ESIL Interest Group History of International Law

ESIL Interest Group History of International Law

Monday 30 September 2019

DATABASE: Les essentiels de la philosophie française, 16thC-Present (Gallica/BnF)

(image source: Gallica)

Description:
Cette sélection documentaire des Essentiels de la philosophie française se présente sous la forme d’un corpus chronologique de textes de référence, structuré par auteur. En donnant accès à des textes qui ne sont parfois plus publiés et qui sont difficilement consultables en bibliothèque, cet ensemble constitue une introduction à la richesse du patrimoine documentaire disponible sur Gallica. Pour chacun des auteurs présentés, une courte notice biographique rappelle le contexte de rédaction des œuvres phares, et le cas échéant, la singularité du positionnement de l’auteur dans les réflexions propres à son époque. Les œuvres fondatrices sont présentées dans leur édition originale, aux côtés des éditions de référence qui ont servi de base aux éditions modernes. La liste des auteurs sélectionnés est appelée à s’étoffer régulièrement, notamment d’auteurs moins classiques, ou au fil de l’entrée dans le domaine public de nouvelles œuvres pour la section contemporaine.
(source: Gallica)

Friday 27 September 2019

CALL FOR PAPERS: Special Issue Journal of Contemporary History "The UN and the Colonial World. New Questions and New Directions" (DEADLINE 1 NOV 2019)

(image source: SAGE)

Abstract:
Onek Adyanga and Giusi Russo, guest editors, are seeking abstract submissions; a selection of papers based on the abstracts will be considered by the Journal of Contemporary History for potential publication in a special issue on the United Nations, its agencies, and the colonial world across the spectrum of colonialism, the era of decolonization, and its legacy.
Historians are still debating whether the UN promoted or discouraged imperialism. The guest editors contend that the UN did both – condoned and condemned colonialism – and it is important to trace the historical forces that allowed for an apparently contradictory dynamic. The UN is expressive of both nationhood and transnational organizing. It is an entity that includes its own personnel as well as official representatives of member states and NGOs. Within these multiple roles, it might be argued that the UN contested traditional imperial power in a sphere of symbolic legitimacy. Simultaneously, the UN used the typical language of the civilizing mission, made more complex then by the technocratic approach.
The UN sanitized the colonial language, inserted tropes of human rights, sex equality, and other measurements of progress along with theories of modernization and technocracy that dominated internationalism in the postwar. The creation of the Trusteeship Council gave voice to both traditional colonizer and colonized groups. Petitions, for example, reveal a microcosm of everyday life that highlight the individual experience within the larger dimension of internationalism. Moreover, the UN inserted de facto colonies within international provisions by defining them "non-self-governing territory" which challenged the national sovereignty of colonial powers.
The guest editors aim to explore whether the UN in itself, and more broadly internationalism, can represent an unexplored way to look at the history of empires. The United Nations has been the source of critique for its inefficiency and for having promoted a strict geopolitical order that has remained somewhat unchallenged. Historians have looked at measurements of success, signs of coherence, and the effectiveness of international legal instruments. Few accounts encourage scholars to move beyond the traditional understanding of success and failure in favor of an approach that looks at the UN as a reflection of postwar narratives of internationalism, new standards, and a new language. The guest editors are especially keen to explore the extent to, and manner by which, traditional imperial tropes and logics were changed.
Themes
- The encounters between the United Nations and traditional imperial powers, and the manner by which these two negotiated the contours of a new international system.
- The shaping influence of specialized UN agencies, such as the WHO, ILO, UNICEF, and UNESCO, and the internal alignments and conflict in matters of colonialism/decolonization and the UN.
- Race, gender, and sexuality as mediated by the UN.
- Technocracy, colonialism, and the UN.
- Internationalism, empires, and pan-regional organizations and the UN.
- Human rights, local dimensions, and international standards in the colonial sphere.
- Petitions and the microcosm of the colonial world.
- The UN and imagining the post-colonial nation.
- The UN and the representations of the colonial world.
- Memory and the United Nations in the post-colonial world.
- The UN Seminars and the production and legitimation of various kinds of specialized legal, administrative, and cultural practices.
- UN Advisory Projects, and the refiguration of older colonial languages of control into newer, and contested, forms of knowledge.
Submission Procedures
An abstract of 500 words should be submitted by November 1st, 2019 to both guest editors, Dr. Onek Adyanga at onek.adyanga@millersville.edu and Dr. Giusi Russo at grusso@mc3.edu.
Contact
 Giusi Russo Email: grusso@mc3.edu Onek Adyanga Email: onek.adyanga@millersville.edu
(Source: Connections-Clio)

