inglesi nella Sicilia del Settecento : funzioni istituzionali e attività informali

Mehdi Jerad

Enjeux marchands et intérêts de pouvoir autour de la juridiction contentieuse des consuls de France à Tunis (1827-1836)

Chapitre 3 – L’institution consulaire en Méditerranée, des stratégies commerciales différenciées

Mathieu Grenet

L’institution consulaire en Méditerranée, des stratégies commerciales différenciées. Introduction

Matteo Barbano

A lucrative, dangerous business : le consulat anglais à Alger, Tunis et Tripoli dans la deuxième moitié du XVIIe siècle

Danilo Pedemonte

Surveiller et réunir. Consuls génois et consuls anglais en Méditerranée au XVIIIe siècle : deux modèles en regard

Gustaf Fryksén

Les réseaux de la diplomatie et du commerce : George Logie, consul de Suède et intermédiaire marchand en Afrique du Nord, v. 1726-1763

Silvia Marzagalli

Le réseau consulaire des États-Unis en Méditerranée, 1790-1815 : logiques étatiques, logiques marchandes ?

Gerassimos Pagratis

Le funzioni mercantili dei consoli della Repubblica Settinsulare, 1800-1807

Chapitre 4 – L’institution consulaire française à Cadix et en Espagne au XVIIIe siècle. Un « modèle » ?

Arnaud Bartolomei

L’institution consulaire française à Cadix et en Espagne au XVIIIe siècle. Un « modèle » ? Introduction

Anne Mézin

La défense des intérêts des négociants français de Cadix dans la première moitié du XVIIIe siècle d’après la correspondance ministérielle

Olivier Le Gouic

Le consulat de France à Cadix face aux réformes carolines (1765-1788)

Sylvain Lloret

Informer et protéger : l’agent général de la Marine et du Commerce de France à Madrid et les marchands français de Cadix (1748-1784)

Chapitre 5 – Entre l’État, les intérêts marchands et l’intérêt personnel, l’agency des consuls

Arnaud Bartolomei

Entre l’État, les intérêts marchands et l’intérêt personnel, l’agency des consuls. Introduction

Marco Schnyder

Une nation sans consul. La défense des intérêts marchands suisses à Lyon aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles

Thierry Allain

Relations de pouvoirs et enjeux marchands autour du réseau consulaire néerlandais en Méditerranée (XVIIe-XVIIIe siècles)

Marcella Aglietti

Politica, affari e guerra. I consoli dell’arciduca Carlo d’Asburgo a Livorno durante la guerra di successione spagnola

Annastella Carrino

Un console napoletano nel Mediterraneo borbonico : Francisco Hombrados (1755-1765)

Mathieu Grenet

Pétitions marchandes autour de la fonction consulaire : la diaspora grecque et la naissance de la diplomatie néohellénique

Fabrice Jesné

Consuls et affairistes : une relecture de la « pénétration pacifique » italienne dans les Balkans à la veille de la Grande Guerre

Mathieu Jestin

Le musée commercial impossible : un projet emblématique de l’action consulaire française à Salonique au tournant des XIXe et XXe siècles

Bibliographie

More information here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

INTERVIEW: Anne SCHULT (NYU) interviews Martti KOSKENNIEMI on "Sovereignty, Property and the Locus of Power" (Journal of the History of Ideas Blog)

(image source: JHI Blog)

The Blog of the Journal of the History of Ideas has published an interview with Martti Koskenniemi.

First paragraph:

Anne: Your work has long explored the nature of governance through international law—in the past as much as in the present. The book project you have been working on over the past years, which explores the correlation of sovereignty and property in international law, is no different in this regard. As you seek to illustrate, sovereignty arises from an often hidden foundation of private property relations, while these exact relations are bound to be delimited by what we call ‘public power’—meaning we ultimately have been, and continue to be, governed by both. This argument re-emphasizes some of the questions your earlier work has tackled with regard to the critical role of international law in politics—or, to be more accurate, international law asinternational politics. But it also appears to address a more fundamental problem in the conceptualization of international law by suggesting that seemingly benign relations of private property are intrinsically connected to the realm of international power struggles. In your mind, how does this project depart from, or perhaps even in part revise, your prior work on the origins of modern international law?

