CONFERENCE PROGRAM: Avant l'État. Droit international et pluralisme politico-juridique en Europe, XIIe-XVIIe siècle (Rome, Ecole Française de Rome, 20 SEP 2021 - HYBRID)

 

(image source: univ-droit)

Conference presentation

Alors que l’État national souverain a longtemps été considéré comme l’acteur exclusif des relations internationales, ce projet a l’ambition de nouer un dialogue entre historiens et historiens du droit pour s’interroger sur le droit international conçu comme le cadre multi-normatif qui régit les relations entre une grande variété d’acteurs. Cette notion nous paraît mieux s’adapter aux traits spécifiques de la constellation politique médiévale et pré-moderne, qui était caractérisée par l’entrelacement de différentes juridictions, fondées sur des liens de dépendance personnelle et sur des relations de sujétion territoriale, par la coexistence d’une pluralité de centres de pouvoir au statut variable et par la répartition de l’autorité politique à différents niveaux.

Les thèmes abordés dans les deux rencontres (la première à Rome le 20 septembre 2021 et la deuxième à Lille et Courtrai les 18-19 mai 2022) incluent la guerre, les représailles, la diplomatie, les relations féodales, le droit de la mer, le commerce ou encore les relations avec les juifs et les « infidèles », notre ambition générale étant de faire porter la réflexion sur trois questions transversales : celle des acteurs du droit international ; celle des sources du droit international, qui ne constituait pas à l’époque prémoderne une branche autonome de la science juridique ; celle enfin de la résolution des conflits, en particulier à travers la médiation et l’arbitrage.

Programme:

9h30 : Accueil des participants
Brigitte Marin - Directrice de l’EFR

9h50 : Introduction
Dante Fedele - CNRS Lille
Randall Lesaffer - KU Leuven
Pierre Savy - EFR

 

Droit, politique et diplomatie

Présidence : Luca Loschiavo - Università degli Studi di Teramo

10h10 : Tra attività pubblica e privata : il ruolo diplomatico dei banchieri della Corona d’Aragona nella Curia durante il tardo Medioevo
Esther Tello Hernández - Universitat de València

10h30 : Videtur maxima inequalitas. Le aderenze nella diplomazia dei Gonzaga (XIV-XV secolo)
Francesco Bozzi - Università degli Studi di Milano Statale

10h50 : Uno stato pluricittadino : analisi del cosiddetto “bilancio” delle entrate e spese del ducato di Milano, 1463
Nadia Covini - Università degli Studi di Milano Statale

11h10 : Serenissimus Rex Romanorum et Rex Francorum, uter alterum praecedat : una rilettura dei rapporti tra impero e regno di Francia in un consilium (1545) di Antonio Quetta
Giovanni Rossi - Università di Verona

11h30 : Il jus gentium e il diritto di legazione nella prima età Moderna : gli Stati terzi e il riconoscimento delle prerogative diplomatiche
Giuseppina De Giudici - Università degli Studi di Cagliari

 

Après-midi

 

Frontières et conflits

Présidence : Sara Menzinger - Università degli Studi Roma Tre

14h30 : Aquinas on infidel dominium
Bart Wauters - IE University

14h50 : Allying with Infidels : Hugo Grotius’s Letters to East-Indian Rulers
Marc de Wilde - University of Amsterdam

15h10 : Reprisal in theory and practice : the 17th century case of Robert Powlett
Philippine Van den Brande - KU Leuven

15h30 : Justice at the Borders and International Law : Extradition Agreements in Renaissance Italy
Andrew Vidali - Università Ca’ Foscari Venezia

15h50 : Conclusions
Alain Wijffels - CNRS Lille, KU Leuven

(see earlier on this blog)

(source: univ-droit)

CONFERENCE: Law(s) and International relations : actors, institutions and comparative legislations (Orléans, 15-17 SEP 2021)

(image source: Le Studium)

Conference description:

In the last twenty years, the study of the history of international law and of international relations has witnessed something of a renaissance. The bicentenary of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) also led to several new publications on the Congress System and on the “security culture” that was established in the aftermath of Napoleon. Nevertheless, many lacunae remain, especially regarding the relationship between law(s) and international relations during the long nineteenth century and in the sociocultural history of international law as a discipline with its own actors, networks, venues, institutions and power circles. The aim of the present conference is to deepen our study of the interconnections  between law(s) and international relations through the eyes of a plurality of actors (e.g., legal advisers, lawyers, judges, activists, publicists, journalists, editors), institutions (e.g., foreign offices, courts, universities, academies of science, associations, libraries) and works on comparative law. Three focuses will be especially addressed by this conference. The first is the plurality of actors. We welcome proposals on legal advisers within governments, foreign offices and national or colonial administrations; on civil and administrative judges, admiralty courts and prize laws; and on lawyers, academics, peace activists, international thinkers, journalists and editors, including women as well as men. A prosopography of a group of actors is invited as well as individual biographies. The theme of the birth and professionalization of “international lawyers” will be studied as well as the various editors and the book market for international law. Our second focus will be on institutions. We especially invite papers studying the treatment of law(s) in foreign offices in a comparative perspective. For example, in Great Britain, legal issues were dealt by the Queens Lawyers until 1872 and afterwards by the Legal Adviser of the Foreign Office. In France after 1835, it was the Comité consultatif du contentieux that dealt with legal issues. But what about the foreign offices of other countries? Other institutions (similar to the Conseil d’état in France) may have also had their own “Foreign Office Committee.” How were these organized? Did they cooperate with the foreign office?  What role was played by scientific academies in the diffusion of international law? By the universities? By popular libraries? Our third and final focus is on the study of comparative law and its link to the development of international law. The Société de législation comparée, founded in 1869, was full of members of the first generation of the Institut de Droit International, while many comparativists were, vice versa, members of the Institut de Droit International. Scientific journals such as the Revue historique de droit français et étranger and the Revue de droit international et de législation comparée dealt with both comparative and international law. Papers on the progressive autonomy of the discipline and on the networks of the founding members are especially welcome.

Convenors:

Dr Raphaël Cahen, LE STUDIUM / Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow FROM: Brussels Free University  (VUB) - BE IN RESIDENCE AT: POuvoirs, LEttres, Normes (POLEN) / CNRS, University of Orléans - FR, Prof. Pierre Allorant, POuvoirs, LEttres, Normes (POLEN) / CNRS, University of Orléans - FR, Prof. Walter Badier, POuvoirs, LEttres, Normes (POLEN) / CNRS, University of Orléans - FR 

See full program here. 

(see call earlier on this blog)

ONLINE COLLOQUIUM: Regard critique sur les souverainetés (Afrique, Amériques, Asie, Europe) Moyen Âge – xxie siècle) (Paris: Université de Paris/University of Chicago in Paris/CRHIA Nantes/FMSH/CRHEU/EILA), 23-24 JUN 2021)

  

(image source: Université de Paris)

The University of Paris (and a number of co-organising entities) hosts a two-day online colloquium on sovereignties, from the Middle Ages to the 21st centuries on 23 and 24 June.

Abstract:

This interdisciplinary conference, bringing together historians, legal experts, and political scientists, will focus on the heuristic contribution of the concept of sovereignty, adopting a critical approach of the notion, in examining for instance sovereignties “without State” or “against the State”. Critical theory will help formulate political hermeneutics to better comprehend the concepts of State and power in Europe, the Americas, Asia, and Africa. The theory developed by Jean Bodin in his Six Books on the Commonwealth, and how it has been received from the end of the xvith to the xxist century, is here examined under a new light, not only deconstructing the usual approach on sovereignty, but also addressing the reasons why in Europe it became a fundamental concept for political science, modern theories of the State, and philosophy. Beyond the traditional distinction between “internal” and “external” sovereignty, one of the questions raised is whether Bodin’s assertion that “it is the essence of sovereign power to be unlimited: it is all powerful, or it is nothing” leaves room for debate and consideration on the nature of power in different types of communities: States, or groups of people defined by chosen or inflicted characteristics (ethnic origin, geography, common political preferences, etc.).

Click here for the full program.

(source: ESCLH Blog)

REMINDER: CALL FOR PAPERS: Law(s) and international relations (1815-1914). Actors, institutions, comparative legislations (Orléans/Paris, 15-17 SEP 2021); DEADLINE 31 MAR 2021

  

(image source: univ-droit)

