COLLOQUIUM: "Génocide. Droit et histoire du crime des crimes", Collège de France (Paris, 13 June 2025)

Source: Collège de France

Description:

Colloque coorganisé par la Pr Samantha Besson, chaire Droit international des institutions et le Pr Henry Laurens, chaire Histoire contemporaine du monde arabe.

Garantie pour la première fois en droit international en 1948 (Convention pour la prévention et la répression du crime de génocide du 9 décembre 1948), l’interdiction du génocide est souvent considérée comme l’interdiction du « crime des crimes ». Contrairement aux autre crimes codifiés à nouveau depuis dans les statuts de tribunaux pénaux internationaux (dont le Statut de Rome de la Cour pénale internationale (CPI) du 17 juillet 1998), le crime de génocide n’a jamais varié dans sa formulation. En comparaison, il a aussi été peu invoqué et, dès lors, peu interprété dans la jurisprudence, que ce soit par les tribunaux pénaux nationaux ou les tribunaux pénaux internationaux ad hoc ou permanents comme la CPI. Certains en ont déduit une force normative parmi les plus élevées en droit international, une valeur de reconnaissance historique des crimes commis et, c’est lié, un rôle avant tout préventif. Depuis une quinzaine d’années, toutefois, une évolution se fait sentir. La violation de l’obligation qu’ont les États de prévenir le génocide est invoquée de manière de plus en plus fréquente en pratique. C’est ainsi que, dès 2007, la jurisprudence de la Cour internationale de justice (CIJ) s’est étoffée autour de l’obligation de prévention du génocide. Actuellement la clause de compétence de l’art. IX de la Convention de 1948 est au fondement de pas moins de quatre procédures contentieuses contre des États devant la CIJ.

Face à cette évolution rapide de la pratique internationale, un bilan juridique s’impose. Étant donné la place centrale donnée à divers titres à l’histoire au sein du raisonnement juridique en matière de génocide, il est intéressant d’y procéder en dialogue avec les historiens. La Convention de 1948 y invite d’ailleurs les juristes, reconnaissant dans son préambule « qu’à toutes les périodes de l’histoire le génocide a infligé de grandes pertes à l’humanité ». L’intérêt d’un tel bilan vaut aussi en histoire. La question se pose en effet de l’application du concept (juridique) de génocide aux réalités mouvantes de l’histoire, en particulier à un moment où de larges pans du passé sont vécus comme appartenant toujours à notre présent. Il ne s’agit pas de nier l’existence d’exterminations de masses, mais de déterminer si le concept de génocide apporte un élément supplémentaire de compréhension aux processus étudiés.

Durant cette journée de rencontre, juristes et historiens, spécialistes du génocide, noueront un dialogue, nous l’espérons, fructueux. Leurs débats seront articulés autour de quatre questions : 1) Interdiction du génocide : des violences et « légendes noires » au crime de droit coutumier ; 2) Auteurs de génocide : individuels, collectifs et/ou institutionnels ; 3) Conditions du génocide : intentions et/ou processus génocidaires ; et 4) Justice et vérité du génocide : « passé qui ne passe pas » et « assassins de la mémoire ». Le traitement de ces questions sera bien entendu l’occasion de revenir sur différents cas de génocide dans l’histoire, y compris dans l’histoire du droit international.

Intervenantes et intervenants : Monique Chemillier-Gendreau (université Paris Cité) ; Christian Ingrao (CESPRA, École des hautes études en sciences sociales/CNRS) ; Mark Levene (université de Southampton) ; Rafaëlle Maison (IEDP, université Paris-Saclay) ; Jean-Clément Martin (IHMC, université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne) ; Guénaël Mettraux (Chambres spécialisées pour le Kosovo, La Haye & Dickinson Law School, université d’État de Pennsylvanie) ; Henry Rousso (IHTP, CNRS) ; William Schabas (université de Middlesex, Londres).

More info with CdF.