Read further here.

SSRN PAPER: Matthias GOLDMANN, European Integration in the History of International Law [Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law & International Law (MPIL) Research Paper No. 2018-26]

(image source: scholarlykitchen)

Abstract:

This paper argues that the Treaties of Rome and the process of European integration they heralded had a lasting impact on the development of international law. However, their significance is usually misattributed. While European law has had little impact on international legal doctrine, and while European integration has remained unique as a political project, European law and the process of European integration have served international law as an important progress narrative. In this respect, they have had an influence on important background understandings characterizing international law since the postwar era, including on the perception of international law as universal, autonomous, pluralistic, and economically liberal. The progress narrative culminates in the view that international law is in a normatively ambitious process of constitutionalization, an idea imported from European law. This progress narrative is now under threat as European integration faces existential difficulties.The crisis of European integration might therefore anticipate a crisis of international law.

Read the full paper on SSRN.
(Source: Law & Humanities Blog)

BOOK: Michelle FAUBERT, Granville Sharp’s Uncovered Letter and the Zong Massacre (London: Palgrave Macmillan , 2018). ISBN 978-3-319-92785-5, $69.99

(Source: Palgrave Macmillan)

Next week, Palgrave Macmillan will publish a new book on hitherto unexplored aspects of Granville Sharp’s role in the landmark Zong Case.

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book delineates the discovery of a previously unknown manuscript of a letter from Granville Sharp, the first British abolitionist, to the “Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty.” In the letter, Sharp demands that the Admiralty bring murder charges against the crew of the Zong for forcing 132 enslaved Africans overboard to their deaths. Uncovered by Michelle Faubert at the British Library in 2015, the letter is reproduced here, accompanied by her examination of its provenance and significance for the history of slavery and abolition. As Faubert argues, the British Library manuscript is the only fair copy of Sharp’s letter, and extraordinary evidence of Sharp’s role in the abolition of slavery.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Michelle Faubert is Associate Professor of Romantic Literature at the University of Manitoba, Canada, and Visiting Fellow at Northumbria University, UK.

More information here
(source: ESCLH Blog)

BOOK: Nina KELLER-KEMMERER, Die Mimikry des Völkerrechts [Studien zur Geschichte des Völkerrechts, Band 38] (Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag, 2018), 309 p. ISBN 978-3-8487-4630-9, € 79

(image source: IL Reporter)

Book abstract:

Die Völkerrechtsgeschichte wird bis heute dominiert von einer eurozentrischen Historiographie, in der außereuropäische Welten – wenn überhaupt – eine rein passive Rolle spielen. Nicht als Akteure, sondern lediglich als Rezipienten werden sie im Zuge der sogenannten Universalisierungsprozesse im 19. Jahrhundert Teil dieser Meistererzählung. Diese transdisziplinäre Studie versucht anhand der ersten Völkerrechtslehre Hispanoamerikas dieses Narrativ der Passivität neu zu denken. Der chilenische Universalgelehrte Andrés Bello übersetzte in diesem Kompendium von 1833 die europäischen Lehren für die „Neue Welt“. Aufbauend auf einer postkolonialen Perspektive wird gezeigt, dass die Nachahmung des europäischen Völkerrechtsdiskurses mehr ist als ein rein passives und unterwürfiges Verhalten. Vielmehr eröffnet sich in diesem grundlegend ambivalenten Prozess ein Widerstandsraum, in dem Bedeutung zu jedem Zeitpunkt neu verhandelt wird und der an Homi K. Bhabhas Konzept der Mimikry erinnert.

More information with the publisher.