In the last twenty years, the study of the history of international law and of international relations has witnessed something of a renaissance. Historians have adopted novel approaches to investigate diplomatic relations, the international system, and the discipline of international law. Fruitful perspectives from cultural, social, global and transnational histories as well as from gender studies, Third World approaches to international law, and postcolonial and imperial histories have all shed new light on the evolution of international law in the nineteenth century. The bicentenary of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) also led to several new publications on the Congress System and on the “security culture” that was established in the aftermath of Napoleon. Nevertheless, many lacunae remain, especially regarding the relationship between law(s) and international relations during the long nineteenth century and in the sociocultural history of international law as a discipline with its own actors, networks, venues, institutions and power circles. The years 1815-1869 have been relatively neglected in the historiography, doubtless because they have generally been seen as a time when world governance rested more on political relationships than on juridical rules. Historian David Kennedy has thus written provocatively: “For international law, as for much of the rest of twentieth-century legal thought, it is really only the last five minutes of the nineteenth century that count.” And indeed, it is true that many recent and inspiring research works pay scant attention to the first half of the nineteenth century, such as the volumes of Juristes et relations internationales (Relations Internationales 2012/1) and  Profession, juristes internationalistes ? (Monde(s) 2015/1).

 

International law was first institutionalized in 1873 with the foundation in Belgium of the Institut de Droit International and the Association pour la réforme et la codification du droit des gens (known from 1895 onwards as the International Law Association). But the basic premises of this development occurred much earlier with the publication of several textbooks on both private and public international law in the 1830s and 1840s. Moreover, legal advisers were already employed in the foreign offices of many European nation-states and empires (as well as their colonies) in the United States, South America and Asia. International law was also spread through various scientific academies across the world, some of which organized contests on international law, such as the competitions organized by the Académie des sciences morales et politiques in France for 1839-1840, 1856-1857, 1892, and 1908. Many scientific journals also contained articles on international law in this earlier period, including the Thémis ou bibliothèque des jurisconsultes (1820-1830), the Kritische Zeitschrift für Rechtswissenschaft und Gesetzgebung des Auslands (1829-1856), the Revue de législation et de jurisprudence (1834-1853), the various journals edited by Jean-Jacques Gaspard Foelix (1834-1850), the Archives de droit et de législation (1837-1841), the Belgique judiciaire (1843-1914) and the Revue historique de droit français et étranger (1855-2021).

 

The aim of the present conference is to deepen our study of the interconnections  between law(s) and international relations through the eyes of a plurality of actors (e.g., legal advisers, lawyers, judges, activists, publicists, journalists, editors), institutions (e.g., foreign offices, courts, universities, academies of science, associations, libraries) and works on comparative law.

Three focuses will be especially addressed by this conference. The first is the plurality of actors. We welcome proposals on legal advisers within governments, foreign offices and national or colonial administrations; on civil and administrative judges, admiralty courts and prize laws; and on lawyers, academics, peace activists, international thinkers, journalists and editors, including women as well as men. A prosopography of a group of actors is invited as well as individual biographies. The theme of the birth and professionalization of “international lawyers” will be studied as well as the various editors and the book market for international law.

Our second focus will be on institutions. We especially invite papers studying the treatment of law(s) in foreign offices in a comparative perspective. For example, in Great Britain, legal issues were dealt by the Queens Lawyers until 1872 and afterwards by the Legal Adviser of the Foreign Office. In France after 1835, it was the Comité consultatif du contentieux that dealt with legal issues. But what about the foreign offices of other countries? Other institutions (similar to the Conseil d’état in France) may have also had their own “Foreign Office Committee.” How were these organized? Did they cooperate with the foreign office?  What role was played by scientific academies in the diffusion of international law? By the universities? By popular libraries? 

Our third and final focus is on the study of comparative law and its link to the development of international law. The Société de législation comparée, founded in 1869, was full of members of the first generation of the Institut de Droit International, while many comparativists were, vice versa, members of the Institut de Droit International. Scientific journals such as the Revue historique de droit français et étranger and the Revue de droit international et de législation comparée dealt with both comparative and international law. Papers on the progressive autonomy of the discipline and on the networks of the founding members are especially welcome.

Proposals in French, English or Spanish may be sent by email to raphael.cahen@vub.be, to pierre.allorant@univ-orleans.fr or to walter.badier@univ-orleans.fr. All applications must be sent by 31 March 2021 with a proposal of at least 3,000 characters. The proceedings will appear in a peer-reviewed publication. Transportation and accommodation costs will be covered by organizing institutions. 

  

Short List of Literature

-Allorant Pierre and Walter Badier, « La Société de législation comparée : boîte à idées du parlementarisme libéral de l’Empire libéral à la République opportuniste », Clio@Themis, vol. 13, 2017.

-Alexandrowicz Charles Henry, David Armitage, Jennifer Pitts (ed.), The Law of Nations in Global History, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2017.

-Arcidiacono Bruno, Cinq types de paix : une histoire des plans de pacification perpétuelle, XVIIe-XXe siècles, Paris, PUF, 2011.