LECTURE SERIES: "Histoires et mémoires des Africains Européens de l’Antiquité à nos jours", Cycle Europe du Collège de France (Paris, November 2024)

Source: Collège de France

Description:

Ce cycle de quatre conférences aura pour but d’explorer les histoires et les expériences des personnes d’ascendance africaine afin de comprendre de quelle manière leurs trajectoires sont intimement liées à l’histoire de l’Europe. On s’attellera à examiner les changements liés aux perceptions et aux représentations des personnes d’ascendance africaine au fil des siècles. Un regard critique sera ensuite porté sur la manière dont leurs histoires ont été concentrées sur la période coloniale (XVe-XIXe siècle) et la manière dont le préjugé de couleur est devenu central dans la notion de race. Ces communautés, souvent perçues comme victimes, ont réussi à émerger des traumas au travers de diverses pratiques mémorielles qui seront examinées. La question des héritages du passé pour le présent sera également abordée, notamment autour des enjeux mémoriels, des réparations et du corps comme lieu de lutte politique mais aussi comme outil de guérison du trauma.

For the full program, click here.

BOOK: Lyndsay CAMPBELL & Shaunnagh DORSETT, "Legal Histories of Empire: Navigating Legalities" (Taylor & Francis, 2024)

Source: Taylor & Francis

Description:

This collection brings together an international group of scholars in order to provide new insights into the diversity of imperial legalities.

Across empires, legalities were produced not just – or even – through the imperial imposition of laws and legal forms, but through local processes of negotiation and contestation. Far from the metropoles, local actors found ways to creatively navigate and subvert imperial frameworks and laws and to create space in which to shape new legalities, responsive to local circumstance and need. Covering topics as diverse as smuggling in eighteenth century Jersey, the criminalisation of female market women in World War II-era southern Nigeria, and whiteness and race in ‘sexual perversion’ cases in twentieth-century Malaya, the collection elaborates new legal histories of empire. Drawing from Britain, Ireland, Australia, Canada, the USA, India, Sri Lanka, Africa and Malaysia, the collection brings together chapters that examine the stories of the peoples of empires and shows how they constituted, experienced, navigated and subverted the legal complexities of living under empire.

This book will be of interest to scholars and researchers in law and history, but also to those with relevant interests in post-colonial and cultural studies, as well as in criminology and sociology.

More info and table of contents with the publisher.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: Colonial Legacies in Public Law: histories, theories, pitfalls and potentials (Queen Mary Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context, 14-16 January 2025, DEADLINE: 20 September 2024)

Colonial Legacies in Public Law: histories, theories, pitfalls and potentials - call for applications

When: Tuesday, January 14, 2025 - Thursday, January 16, 2025, 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Where: TBC

The Queen Mary Centre of Law and Society in a Global Context (CLSGC) is thrilled to announce a Masterclass with Professor Philipp Dann that will take place on 14-16 January 2025.

Organisers: Mohsin Bhat, Tanzil Chowdhury and Eva Nanopoulos.

The legacies of empire and colonialism are becoming visible everywhere these days. They shape various debates in public law but also indicate a new phase of globalization. The Masterclass will study these legacies and discuss their various dimensions and implications in comparative constitutional, public international and European Union law. The Class will draw on history and political theory, especially post-/decolonial theories to contextualize public law. It will use examples (such as the concept of development and democracy) to understand how empire and colonialism have shaped constitutional, international and European Union law and their scholarly reflection over time. But it will also turn to the future and ask participants to explore the potentials (and pitfalls) for re-imagining public law and its scholarship in the 21st century through the colonial lens. The Class is an invitation to rethink public law and the role of legal scholarship in a truly global way mindful of the broader legacies of modernity and colonialism.

Please note the start and end times listed are provisional and will be confirmed at a later date.

Overview of the sessions

Session 1: Comparative Constitutional Law, the Southern Turn and Reflexive Globalization – argument and framing

On the first day, the general theme of the class will be introduced and a framework of analysis established. This includes a basic engagement with colonial history and postcolonial thought as well as a reflection on the attention of public law scholarship to these dimensions so far. The class will discuss the overarching argument that a ‘Southern Turn’ and an understanding of colonial legacies provides a foundation to rethink the conceptual vocabulary of public law in the 21st century. Comparative constitutional law is a paramount area for such reflexive rethinking of public law theory.

