CALL FOR PAPERS: "The Past is Prologue: The Impact of Law’s History" (DEADLINE 30 SEP 2019)

The Past is Prologue: The Impact of Law’s History : A New Edited Collection of Essays on Legal History 

The Book. 

Legal rules, decisions, institutions, and individual actors have had an enormous impact on our cultures and societies today. The leaders that govern us, the crimes that are committed, and the freedoms that we cherish are part and parcel of the enduring legacy of legal history. Despite its diminishing presence in legal education in recent decades, the study of legal history is on an upswing as its importance gains renewed recognition. The availability of new techniques and resources allow scholars to develop new insights and supplement, contextualise, or challenge our previous understandings of the causes and consequences of developments in law and society. 
We are assembling a special collection of essays that consider how legal history in Aboriginal, British, Australian, American or wider contexts have shaped our shared present. The essays in this collection will be more than just discussions of particular aspects of legal history in the abstract; instead, each will draw a clear and significant connection to a meaningful feature of our lives today. With this Call for Papers, we are now soliciting contributions from the academy and members of the public more generally. 

Advice for contributors.  

This edited collection will be initially offered to an Australian academic press.  Please submit an abstract of up to 250 words explaining the focus and approach your proposed essay would take to ensure appropriate academic rigour. The proposed volume is intended to be scholarly but accessible in tone and approach. Each contribution should be in the area of 6000 to 10000 words. Please email abstracts to marcus.harmes@usq.edu.au by 30 September 2019. 

About the editors. 

Associate Professor Marcus Harmes is Associate Director (Academic Development) in the University of Southern Queensland’s Open Access College and teaches legal history in the law degree.  Dr. Jeremy Patrick is Acting Associate Head of School (Research) in the University of Southern Queensland School of Law and Justice. He has published on the historical aspects of various subjects in the area of law and religion.  Ms Sarah McKibbin is Lecturer (Law) in the University of Southern Queensland’s School of Law and Justice. She was instrumental in developing the legal history course in the law degree.

(source: Legal History Blog)

CONFERENCE: 43. Rechtshistorikertrag (Zürich: Universität Zürich, 7-11 SEP 2020)

(image source: University of Zürich)

The 43rd edition of the Deutscher Rechtshistorikertag will be in Zürich from 7-11 September 2020. A special section is devoted to the history of international law ("Völkerrechtsgeschichte").

More information will soon appear on the conference website.

BOOK: Anna STILZ, Territorial Sovereignty. A Philosophical Exploration [Oxford Political Theory] (Oxford: OUP, 2019), 304 p., ISBN 9780198833536, 25 GBP

(image source: OUP)

Book abstract:

Territorial Sovereignty: A Philosophical Exploration offers a qualified defense of a territorial states-system. It argues that three core values-occupancy, basic justice, and collective self-determination-are served by an international system made up of self-governing, spatially defined political units. The defense is qualified because the book does not actually justify all the sovereignty rights states currently claim, and that are recognized in international law. Instead, the book proposes important changes to states' sovereign prerogatives, particularly with respect to internal autonomy for political minorities, immigration, and natural resources. Part I of the book argues for a right of occupancy, holding that a legitimate function of the international system is to specify and protect people's preinstitutional claims to specific geographical places. Part II turns to the question of how a state might acquire legitimate jurisdiction over a population of occupants. It argues that the state will have a right to rule a population and its territory if it satisfies conditions of basic justice and also facilitates its people's collective self-determination. Finally, Parts III and IV of this book argue that the exclusionary sovereignty rights to control over borders and natural resources that can plausibly be justified on the basis of the three core values are more limited than has traditionally been thought.

On the author:

Anna Stilz, Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and Human Values, Princeton University Anna Stilz is Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor of Politics and Human Values at Princeton University. Her first book, Liberal Loyalty: Freedom, Obligation, and the State, was published by Princeton University Press in 2009. She is an associate editor of Philosophy and Public Affairs.

Read more on OUP's website.

(source: International Law Reporter)

ENCYCLOPEDIA: Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (Launch 5 SEP 2019)

(image source: Oxford UP)

Launching on 5 September 2019, this new module will sit alongside the existing Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL) as part of the relaunched Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law (MPIL). The Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (MPEiPro) will map and analyze the systems and processes through which international law is made and adjudicated in practice. Each article is commissioned by General Editor Professor Hélène Ruiz Fabri and a team of experts at the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law, providing cutting-edge and rigorously peer-reviewed research on areas of international law that are often under-explored. MPEiPro will take a broad view of international procedure, examining it from three different angles: technical points of procedure within specific institutions or across similar organizations; comparative accounts of families of institutions within specific subject areas or with similar functions; and theoretical, interdisciplinary entries. The scope of the Encyclopedia will mirror the broad understanding of procedure underlying it, encompassing decision-making by international organs in general, including political and administrative bodies. At launch, the Encyclopedia will cover dispute settlement and adjudication. Coverage of non-adjudicatory modes of dispute settlement such as negotiation, mediation, and conciliation, as well as international political and administrative procedures will be added over time. The Encyclopedia will eventually contain over 1000 entries.

Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law (MPIL)

The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL) and the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (MPEiPro) are comprehensive analytical resources that feature peer-reviewed articles on every aspect of international law. These definitive reference works are the first port of call for anyone interested in international law. Contains the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law and the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law Search and browse a comprehensive collection of articles on every aspect of international law Read peer-reviewed articles written by an incomparable team of scholars and practitioners Updated throughout the year with new and revised articles.

On the editors:

General Editor (MPEiPro): Hélène Ruiz Fabri, Director of the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law. General Editor (MPEPIL): Rüdiger Wolfrum, Managing Director, Max Planck Foundation of International Peace and Rule of Law; former Director at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law. 

(source: OUP)

BOOK REVIEW: Joshua SMELTZER, Carl Schmitt In and Out of History (LSE Review of Books)

(image source: LSE Review of Books)

Review presentation:

In this long read, Joshua Smeltzer reviews two recent books that return to the works of infamous political and legal theorist Carl Schmitt, Perilous Futures: On Carl Schmitt’s Late Writings by Peter Uwe Hohendahl and Carl Schmitt’s State and Constitutional Theory: A Critical Analysis by Benjamin Schupmann. In the piece, Smeltzer reflects on some of the methodological challenges of studying Schmitt’s work in historical context, questions scholarly attempts to rehabilitate Schmitt as a liberal state theorist given his close involvement with Nazism and calls for greater attention on other protagonists in the intellectual history of German democracy.

Read further on the LSE Review of Books.

PODCAST: Law, History and Global Governance (Dr Megan Donaldson) [Interventions. The Intellectual History Podcast]

(image source: interventions)

Interventions, the Intellectual History Podcast (Cambridge) published an episode with dr. Megan Donaldson on "Law, History and Global Governance".

Series description:

What do intellectual historians currently investigate? And why is this relevant for us today? These are some of the questions our podcast series, led by graduate students at Cambridge, seeks to explore. It aims to introduce intellectual historians and their work to everyone with an interest in history and politics. Do join in on our conversations!

Listen here.

BOOK: Koen STAPELBROEK & Antonio TRAMPUS (eds.), The Legacy of Vattel's Droit des gens (London: Palgrave, 2019), IX + 296 p. ISBN 978-3-030-23838-4, € 44,02

(image source: Palgrave)

Book abstract:

This edited collection offers a reassessment of the complicated legacy of Emer de Vattel’s Droit des gens, first published in 1758. One of the most influential books in the history of international law and a major reference point in the fields of international relations theory and political thought, this book played a role in the transformation of diplomatic practice in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. But how did Vattel’s legacy take shape? The volume argues that the enduring relevance of Vattel’s Droit des gens cannot be explained in terms of doctrines and academic disciplines that formed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Instead, the chapters show how the complex reception of this book took shape historically and why it had such a wide geographical and disciplinary appeal until well into the twentieth century. The volume charts its reception through translations, intellectual, ideological and political appropriations as well as new practical usages, and explores Vattel’s discursive and conceptual innovations. Drawing on a wide range of sources, such as archive memoranda and diplomatic correspondences, this volume offers new perspectives on the book’s historical contexts and cultures of reception, moving past the usual approach of focusing primarily on the text. In doing so, this edited collection forms a major contribution to this new direction of study in intellectual history in general and Vattel’s Droit des gens in particular.

About the editors:

Koen Stapelbroek is Associate Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands. His research focuses on intellectual history and political thought. Antonio Trampus is Professor of Modern History at Ca’ Foscari University Venice, Italy. His research focuses on cultural history and constitutionalism. 

Table of contents:
The Legacy of Vattel’s Droit des gens: Contexts, Concepts, Reception, Translation and Diffusion (Koen Stapelbroek & Antonio Trampus)

Vattel as an Intermediary Between the Economic Society of Berne and Poland
(Radoslaw Szymanski)

“A Poor Imitation of Grotius and Pufendorf?” Biographical Uncertainties and the Laborious Genesis of Vattel’s Droit des gens
(Frédéric Ieva)

The Citizen’s Right to Leave His Country: The Concept of Exile in Vattel’s Droit des gens
(Alberto Carrera)

The Foundations of Vattel’s “System” of Politics and the Context of the Seven Years’ War: Moral Philosophy, Luxury and the Constitutional Commercial State
(Koen Stapelbroek)

The French Reception of Vattel’s Droit des gens: Politics and Publishing Strategies
(Antonella Alimento)

‘Good Government’ and the Tradition of Small States: The Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Reception of the Droit des gens
(Antonio Trampus)

Vattel in the Republic of Genoa: Between Theory and Practice
(Danilo Pedemonte)

Vattel in the Papal States: The Law of Nations and Anti-Prussian Propaganda in Italy at the Time of the Seven Years’ War
(Alberto Clerici)

Vattel’s System for Subjects in International Law, and the Establishment of Norway as a Nation in 1814
(Gert-Fredrik Malt)

The Legacy of Vattel’s Droit des gens in the Long Nineteenth Century
(Elisabetta Fiocchi Malaspina)

More on Palgrave's website.