-Armitage David, Foundations of modern international thought, New York, Cambridge University Press, 2013.

-Audren Frédéric, Jean-Louis Halpérin, La culture juridique française. Entre mythes et réalités. XIXe-XXe siècles, Paris, CNRS éditions, 2013.

-Badel Laurence (ed.), Histoire et relations internationales, Paris, Presses de la Sorbonne, 2020.

-Baillou Jean (ed.), Les affaires étrangères et le corps diplomatique français, Paris, CNRS éditions, 1984.

-Becker Lorca Arnulf, Mestizo International Law: A Global Intellectual History, 1842-1933, Cambridge, CUP, 2015.

-Benton Laura and Lisa Ford, Rage for Order. The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, Cambridge, HUP, 2016.

-Bois Jean-Pierre, La paix : histoire politique et militaire, 1435-1878, Paris, Perrin, 2012.

-Bruley Yves, Le quai d’Orsay impérial. Histoire du ministère des Affaires étrangères sous le Second Empire, Paris, A. Pedone, 2012.

-« Le Concert européen à l’époque du Second Empire », Relations internationales, 90, 1997, p. 145-163. 

-Cahen Raphaël, « The Mahmoud ben Ayad case and the Transformation of International Law », International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century (1776-1914). From the Public Law of Europe to Global International Law?, Inge Van Hulle, Randall Lesaffer (ed.),  Leiden, Brill, 2019, p. 126-139.

-« Hauterive et l’école des diplomates (1800-1830) », Clio@Themis, vol. 18, 2020.

-Cahen Raphaël, Frederik Dhondt, Elisabetta Fiocchi-Malaspina, « l’essor récent de l’histoire du droit international », Clio@themis, 18, 2020.

-Dhondt Frederik, « Recent research in the history of international law », Revue d’histoire du droit, 84, 2016, p. 313-334.

-« Portalis le jeune et le droit des gens », Joseph-Marie Portalis (1778-1858) : diplomate, magistrat et législateur, R. Cahen, N. Laurent-Bonne (ed.), Aix-en-Provence, PUAM, 2020, p. 153-182.

-Drocourt Nicolas, Eric Schnakenbourg (ed.), Thémis en diplomatie. Droits et arguments juridiques dans les relations internationales, Rennes, PUR, 2016.

-Fassbender Bardo and Anne Peters (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law, Oxford, OUP, 2012.

-Fiocchi Malaspina Elisabetta, L'eterno ritorno del Droit des gens di Emer de Vattel (secc. XVIII-XIX): L'impatto sulla cultura giuridica in prospettiva globale, Frankfurt, MPI for European Legal History, 2017.

-Gaurier Dominique, Histoire du droit international. De l’Antiquité à la création de l’ONU, Rennes, PUR, 2014.

-Genin Vincent, Le laboratoire belge du droit international : une communauté épistémique et internationale de juristes (1869-1914), Bruxelles, Académie royale de Belgique, 2018.

-Ghervas Stella, Conquering Peace : From the Enlightenment to the European Union, Cambridge, HUP, 2021.

-Graaf Beatrice De, Ido de Haan, Brian Vick (ed.), Securing Europe after Napoleon: 1815 and the New European Security Culture, Cambridge, CUP, 2019.

-Graaf Beatrice de, Fighting Terror after Napoleon. How Europe Became Secure after 1815, Cambridge, CUP, 2020.

-Halpérin Jean-Louis, L’histoire de l’état des juristes. Allemagne. XIX^e-XX^e siècles, Paris, Classique Garnier, 2015.

-Haynes Christine, Our friends the enemies : the occupation of France after Napoleon, Cambridge, HUP, 2018.

-Hellmann Gunther, Andreas Fahrmeir, Milos Vec (ed.), The transformation of Foreign Policy, Drawing and Managing Boundaries from Antiquity to the Present, Oxford, OUP, 2016. 

-Indravati Félicité (ed.), L’Identité du diplomate (Moyen Âge-XIXe siècle). Métier ou noble loisir?, Paris, Classique Garnier, 2020.

-Jarrett Mark, The Congress of Vienna and its Legacy War and Great Power Diplomacy after Napoleon, London, Tauris, 2014.

-Jones Kate, « Marking Foreign Policy by Justice: the Legal Advisers to the Foreign Office, 1876-1953 », in Robert McCorquodale, Jean-Pierre Gauci (ed.) British Influences on International Law, 1915-2015, Leiden, Brill, 2016, p. 28-55.