Session 2: International law and the concept of development

The second day will turn to international law, the scholarship of which was the first to engage with colonial legacies. The class will situate and discuss Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). It will then engage in particular with the concept of development as the central paradigm to structure South-North relations in the 20th century and study its implications for international institutional, economic and human rights law in shaping international law up until today.

Session 3: Constitutional thought in reflexive globalization: examples of temporality and democracy

On day Three, the class will return to the initial argument that basic notions and the conceptual vocabulary of public law are in (and need) a process of reflexive rethinking in order to grasp and structure the realities of public authority in the multipolar world of the 21st century. The class will turn to two examples that will demonstrate this process and possible outcomes of such reflexive rethinking. One is the perspective of time and temporality that allows us to highlight distinct elements of public law; the other example is democracy, a universally used notion, which still rests on conceptual considerations arising from 19th and early 20th century Europe even though it has traveled long ago.

Session 4: European Public Law and the legacies of Empires

Scholarship on the law of the European Union as well as the law of European states has been late in engaging with postcolonial perspectives. Day Four of the class will engage with reasons for this obliviousness – and then examine various colonial legacies in these two and entangled bodies of public law. Through the colonial lens, concept such as the state (and community of states), citizenship and the common market take on new contours and become more contested and less solid as generally assumed.

About Professor Philipp Dann

Philipp Dann is Professor at Humboldt University Berlin, where he holds the Chair in Public and Comparative Law. His research focuses on the role of law in the encounter and entanglement between South and North – in international, comparative and European law, in legal theory and legal history. He has published three monographs, ten edited volumes and is the editor-in-chief of the quarterly journal “World Comparative Law”. He is a co-founder of the ‘Law and Development Research Network’, a co-chair of the ICON chapter Germany and a principal investigator at research clusters ‘Contestations of the Liberal Script’ and ‘Varieties of Constitutionalism’. He has advised governments and other parties on constitutional matters and questions of law and development.

Format

The Class will be text- and discussion-oriented, based on a reader comprising texts by Professor Dann and other eminent works in the field. It will unfold through four sessions of 3 hours each.

Each session will be composed of three elements: An introductory lecture by Professor Dann on the theme; discussions among smaller groups on the lecture and the assigned readings guided by an open set of questions; and a plenary discussion on the theme with Professor Dann.

Application process

The Class is addressed to academic researchers (including PhD and postdoctoral students) with research interests broadly aligned within the themes of the Class.

Applications should be sent to Eva Nanopoulos: e.nanopoulos@qmul.ac.uk by the 20 September, with the folllowing information:Name

Current institution

Country of origin

Gender

Statement of interest (500 words)

CV upload (up to 3 or 4 pages)

Source: Queen Mary University London

BOOK: Christopher MEISSNER, "One From the Many: The Global Economy Since 1850" (OUP, 2024)

Source: OUP

Description:

Amid a recent surge in arguments that the global economy has begun to "de-globalize," a question has emerged: will globalization survive? In One from the Many: The Global Economy since 1850, Christopher M. Meissner argues that based on the long-run of history, globalization will not be easily vanquished.

This brief introduction to the economic history of the global economy and the process of globalization since 1850 tracks and explains changes in international trade, migration, and capital flows over time. All key indicators of globalization rose between 1850 and 1914 during the first wave of globalization. Between 1918 and 1939 the global economy stagnated, suffering a momentous collapse during the Great Depression of the 1930s. After World War II, the global economy re-emerged and integration deepened.

A long-run view suggests that rising integration and growth of global economy can generate economic benefits and raise welfare. Given these lessons, the global economy will almost surely survive and integration will continue to grow. However, globalization can only survive if humanity continues to recognize its common interests and the untapped potential of further integration. At the same time, the potential adverse effects of greater integration must be acknowledged, mitigated, and minimized. Meissner's brief history of the global economy offers economics, political science, and history students a new perspective on the history of its subject matter, with an eye on a future where globalization has the potential to persist as an integrative force.