(source: International Law Reporter)

BOOK: Dylan LINO, Constitutional Recognition - First Peoples and the Australian Settler S tate (Leichardt: The Federation Press, 2018). ISBN 9781760021818, $45.00

(Source: Federation Press)

The Federation Press has published a book on indigenous constitutional recognition in Australia.

ABOUT THE BOOK

When Australians today debate how to achieve a just postcolonial relationship with the First Peoples of the continent, they typically do so using the language of ‘constitutional recognition’. The idea of constitutional recognition has become the subject of community forums and nationwide inquiries, street protests and prime ministerial speeches. Dylan Lino’s book provides the first comprehensive study of Indigenous constitutional recognition in Australia.

Offering more than a legal analysis, Lino places the idea of constitutional recognition into a broader historical and theoretical perspective. After recounting the history of Australian debates on Indigenous recognition, the book presents an account that views constitutional recognition in terms of Indigenous peoples’ struggles to have their identities respected within the settler constitutional order. When studied in this way, constitutional recognition emerges not as a postcolonial endpoint but as an ongoing process of renegotiating the basic Indigenous–settler political relationship.

With First Peoples continuing to press for the recognition of their sovereignty and peoplehood, this book will be a definitive reference point for scholars, advocates, policy-makers and the interested 

public.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dylan Lino is a Lecturer at the University of Western Australia Law School. His research focuses on the rights of Indigenous peoples, constitutional law and theory, and legal history. He holds degrees in Arts and Law (with Honours) from the University of New South Wales, a Master of Laws from Harvard University and a PhD from Melbourne Law School. In 2017, Dylan worked as a legal adviser to the Commonwealth Government’s Referendum Council, whose work led to the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword by Professor Megan Davis, Pro Vice-Chancellor Indigenous, UNSW
Acknowledgments 

1.  Introduction

2. The Constitutional Politics of Indigenous Recognition in Australia, 1979–2018

3.  Conceptualising Constitutional Recognition

4.  Constitutionalising Indigenous Recognition

5.  The Incompleteness of Indigenous Constitutional Recognition: Learning from 1967

6.  Indigenous Constitutional Recognition and Racial Discrimination: Learning from 1975

7.  Constitutionally Recognising Indigenous Peoplehood: Towards Indigenous–Settler Federalism

8.  Conclusion

Bibliography

Index

More information here
(source: ESCLH Blog)

ARTICLE: Jonathan GUMZ, International Law and the Transformation of War, 1899–1949: The Case of Military Occupation (The Journal of Modern History CX (2018), Nr. 3, 621-660

(image source: JMH)

Excerpt:

This article seeks to examine the law of occupation looking forward from its position within the late nineteenth-century European norm of contained war, not backward from contemporary international law. When it was codified, the law of military occupation was closely connected to the norm of war containment within the realm of “civilization,” but that connection was severed by 1949. Reaching this point requires the examination of four moments in occupation’s history from the late nineteenth century through 1949. The first arose with the codification of military occupation at the Hague Conference of 1899; the next came with the National Socialist assault on the codified law of occupation; the third came in the Hostages Trial of 1947–48, when high-ranking Wehrmacht defendants sought to reframe National Socialist occupation practices within the law of occupation codified at The Hague in 1899; and the fourth arrived with the Geneva Conference of 1949 and its preparatory conferences. In this last instance the American and British defense of the norm of contained war and the law of occupation faced a broad European reaction against occupation. That reaction transformed key elements of the law of occupation such as the status of resistance fighters, severing occupation’s links with the norm of contained war.

More information here.

CALL FOR PAPERS : The League of Nations Decentred – Law, Crises and Legacies – Melbourne Law School (DEADLINE: 30 November 2018)

(Source: Wikipedia)

We learned of a Call for Papers for a conference, to be held at Melbourne Law School in July 2019, on the League of Nations.

Conveners: Luís Bogliolo, Kathryn Greenman, Anne Orford, and Ntina Tzouvala.