-Keller-Kemmerer Nina, Die Mimikry des Völkerrechts Andrés Bellos 'Principios de Derecho Internacional', Baden-Baden, Nomos Verlag, 2018.

- Kennedy David, « International Law and the Nineteenth Century: History of an Illusion », Nordic Journal of International Law, vol. 65/3-4, 1996, p.385-420.

-Kévonian Dzovinar, Jean-Michel Guieu (ed.), « Juristes et relations internationales », Relations internationales, 149/1, 2012.

-Kévonian, Dzovinar and Philippe Rygiel (ed.), « Profession, juristes internationalistes? », Monde(s), vol. 7/1, 2015.

-Kévonian, Dzovinar and Philippe Rygiel (ed.), « Histories of International Lawyers between Trajectories, Practices, and Discourses », Jus Gentium, vol. 5/2, 2020.

-Koskenniemi Martti, The Gentle Civilizer of Nation : the Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2002.

-« Why history of international law today? », Rechtsgeschichte, 4, 2004, p. 61-66. 

-« What should international legal history become? », in System, Order and International Law. The Early History of International Legal Thought from Machiavelli to Hegel, Stefan Kadelbach et al. (ed.), Oxford, OUP, 2017, p. 381-397.  

-Koskenniemi Martti, Walter Rech, Manuel Jimenez Fonseca (ed), International Law and Empire. Historical Explorations, Oxford, OUP, 2017.

-Nuzzo Luiggi and Miloš Vec (ed.), Constructing International Law. The Birth of a Discipline, Francfort/M. 2012.

-Nuzzo Luiggi,  Origini di una scienza : diritto internazionale e colonialismo nel XIX secolo, Francfort, MPI, 2012.

-Obregon Liliana, « Peripheral Histories of International Law », Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 15, 2019, p. 437-451.

-Owens Patricia and Katharina Rietzler (ed.), Women’s International Thought: A New History, Cambridge, CUB, 2021

-Rasilla Ignacio de la, “A Very Short History of International Law Journals (1869–2018)”, EJIL, 29/1, 2018, 137–168.

-Rygiel Philippe, « De savants juristes au service de la France. Les experts du droit international auprès du Quai d’Orsay, 1874-1918 », Experts et expertise en diplomatie. La mobilisation des compétences dans les relations internationales du congrès de Westphalie à la naissance de l’ONU, Stanislas Jeannesson, Éric Schnakenbourg, Fabrice Jesné (ed.), Rennes, PUR, 2018, p. 205-222.

-Sédouy Jacques-Alain de, Le Concert européen. Aux origines de l’Europe, Paris, Fayard, 2009.

-Schroeder Paul, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763-1848, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1994.

-Sluga Glenda and Carolyn James (ed.), Women, diplomacy and international politics since 1500, London, Routledge, 2016.

-Soutou Georges-Henri, L’Europe de 1815 à nos jours, Paris, PUF, coll. « Nouvelle Clio », 2007. 

-Vick Brian, The Congress of Vienna - Power and Politics after Napoleon, Cambridge, HUP, 2014. 

 

Organising Committee

Pierre Allorant (Université d’Orléans)

Walter Badier (Université d’Orléans)

Raphaël Cahen (Le Studium Orléans/Vrije Universiteit Brussel).

 

Scientific Committee

Pierre Allorant (Université d’Orléans)

Éric Anceau (Sorbonne Université)

Yves Bruley (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes)

Noëlline Castagnez (Université d’Orléans)

Nicolas Cornu Thénard (Paris II)

Frederik Dhondt (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Jean Garrigues (Université d’Orléans)

Stella Ghervas (Newcastle University)

Martti Koskenniemi (University of Helsinki)

Milos Vec (University of Vienna)

 (source: univ-droit)

CONFERENCE: Imperial Artefacts: History, Law and the Looting of Cultural Property (Leiden/Online, 28-29 JAN 2021)

(image: Universiteit Leiden, Rapenburg; source: Wikimedia Commons)

 

The conference 'Imperial Artefacts: History, Law and the Looting of Cultural Property' (organized by Diana M. Natermann (Leiden) and Inge Van Hulle (Tilburg)), advertised earlier on this blog, will take place online on Thursday and Friday.

Programme

All keynotes and panels are held via MS Teams and it is generally recommended to use either Google Chrome or Chromium Edge as browsers.