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1 Introduction

Chapter 2 The Very Long Run: 10,000 BCE - 1820 CE

Chapter 3 The Great Specialization: 1820 -1914

Chapter 4 International Investment, 1820 -1914

Chapter 5 Inter-dependence and Instability in the Classical Gold Standard Era

Chapter 6 The Great Migrations

Chapter 7 The Beginning of the End: Backlash to the First Wave of Globalization

Chapter 8 World War I and its Legacy (Prologue to the Great Depression): 1914-1928

Chapter 9 The Great Depression: An Unprecedented International Economic Crisis

Chapter 10 Rebuilding the World Economy (yet, again)

Chapter 11 The Global Economy in the Post-War Era

Chapter 12 The Bretton Woods System - A New Regime

Chapter 13 International Financial Flows and Financial Crises after the End of the Bretton Woods System

Chapter 14 The International Economy since 2000: Hyperglobalization and Beyond

Chapter 15 Prospects for the Global Economy in the 21st Century

References

Christopher M. Meissner is professor of economics at the University of California, Davis and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research.

More info with OUP.

JOURNAL: Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international XXVI (Volume 26/2, 2024)

 

(image source: Brill)

Description: 

A New History for Human Rights: Conflict of Laws as Adjacent Possibility (León Castellanos-Jankiewicz) [OPEN ACCESS]

DOI 10.1163/15718050-bja10095
Abstract:

The pivotal contributions of private international law to the conceptual emergence of international human rights law have been largely ignored. Using the idea of adjacent possibility as a theoretical metaphor, this article shows that conflict of laws analysis and technique enabled the articulation of human rights universalism. The nineteenth-century epistemic practice of private international law was a key arena where the claims of individuals were incrementally cast as being spatially independent from their state of nationality before rights universalism became mainstream. Conflict of laws was thus a vital combinatorial ingredient contributing to the dislocation of rights from territory that underwrites international human rights today. 

International Lawyers as Hope Mongers: How Did We Come to Believe That Democracy Was Here to Stay? (Işıl Aral)
DOI 10.1163/15718050-bja10098
Abstract:

It is common these days to lament the recession of democracy around the world. The way scholars address the issue of democratic backsliding shows that there is a significant gap between the expectation about democracy’s anticipated course of development and the current state of affairs. This article argues that the expectation that democracy would consolidate over time was produced by the progress narrative of democratic governance discourses. Drawing on narratology, it conducts a discourse analysis to demonstrate that today’s dismay about the recession of democracy is due to an unwarranted expectation that was created by the progress narrative of democratic governance discourses. It focuses on the periodisation of history in the construction of these discourses and investigates how scholars used the Cold War – post-Cold War dichotomy to create a progress narrative.

The Twilight of the Law of the Fairs: Inventing International Cooperation on Bankruptcies in Early Modern Europe (Lyon, 1660–1710) (Benoît Saint-Cast)
DOI  10.1163/15718050-bja10094
Abstract:

Bankruptcy was a key institution in the development of markets in Europe. However, the territoriality of jurisdictions and legal systems made international insolvencies difficult to manage. In the middle of the seventeenth century, cities such as Lyon developed networks of cooperation by granting foreign merchants equal rights to local creditors on a reciprocal basis. However, courts were reluctant to give foreign authorities control over assets and creditors on their territory. The article examines how the Lyon commercial court changed its policy towards international insolvencies during the second half of the seventeenth century. Whereas equal treatment of foreign creditors was conditioned on the recognition of an extraterritorial jurisdiction in the medieval fairs system, it now depended on the reciprocity of the legal status granted to merchants abroad. This system of cooperation between equally sovereign courts prefigured in many ways the current situation of private international law in bankruptcy matters.

Book review

The Political Economy of International Commodity Cartels: An Economic History of the European Timber Trade in the 1930s , written by Elina Kuorelahti (Florenz Volkaert) 
DOI 10.1163/15718050-bja10108

Check out the full issue on Brill's website here.

BOOK: Anthony LANG & Antjie WIENER (eds.), "Handbook on Global Constitutionalism" (2nd edition, Edward Elgar, 2024)

Source: Elgar

 Description:

This thoroughly revised Handbook presents an up-to-date political and philosophical history of global constitutionalism. By exploring the constitutional-like qualities of international affairs, it provides key insights into the evolving world order.