Thursday 26 September 2019

ADVANCE ARTICLE: Zak LEONARD, "Law of Nations Theory and the Native Sovereignty Debates in Colonial India" (Law & History Review)

(image source: Cambridge Core)

First paragraph:
Perhaps few topics are more invidious in colonial legal history than the definition of “paramountcy” in British India. Alternatively cast as a feudal compact with subordinate native princely states, a noninterventionist policy supportive of semi-sovereignty, and a doctrine invented to justify colonial “earth hunger,”1 the concept elicited significant debate in the mid-Victorian era. But epistemological and practical issues bedeviled any comprehensive understanding of the term.
Read more on Cambridge Core.

Wednesday 25 September 2019

JOB: Professeur-e associé-e en introduction au droit (Université de Lausanne, DEADLINE 15 NOV 2019)


Introduction
Lieu d'enseignement, de recherche et de vie, l'UNIL rassemble près de 15'000 étudiant·e·s et 5'000 membres du personnel, du corps professoral et de la recherche. Idéalement situé au bord du lac et au centre-ville, son campus réunit quelque 120 nationalités.
Présentation
Afin de compléter son équipe, l'Ecole de droit de la Faculté de droit, des sciences criminelles et d'administration publique est à la recherche d' :

Un-e professeur-e associé-e en introduction au droit/méthodologie juridique à 50%
Informations complémentaires
Entrée en fonction : 01.08.2020 ou à convenir
Durée du contrat : 6 ans renouvelable
Taux d'activité : 50%
Lieu de travail : Lausanne-Dorigny
Vos activités
Le cahier des charges comprend des enseignements d'introduction au droit/méthodologie juridique.

Le cahier des charges sera défini d'entente avec la personne engagée en fonction des besoins de l'Ecole de droit et des enseignements actuellement dispensés.

La personne nommée est appelée à collaborer avec les autres professeur-e-s de la Faculté couvrant les mêmes disciplines.
Votre profil
Une formation juridique, un doctorat et des expériences d'enseignement et de recherche dans le domaine juridique sont exigés.
Vos avantages
Un cadre de travail agréable dans un environnement académique multiculturel et diversifié.
Une multitude d'activités et d'autres avantages à découvrir.
Pour tout renseignement complémentaire
Madame
Huguette Groux
Responsable administration décanale
huguette.groux@unil.ch
Votre dossier de candidature
Délai de postulation : 15.11.2019
Nous vous prions de bien vouloir nous transmettre votre dossier complet en format Word ou PDF.
Il ne sera pris en compte que les candidatures adressées par le biais de ce site. 
Nous vous remercions de votre compréhension.
Remarques
Soucieuse de promouvoir une représentation équitable des femmes et des hommes parmi son personnel, l'Université encourage les candidatures féminines.

Tuesday 24 September 2019

DATABASE: Grotius Collection online (Printed Works)

(image source: Brill)

Brill announced an OCR and thus text-searchable version of the Grotius Collection (Printed Works).

More information here.