DAY 1

09:15 – 09:30 Welcome words: Inge Van Hulle & Diana M. Natermann
09:30 – 10:30 Keynote: Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer – Looting, restitution, reconciliation (09:30 Germany)

10:30 – 10:45 Coffee break

 

1. Diplomacy, Identity and Restitution – Panel Chair: Diana Natermann

10:45 – 11:15 Lucas Lixinski (20.45 Sydney, Australia), ‘Beyond UNESCO: Regional International Legal Approaches to Post-Colonial Restitution’
11:15 – 11:45 Sahra Rausch (11:15 Germany), ‘An Affective De-Memorization? Debates over Colonial Amnesia regarding the Repatriation of Human Remains from Colonial Contexts in France and Germany’
11:45 – 12:15 Lars Müller (11:45 Germany), ‘Delaying, Evading, Rejecting. Western Reactions to Sri Lankan Demands for Restitution around 1980’

12:15 – 13:00 Lunch Break

 

2. Multi-disciplinary Perspectives on Colonial Violence and Restitution – Panel Chair: Raphael Shafer

13:00 – 13:30 Rotem Giladi (13:15 Israel), ‘Reading Between Categories: Corpora, Culture, Property and the Laws of War’
13:30 – 14:00 Jan Huesgen (13:45 Germany), ‘The Enemy on Display – Suits of Armour in Military Museums’
14:00 – 14:30 Ivan Obadić, Robert Mrljic & Miran Marelja (14:15 Croatia, Belgium), ‘War, spoils and return of cultural property: framing of restitution law at the Congress of Vienna in 1815’

14:30 – 14:45 Coffee Break

 

3. Law and Restitution: Past & Present – Panel Chair: Ana Delic

14:45 – 15:15 Afolasade A. Adewumi (15:15 Nigeria), ‘Does Utilitarianism Merge the Dichotomy Between the Nationalist and Internationalist Conception of Cultural Property in the Quest for Restitution?
15:15 – 15:45 Arianna Visconti (15:45 Italy), ‘A Paradox in Law: Italy’s Ambivalent Approach to Restitution Claims’
16:45 – 16:15 Marie-Sophie de Clippele & Bert Demarsin (16:15 Belgium), ‘Rights, wrongs and remedies - Working towards colonial heritage repatriation legislation for Belgium’

16:15 – 16:30 Coffee Break

 

4. Heritage, Discourse and the Representation of Cultural Artefacts – Panel Chair: Walter Nkwi Gam

16:30 – 17:00 Annalisa Bolin (16:30 Sweden), ‘Power and Possibility: The Return of Rwanda’s Stolen Bones’
17:00 – 17:30 Kokou Amazede (16:00 Togo), Acquisition methods of colonial objects and the traditional perception of the museum in German Togo
17:30 – 18:00 Janne Lahti (18:30 Finland), ‘Mesa Verde and Finland: Stolen Artefacts, Contested Discourses, and Nordic Colonial Legacies’
18:00 – 18:30 Donna Yates (18:00 The Netherlands) and Brieanah Gouveia (07:00 Hawaii), ‘Provenance narratives of colonial exploitation as value enhancers on the Oceanic art market’
18:30 – 19:00 Kaitlyn DeLong (12:30 Washington DC), ‘Confronting the Past: The Provenance of Indigenous Objects on Display’

DAY 2

09:15 – 10:15 Keynote: Junior Prof. Dr. Matthias Goldmann, (09:15 Germany) ‘The Role of Law in the Restitution Debate’

10:15 – 10:30 Coffee break

 

1. Enduring Coloniality and Cultural Heritage – Panel Chair: Alexandra Ortolja-Baird

10:30 – 11:00 Iain Sandford and Ada Siqueira (20:30 Sydney, Australia), ‘The Destruction of the Juukan Gorge Caves: A Study on the Role of International Law in Protecting Cultural Heritage in Times of Peace’
11:00 – 11:30 Norman Aselmeyer (11:00 Germany), Intangible Heritage: The Man-Eaters of Tsavo and their Global (After)Lives
11:30 – 12:00 Marcelo Marques Miranda & Jully Acuña Suárez (11:30 The Netherlands), ‘Repatriation as a means, not as an end’

12:00 – 13:00 Lunch Break

 

2. International Legal History and Restitution Debates – Panel Chair: Inge Van Hulle

13:00 – 13:30 Tomás Irish (12:00 UK), ‘“The Danger of Arbitrary Decisions”: The Paris Peace Conference and Cultural Reparations after the First World War’
13:30 – 14:00 Sebastian Willert (13:30 Germany), ‘A German Excavation for the Ottoman Imperial Museum? The Scramble for Objects between Berlin and Istanbul at Tell Halaf, 1911–1914’
14:00 – 14:30 Florian Wagner (14:00 Germany): ‘Colonialist Notions of Property: How European Lawyers Legitimized Dispossession (1880s-1950s)’