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Professor Balakrishnan Rajagopal (Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

Almost a hundred years after the creation of the League of Nations, it is still commonly remembered as a failure in a period of chaos and disorder. Recently, however, a growing literature has begun a reappraisal of this historiography, looking at the role of the League of Nations beyond its frustrations and disillusionments in collective security. This new surge of critical studies has led to a more complex and multifaceted understanding of the League, exploring its legacies and impacts at a time of renewed economic crises and of deepening conflicting visions of international order. In the centenary of its foundation, we are taking this further by looking at the League of Nations with a view from the South. Our aim is to decentre the League and to explore competing visions of international order, law and institutions that resonate in our contemporary world.

This conference will bring together scholars working in law, history, international relations, and political theory to think critically about the League of Nations, law, institutions, practices, ideologies and technologies in relation to or with a view from the South. Paper proposals related to the conference theme are now invited. Possible topics for papers include:

• The League of Nations and the regulation of international violence
• Sovereignty, empires, and the shifting boundaries of international authority
• Intervention (military, economic, political) in the context of the League
• Anti-colonialism, the rise of transnational social movements (socialism, feminism, national liberation)
• Competing internationalisms and visions of international order
• The rise of fascism and Nazism
• Petitioning, oversight, publicity and new arenas of international politics
• Humanitarianism, humanitarian assistance and governance
• Adjudication, arbitration, and the Permanent Court of International Justice
• The relationship between the League of Nations and contemporary or succeeding international institutions
• The Mandates system
• Indigenous peoples and the League of Nations
• Codification and the role of international law
• Major crises of the League of Nations (eg Ethiopia, Manchuria)
• Economic and social regulation and authority

Abstracts of no more than 350 words should be submitted to Dr Ntina Tzouvala (konstantina.tzouvala@unimelb.edu.au) by the 30th of November 2018.

More information here
(source: ESCLH Blog)

CALL FOR PAPERS: The rule of law and international law in historical perspective (IGHIL Event, ESIL Research Forum Göttingen, 4-5 APR 2019); DEADLINE 30 NOV 2018

(image source: ESIL)

The question of how to settle and enforce norms in the international sphere without a central authority has been a key debate in international law for centuries. While the gradual extension of an international order supported by multilateral treaties and courts was seen as a natural and logical development of international society in the decades following the end of the Cold War, the recent challenges to the very idea of a rules-based international order call for fresh perspectives on the idea and development of the rule of law in the international sphere. How did the concept emerge, how did it evolve over time, and how different is its history in the domestic and the international context?

Moreover, the Rule of Law can be envisaged under a double perspective. On the one hand, it expresses a philosophical and theoretical construct, whose intellectual genealogy conforms to that of the development of international legal thinking over time and in several legal cultures. On the other hand, the rule of law can be used instrumentally as an ideological discourse to legitimate far more basic political instincts and interest. Its invocation is not always conformable to actual legal practice. The Interest Group especially welcomes papers addressing the complex articulation of these two strands in historical cases, illustrated through primary source-research.

Possible topics might include:

·         How have international institutions responded to previous challenges of the very idea of the rule of law in international affairs?
·         How has the extent to which a state respects the rule of law in the domestic sphere influenced their behavior within the international community?
·         Has the meaning of the term ‘rule of law’ changed over time, and is it a universal concept? Does it have different connotations in the natural law or the positivist tradition? How have regional attempts to establish the rule of law influenced the international level?
·         When did we begin to have the ambition to regulate and enforce matters at a global level? How has the creation and enforcement of rules changed since the UN system was set up after the Second World War?
·         What was the impact of the rise of arbitration and international courts? Were they the consequence of a growing belief in the rule of law or drivers of this development?
·         How effective has the rule of law been in defining and protecting global commons (e.g. the success or failure of legal efforts to protect the environment)?
·         Has the ‘rule of law’ evolved differently in different policy areas such trade and investment law, communications or the laws of war?