Monday 23 September 2019

BOOK: Loveday HODSON and Troy LAVERS, eds., Feminist Judgments in International Law (Hart Publishing, 2019). ISBN 9781509914456, £90.00


(Source: Routledge)

Routledge has recently published “Feminist Judgments in International Law”.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The emergence of feminist rewriting of key judgments has been one of the most interesting recent developments in legal methodology. This unique enterprise has seen scholars collaborate in the 'real world' task of reassessing jurisprudence in light of feminist perspectives.

This important new volume makes a significant contribution to the endeavour, exploring how key judgments in international law might have differed if feminist judges had sat on the bench.

This collection asks whether feminist perspectives can offer meaningful and viable alternatives to international law norms; and if so, whether that application results in distinguishable differences in outcomes. It answers these questions with particular reference to sources of international law, the public and private divide, State responsibility, State immunities, treaty law, State sovereignty, human rights protection, global governance, and the concept of violence in international law. This landmark publication offers a truly innovative reassessment of international law.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Loveday Hodson is Associate Professor at Leicester Law School.
Troy Lavers is Associate Professor at Leicester Law School.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PART I
INTRODUCTION
1. Feminist Judgments in International Law: An Introduction
Loveday Hodson and Troy Lavers

PART II
GENERAL INTERNATIONAL LAW
Permanent Court of International Justice
2. Bozkurt Case, aka the Lotus Case (France v Turkey): Ships that Go Bump in the Night
Christine Chinkin, Gina Heathcote, Emily Jones and Henry Jones

International Court of Justice
3. Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
Kasey McCall-Smith, Rhona Smith and Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko
4. The Lockerbie Case (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya v United States of America)
Kathryn Greenman and Troy Lavers
5. Germany v Italy
Zoi Aliozi, Bérénice K. Schramm and Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko

Court of Justice of the European Union
6. Gómez-Limón Sánchez-Camacho v Instituto Nacional de la Seguridad Social (INSS) and others
Marta Carneiro, Kirsten Ketscher and Freya Semanda

PART III
HUMAN RIGHTS
European Court of Human Rights
7. Christine Goodwin v the United Kingdom
Sara Bengtson, Damian Gonzalez-Salzberg, Loveday Hodson and Paul Johnson
8. Leyla Sahin v Turkey
Amel Alghrani, Amal Ali and Jill Marshall
9. Burden v the United Kingdom
Nicola Barker
10. Opuz v Turkey
Shazia Choudhry and Jonathan Herring
11. A, B and C v Ireland
Helen Fenwick, Wendy Guns and Ben Warwick
12. Ruusunen v Finland
Merris Amos, Maribel Canto-Lopez and Nani Jansen Reventlow

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
13. Cecilia Kell v Canada
Lolita Buckner Inniss, Jessie Hohmann and Enzamaria Tramontana

PART IV
INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL LAW
Special Court for Sierra Leone
14. AFRC Trial Judgment (Prosecutor v Brima, Kamara and Kanu)
Olga Jurasz, Sheri Labenski, Solange Mouthaan and Dawn Sedman

International Criminal Court
15. The Prosecutor v Thomas Lubanga Dyilo
Yassin M Brunger, Emma Irving and Diana Sankey

International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
16. Prosecutor v Radovan Karadžic
Celestine Greenwood

PART V
CONCLUSION
17. Prefiguring Feminist Judgment in International Law
Hilary Charlesworth

More info here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

Friday 20 September 2019

BOOK: Viorel PANAITE, Ottoman Law of War and Peace - The Ottoman Empire and Its Tribute-Payers from the North of the Danube., 2nd ed. (Leiden - New York, 2019). ISBN 978-90-04-41110-4, €149.00


(Source: Brill)