14:30 – 15:00 Coffee Break

 

3. Restitution, Heritage, and Human Rights – Panel Chair: Anne-Isabelle Richards

15:00 – 15:30 Evelien Campfens (15:00 The Netherlands), ‘Whose cultural objects? Introducing ‘heritage title’ in a human rights law approach’
15:30 – 16:00 Jihane Chedouki (15:30 Morocco): ‘From a moral function to a utilitarian function: the transformation of ancient objects and monuments in the Arab world in the 19-20th centuries’
16:00 – 16:30 Gretchen Allen (15:00 Ireland), ‘A Way for the Giant’s Cause: an examination of Irish indigenous rights in the case of Charles Byrne’
16:30 – 17:00 Caroline Drieënhuizen & Fenneke Sysling (16:30 The Netherlands), ‘Java Man: restitution claims at the natural history museum’

17:00 Closing remarks: Inge Van Hulle & Diana M. Natermann

(source: Universiteit Leiden) 

ONLINE LECTURE: Prof. dr. Miroslav Šedivý (Univ. of Pardubice), 'The public response to international insecurity 1830–1848: The Europeans between the written law (Recht) and the law of the mightiest (Faustrecht)' (1 OCT 2020; 17:00)

Standen & Landen/Anciens Pays et Assemblées d'États Lecture: 
Prof. dr. Miroslav Šedivý (Univ. of Pardubice)

The public response to international insecurity 1830–1848: The Europeans between the written law (Recht) and the law of the strongest (Faustrecht) 

(image source: Standen&Landen)

Abstract:

The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a generally well-known attempt to ensure security and peace within the so-called family of European countries and nations. This goal was to be achieved by clearly defined legal engagements and a mutual willingness to settle international disputes in a peaceful way. A quarter century later, however, a considerable number of Europeans felt that the heritage of the congress was being eroded and that the world was becoming increasingly insecure.

This conviction was primarily caused by the abuse of power by the most powerful states at the expense of weaker ones in Europe as well as the former’s imperialist policies in overseas regions. The most influential in this respect was the great powers’ competition in the Near East which had significant negative repercussions on the relations among the great powers themselves and on the general peace in Europe, such as happened in late 1840 during the so-called Rhine Crisis when a military conflict in the Ottoman Empire provoked a general war scare on the Continent. What was symptomatic for the Rhine Crisis was the increasing mistrust in the great powers’ policies and in the stability of the whole structure of the post-Napoleonic states system: a growing number of Europeans no longer had faith in the functionality of this system and generally became convinced that the security of their own countries and other nations in the world where the rule of force (Faustrecht) dominated was to be best preserved by material strength. That is why this widespread reaction to the law-breaking in international affairs, resulting in international insecurity, was one of the important points in various political/national programmes and stimulated the pursuit of national unifications, well defensible frontiers, land and naval armaments and colonial adventures.

At the same moment, however, a great number of Europeans did not abandon the belief that the security of their homeland also depended on the quality of the whole European states system, which made a considerable number advocate a more normative approach: new international law was to be introduced to ensure the equality as well as more justice and peace in relations among all states. This request was popular not only among the adherents of the peace movement being on rise in the 1840s but also in the nationalist camps across the Continent; both groups proposed the reconstruction of the international order by introducing new principles of international law, being a real law of (free) nations, and the creation of a pan-European organisation in the form of either a monarchical confederation or a congress of nations. The paper’s principal goal is to introduce this at the first sight contradictory debate about law and power in international relations before the mid 19th century and explain not only its causes but also the reason of the failure to establish a new better international political-legal order in Europe.

Reservation:

RSVP with standenenlanden@gmail.com. The lecture is scheduled for 1 October 2020 at 17:00 CET.