Abstracts must be submitted no later than 30 November 2018 to esilighil@gmail.com on behalf of the Steering Committee of the Interest Group, which shall collectively supervise the blind peer-review process. All those who take part in the ESIL Research Forum, at an Interest Group event and/or in the main Forum, are expected to be ESIL members at the time of their participation. Selected speakers will be expected to bear the costs of their own travel and accommodation. Some ESIL travel grants will be available to offer partial financial support to speakers who have exhausted other potential sources of funding. Please see the ESIL website (www.esil-sedi.eu) for information about travel grants offered to ESIL members and other relevant information about the Research Forum.

CALL FOR PAPERS: A Global History of Free Ports. Capitalism, Commerce and Geopolitics (Venice/Helsinki, APR/JUN 2019) (DEADLINE 31 OCT 2018)

(image source: University of Helsinki)

The history of free ports research network is organising a number of conferences in the next years, in order to work towards a standard publication and interactive research platform for the history of free ports from the 16^th to the early 20^th century. Please check our website (www.helsinki.fi/a-global-history-of-free-ports) for an impression.

The first two meeting will take place in Venice (April 2019) and in Helsinki (June 2019).

For the call for papers of both the Venice and Helsinki meetings, see:

https://www.helsinki.fi/sites/default/files/atoms/files/call_for_papers_free_ports_venice_april_2019_0.pdf

https://www.helsinki.fi/sites/default/files/atoms/files/call_for_papers_free_ports_helsinki_june_2019_0.pdf

 

We are looking for case studies that engage with the transformations of the various functions of free ports over time and the spread of free ports from Italy and the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, Asia and the global level. The research may open up to the wider international development of trade and its institutions by taking a perspective that can be long-term, comparative or comprehensive (involving a combination of intellectual, policy, and economic angles). Papers may also address cultural, religious, diplomatic and network perspectives.

 

Texts that are presented at conferences may be published as a ‘dossier’/ special issue in the Intellectual History Archive open access working paper series of the Helsinki Centre for Intellectual History. A selection of revised papers will be included in a book publication.

 

Abstracts (of ca. 500 words) and titles may be sent by email tokoen.stapelbroek@helsinki.fi and ctazzara@scrippscollege.edu by 31 October 2018. Invited speakers are subsequently requested to provide short papers (ca. 5,000 words) that will be pre-circulated among participants. For further information, see the ‘Call(s) for papers’. For those who do not possess their own research budgets or travel funds, we can try to contribute towards your travel and accommodation costs.

SEMINAR: Martti KOSKENNIEMI, "Les relations entre droit public et droit privé dans l'histoire du droit des gens" (Nanterre: Université Paris Ouest, 11 OCT 2018)

 

(image source: Paris-Nanterre)

Prof. Martti Koskenniemi (Helsinki) will speak at a seminar of the CDR Théorie et Analyse du Droit (Université Paris-Nanterre), on the relationship between Private and Public Law in the History of the Law of Nations.

The event will take place from 10:00 to 12:00.

More information here.

BOOK: Mats DELAND, Mark KLAMBERG & Pal WRANGE (eds.), International humanitarian law and justice : historical and sociological perspectives (New York: Routledge, 2018), 232 p. ISBN 9781138477551, 115 GBP

(image source: Routledge)

Book abstract:

In the last decade, there has been a turn to history in international humanitarian law and its accompanying fields. To examine this historization and to expand the current scope of scholarship, this book brings together scholars from various fields, including law, history, sociology, and international relations. Human rights law, international criminal law, and the law on the use of force are all explored across the text’s four main themes: historiographies of selected fields of international law; evolution of specific international humanitarian law rules in the context of legal gaps and fault lines; emotions as a factor in international law; and how actors can influence history. This work will enhance and broaden readers’ knowledge of the field and serve as an excellent starting point for further research.