Brill has published a second, revised edition of “Ottoman Law of War and Peace”.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Making use of legal and historical sources, Viorel Panaite analyzes the status of tribute-payers from the north of the Danube with reference to Ottoman law of peace and war. He deals with the impact of Ottoman holy war and the way conquest in Southeast Europe took place; the role of temporary covenants, imperial diplomas and customary norms in outlining the rights and duties of the tributary princes; the power relations between the Ottoman Empire and the tributary-protected principalities of Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania. He also focuses on the legal and political methods applied to extend the pax ottomanica system in the area, rather than on the elements that set these territories apart from the rest of the Ottoman Empire.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Viorel Panaite, PhD (1995), University of Bucharest, is Professor of Ottoman History, and Researcher at the Institute of Southeast European Studies, Romanian Academy. He has extensively published on war, peace and tributaries in Ottoman view, and Western merchants in the Levant.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface and Acknowledgments
List of Facsimiles, Illustrations and Maps
Transliteration and Pronunciation of Turkish and Romanian
Abbreviations
Part 1: Ottoman Law of War and Peace
1 Islamic Tradition and the Ottoman Law of War and Peace
Part 2: The Danube as a Gazi River
2 The Ottoman Ideology of Holy War
3 Ottoman Holy War to the North of the Danube
Part 3: Submission and Conquest
4 The Islamic Ottoman Law of Peace
5 Obeying Ottoman Sultans in Southeastern Europe: a Chronological Survey
6 From Allegiance to Conquest: Terminology, Meanings, Myths
Part 4: Covenants and Customs
7 Ottoman Peace Agreements
8 Oaths as a Guarantee of Fidelity
9 Pacta Sunt Servanda and Tributary Status
10 Customary Practices
Part 5: Tribute-Payers and Protected Peoples
11 Sultans and Voivodes
12 Voivodes as Tribute-Payers
13 Reʿayas and Protected Peoples
14 Tributary-Protected Principalities
Conclusion
Glossary of Ottoman Turkish Terms and Locutions on War, Peace and Tributaries
Table of Correspondence
Bibliography
Index

More information here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

Thursday 19 September 2019

JOURNAL: Jus Gentium – Journal of International Legal History (Vol. IV, Issue II)


(Source: Lawbookexchange)


Jus Gentium has just published its latest issue.

Vol. 4, No. 2
July 2019
ARTICLES
British and French Archives Relating to Ownership of the Paracel Islands: 1900-1975
Anthony Carty
The Just War in Florentine Political Discourse: c. 1200-1400
Ryan Greenwood
The History of Comity
Thomas Schultz
Jason Mitchenson

French as a Diplomatic and Official Language in Imperial Russia
Vladimir Rjéoutski
Derek Offord
Gesine Argent
Baron M. A. von Taube: Historian of International Law
W. E. Butler
V. S. Ivanenko
The Making of China’s Foremost Diplomat and International Judge
Li Chen
International Law as a Living Legal System: Eugene Ehrlich’s Conception in Modern Times
Olga Butkevych
NOTES AND COMMENTS
On the Fate of the Grabar Doctoral Dissertation and Degree
W. E. Butler
Classical and Modern Traditions in Kharkiv University: International and European Law
O. A. Gavrylenko
T. L. Syroed
Manning’s Commentaries on the Law of Nations
William E. Butler
Michael Kwon
DOCUMENTS AND OTHER EVIDENCE OF STATE PRACTICE
The Martens Treatise: Missing Passages
William E. Butler
Contemporary International Law of Civilized Nations (1882)[Excerpt]
F. F. Martens
History and Law of the Case of the Caldera
V. K. Wellington Koo
Treaty Collections Relating to China during the Colonial Era: Annotations, Bibliography, Chronology
Peter Macalister-Smith
Joachim Schwietzke
FROM THE LITERATURE

More info here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

Wednesday 18 September 2019

REVIEW ARTICLE: Jens MEIERHENRICH, "The Force of Law" (English Historical Review CXXXIV (2019), nr. 569 (Aug))

(image source: OUP)


First paragraph:
If Frederick Schauer, the distinguished philosopher of law, is correct, ‘a new conventional wisdom’ has waylaid the study of law: the assumption ‘that force is not the characteristic or identifying feature of law’.1 Relegating the coercive aspect of law to the sidelines of theoretical interest, according to Schauer, is perverse. Relegating the coercive aspect of law to the sidelines of historical interest would be equally problematic. As luck has it, in the last decade or so, historians from different subfields—intellectual history, international history, legal history, political history—have avoided this perversity by burrowing into the crevices of law to locate violence in all its forms. Six new and innovative works have been selected here for closer scrutiny.
Read more with OUP.