(source: Standen & Landen/Anciens Pays & Assemblées d'États)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Imperial Artefacts: History, Law, and the Looting of Cultural Property (Leiden, 28-29 JAN 2021) (Deadline 31 AUG 2020)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Conference organised by       Dr Diana M. Natermann (Leiden University) &

Dr Inge van Hulle (Tilburg University)

Date:                                       28.-29. January 2021

Location:                                 Leiden University, The Netherlands

Abstract deadline:                  31. August 2020        

Keynote Speaker:                   Prof. Dr. Jürgen Zimmerer

(Chair for Global History at Hamburg University & Head of the Research Centre ”Hamburg’s (Post)Colonial Legacy”)

This interdisciplinary conference aspires to bring together (post-)colonial historians, legal historians, curators, international lawyers, and others engaged with the field to establish research collaborations by critically investigating stories of colonial looting, the framing of colonial history within museums, the origins of the legal framework concerning European laws of war and restitution, as well as a way forward for restitution claims.

The notion that cultural treasures are not legitimate spoils of war, contradicts norms that were accepted according to the law of nations for centuries. However, after the public outrage occasioned by the plunder of Belgium and Italy by Napoleon’s forces, the nineteenth century saw a gradual rise of several initiatives such as the Lieber Code (1863), the Brussels Declaration (1874), the Oxford Manual (1880) and the Hague Convention II (1899) that sought to limit or outlaw the seizure and confiscation of cultural and private property. Within this nineteenth-century development the spoliation of non-Western countries by imperial powers was largely ignored or even explicitly condoned. Arguments that bolstered the expropriation within imperial contexts were framed in an explicitly racist and dehumanising discourse, which placed non-Western states wholly or partially outside of the application of European laws of war. The result was the destruction of indigenous heritage and the steady flow of cultural artefacts and valuable manuscripts from the Middle East, Africa, Asia, and Australasia to Western archives, museums, and public spaces.

            Since decolonisation, several former colonies of the Global South have led the way in mounting public pressure on Western governments and museums to address the legacy of colonial looting and have started legal procedures for reclaiming cultural property. However, since the beginning of the twentieth century the international legal framework for reclaiming cultural property has expanded considerably, many of these instruments remain ill-adapted to the legal relationship that existed between coloniser and colonised. Also, legal proceedings that have restitution as their objective are further complicated by the confluence of public international law, private law, and constitutional law of various jurisdictions which provides for a legal Gordian knot. Procedurally, the burden of proof lies with the requesting state, which might have insufficient financial or legal means at its disposal to pursue lengthy legal procedures.

Meanwhile, many Western museums fear the depletion of their collections and voice their scepticism of political endeavours to return said artefacts – especially since French President Macron’s statement in 2017 during a visit through Burkina Faso in 2017. In a report commissioned by President Macron and written by Felwine Sarr and Bénédicte Savoy it is stated that artefacts taken without consent from Africa during French colonialism shall be repatriated. And yet, in spite of political, financial, and legal difficulties, restitution claims are mounting in frequency. Also, over the past decade, Western governments have shown increasing openness towards collaboration with the Global South to trace looted artefacts and to return these to their countries of origin. This is especially the case in relation to the issue of giving back human remains.

In light of these developments we welcome contributions that focus on (but are not necessarily limited to) following topics:

-          Histories of specific cases of misappropriation, of colonial violence, of how objects travelled and ended up in Western museums and archives (provenance)

-          Histories of the laws of war in colonial contexts in legal practice and in legal theory

-          Histories of domestic constitutional and private law concerning restitution

-          Histories of the actors involved: imperials agents, indigenous resistance to spoliation, NGO’s, etc.

-          Museology: how are colonial objects framed, styled and/or contextualised

-          Historiography: histories of the critical debate concerning law, colonial museums and restitution

-          De lege ferenda: how can/should legal restitution move forward?

-          (Post)colonial debates on the restitution of heritage objects

-          Interconnectedness of identity and historical artefacts

-          Experience with restitutions concerning art looted by Nazis and its (possible) impact on restituting looted colonial art.

If you would like to propose a paper for a 20-minute presentation, please send a brief abstract of about 250-300 words to d.m.s.m.natermann@hum.leidenuniv.nl. When sending your abstract, please also provide a one-page CV or short bio with details of your academic experience, affiliation, and publications. The deadline for submitting proposals is Monday, 31 August 2020. The selection committee will make their final decision on submitted abstracts by mid-September 2020. Further information about the programme, registration, travel and accommodation will be announced after that date. Based on the discussion during the conference the organisers will invite conference delegates to prepare a chapter for an edited volume or special issue of papers presented at this event.

This event is generously supported by the MA International Relations Programme at Leiden University, the History Department of Leiden University, and the African Studies Centre Leiden.

Please note: depending on how the current Covid-19 situation unfolds come winter, this conference may ultimately take place online or be postponed to a later date in 2021.

Our twitter handle is #imperialartefactsconference