Table of contents:

 Introduction (Klamberg, Wrange, Deland)
Part I
Chapter 1 Introduction
Historicizing international humanitarian law
Introduction by Pål Wrange
Chapter 2
Historicising International Criminal Trials within the Modernist Project
Project
Damien Rogers (Massey University/Te Kunenga Ki Pürehuroa, New Zealand)
Chapter 3
Engaging History in the Legal Protection of Cultural Heritage in War and Peace
Sebastian Spitra (Universität Wien, Austria)
Chapter 4
From Spies to International Criminals: The Influence of the Austro-Hungarian Counter Espionage Service on the International Criminal Police Commission
Mark Lewis (College of Staten Island, New York, USA/University of Vienna, Austria)
Chapter 5
Authority, Legitimacy and Military Violence: De Facto Combatant Privilege of Non-State Armed Groups through Amnesty
Pål Wrange (Stockholm university, Sweden)
Part II
Chapter 1
Evolution of Rules and Concepts in International Humanitarian Law: Navigating through Legal Gaps and Fault-lines
Introduction by Mark Klamberg
Chapter 2
A hidden fault-line: How international actors engage with IHL’s principle of distinction
Rebecca Sutton (London School of Economics, UK)
　
Chapter 3
Restraint in bello: Some thoughts on reciprocity and humanity
Anna Evangelidi (City University, London. UK)
　
Chapter 4
Judging the past – international humanitarian law and the Luftwaffe aerial operations during the invasion of Poland in 1939
Mateusz Piatkowski (University of Lodz, Poland)
Part III
Chapter 1
Emotions and the law
Introduction by Mats Deland
Chapter 2
To feel or not to feel? Emotions and international humanitarian law To feel or not to feel? Emotions and international humanitarian law
Nele Verlinden (University of Leuven, Belgium)
Chapter 3
To Kill or Not to Kill as a Social Question
Ka Lok Yip (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland)
Chapter 4
War of Wor(l)ds – Clashing Narratives and Interpretations of I(H)L in the Intractable Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Alexandra Hofer (Universiteit Gent, Belgium)
Part IV
Chapter 1
The lawyer as an actor in history and society
Introduction by Daniel Segesser and Mats Deland
Chapter 2
Lemkin on vandalism and the protection of cultural works and historical monuments during armed conflict
Mark Klamberg (Stockholm university, Sweden)
Chapter 3
Forgotten, but nevertheless relevant! Gustave Moynier’s attempts to punish violations of the laws of war 1870-1916
Daniel Marc Segesser (University of Bern, Switzerland)
　
Chapter 4
The feminist origins of the Swedish Red Cross
Mats Deland (Södertörn University College, Sweden)
Index

On the editors:

Mats Deland is Associate Professor in history and temporary lecturer at Mittuniversitet, Sundsvall, Sweden. His publications include Purgatorium (vol. 1, 2010, vol. 2, 2017) and he has expertise in Holocaust studies and Genocide studies, Urban history, Right-Wing Extremism, and the History of International Law.
Dr. Mark Klamberg(Jur. Dr. Stockholm University, LL.M. Raoul Wallenberg Institute and Jur. Kand. Lund University) is Associate Professor in international law at Stockholm University. He is the author of several publications on international criminal law, surveillance, privacy, and other fields of international law, including "Evidence in International Criminal Trials: Confronting Legal Gaps and the Reconstruction of Disputed Events" (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2013) and "Power and Law in the International Society – International Relations as the Sociology of International Law" (Routledge, 2015). He is the chief editor of the "Commentary on the Law of the ICC" (CLICC).
Pål Wrange (PhD, LL.M) is Professor in public international law at Stockholm University and the Director of the Stockholm Center for International Law and Justice. He is a former principal legal advisor at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. He has published widely on international law, international relations and theory and he has worked and consulted for the European Union, governments, and NGOs. He is currently working on a book on non-state actors, right authority, and the right to use military violence.

More information with the publisher.