Through a sustained examination of current events, as well as an acknowledgement of the significance of early constitutional history, this erudite Handbook brings together contributions from world-leading academics. New chapters offer timely commentaries on important developments in methodology such as postcolonial and feminist approaches. By providing additional scope for analysis, this updated edition further emphasises the central message of the first: that the global order cannot be understood without a clear comprehension of constitutional theory.

The Handbook on Global Constitutionalism will act as an essential resource for scholars and academics of law, politics and human rights. Due to its comprehensive examination of vital concepts such as legal theory, it will additionally be beneficial for practitioners and policy makers.

Table of contents:

Preface and acknowledgments xvii

1 Introduction to the Handbook on Global Constitutionalism: protecting

rights and democracy while binding power 1

Anthony F. Lang, Jr. and Antje Wiener

PART I HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS

2 Global constitutionalism: the ancient worlds 24

Jill Harries

3 Medieval constitutionalism 36

Francis Oakley

4 Global constitutionalism in the early modern period: the role of

empires, treaties and natural law 47

Martine van Ittersum

5 The Enlightenment and global constitutionalism 60

Chris Thornhill

6 Modern historical antecedents of global constitutionalism in theoretical

perspective 77

Michel Rosenfeld

PART II POLITICAL AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS THEORIES

7 Cosmopolitanism and global constitutionalism 90

Garrett Wallace Brown

8 Liberal theory 102

Iain Ferguson

9 Constructivism and global constitutionalism 116

Jan Wilkens

10 Realist perspectives on global constitutionalism 130

Oliver Jütersonke

11 Critical theory 141

Gavin W. Anderson

12 The English School and global constitutionalism 153

Filippo Costa Buranelli

13 Postcolonial global constitutionalism 167

Sigrid Boysen

14 Feminist approaches to global constitutionalism 186

Ruth Houghton

PART III LEGAL THEORIES

15 Natural law at the foundation of global constitutionalism 209

Mary Ellen O’Connell

16 International legal constitutionalism, legal forms and the need for villains 226

Jean d’Aspremont

17 Interactional legal theory, the international rule of law and global

constitutionalism 241

Jutta Brunnée and Stephen J. Toope

18 The shifting relationship between functionalism and global constitutionalism 254

Jeffrey L. Dunoff

19 Global constitutionalism and international public authority in the crisis

of liberal internationalism 266

Armin von Bogdandy, Matthias Goldmann and Ingo Venzke

PART IV PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICES

20 Global constitutionalism and the rule of law 295

Mattias Kumm

21 Balance of powers 309

Eoin Carolan

22 Constituent power in global constitutionalism 319

Peter Niesen

23 Human rights as transnational constitutional law 332

Samantha Besson

24 Proportionality as a global constitutional principle 347

Anne Peters

25 Written versus unwritten: two views on the form of an international

constitution 364

Bardo Fassbender

26 Transnational litigation networks: agents of change in the global

constitutional order 374

Jill Bähring

27 Human rights, sovereignty and the use of force 396

Sassan Gholiagha

PART V INSTITUTIONS AND FRAMEWORKS

28 International judicial review 410

Başak ‚alõ

29 Legislatures 424

M.J. Peterson

30 Executive and exception 437

William E. Scheuerman

31 Federalism: from constitutionalism to constitutionalization? 448

Thomas O. Hueglin

32 The UN Charter and global constitutionalism? 460

Michael W. Doyle

33 Functionalism, constitutionalism and the United Nations 477

Jan Klabbers

34 The European Union and global constitutionalism 490

Jo Shaw

35 The International Criminal Court and global constitutionalism 508

Andrea Birdsall and Anthony F. Lang, Jr.

36 Global commercial constitutionalization: the World Trade Organization 519

Joel P. Trachtman

PART VI NEW HORIZONS

37 Global constitutionalism and outer space governance 529

Adam Bower

38 The political economy of global constitutionalism 542

Christine Schwöbel-Patel

39 Global religion in a post-Westphalia world 556

Susanna Mancini

40 Constitutionalism and pluralism 568

Neil Walker

More info on EE.