(source: ESCLH Blog)

Tuesday 17 September 2019

BOOK: Hervé DRÉVILLON & Giusto TRAINA (dir.), Mondes en Guerre, Vol. I - De la préhistoire au Moyen Âge (Paris: Passés Composés, 2019), ISBN 978-2-37933-246-3, € 39

(image source: decitre)

Book presentation:
Si l'histoire de la guerre comme l'approche globale de l'histoire sont dans l'air du temps, jamais n'avait été proposée aux lecteurs français une histoire rassemblant les deux éléments. C'est chose faite avec cette exceptionnelle série de 4 volumes consacrés à toutes les formes de la guerre dans le monde, de la préhistoire à nos jours. L'ensemble est dirigé par Hervé Drévillon, appuyé par un directeur pour chaque volume, et rédigé par un collectif de 8 à 10 historiens par volume. La volonté des auteurs est simple : décloisonner les ères civilisationnelles pour penser une histoire embrassant toutes les périodes et tous les continents, en les liant entre eux. Il ne s'agit donc pas de photographier les différents espaces historiques, mais bien de montrer leurs interactions et leurs influences réciproques, leurs oppositions aussi. Ce tome 1 s'ouvre sur les premières traces de guerre entre groupes humains, pour se prolonger par les espaces gréco-romain, chinois et indien, puis s'achèver sur les conflits médiévaux. Tome 1 : De la préhistoire au Moyen Age. Tome 2 : L'Age classique. 1453-1870. Tome 3 : Les Guerres mondiales. 1871-1945. Tome 4 : De la guerre froide à la cyberguerre. 1946 à nos jours.
More information on the publisher's website.

Monday 16 September 2019

ARTICLE: Adrian BLAU, "Textual context in the history of political thought and intellectual history" (History of European Ideas 2019)

(image source: Taylor&Francis Online)

Abstract:
We can easily misread historical texts if we take ideas and passages out of their textual contexts. The resulting errors are widespread, possibly even more so than errors through reading ideas and passages out of their historical contexts. Yet the methodological literature stresses the latter and says little about the former. This paper thus theorises the idea of textual context, distinguishes three types of textual context, and asks how we uncover the right textual contexts. I distinguish four kinds of textual-context error, and offer practical tips for avoiding these errors. However, the beating heart of this paper is the history–philosophy debate: in contrast to the prevailing assumption that historical and philosophical analysis are fundamentally different, I show that a commitment to textual context, which should be entirely uncontroversial, also commits one to think philosophically.
(read more on Taylor&Francis Online)

Friday 13 September 2019

VIDEO: Gerry SIMPSON on "Cynical International Law" (Berlin, 6 SEP 2019; Völkerrechtsblog)

(image source: völkerrechtsblog)

Prof. Gerry Simpson (LSE) held a keynote lecture at the conference "Cynical International Law ?" organized by the Working Group of Young Scholars in Public International Law (Arbeitskreis junger Völkerrechtswissenschaftler*innen – AjV) and the German Society of International Law (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationales Recht – DGIR).

The Völkerrechtsblog provided us with the full video capture of the lecture.

Source: Völkerrechtsblog.

CALL FOR PAPERS: ESIL Research Forum 2020: "Solidarity: The Quest for Founding Utopias of International Law" (Catania: Università degli Studi di Catania, 23-24 Apr 2020); DEADLINE 30 SEP 2019

(image source: blogger)

The 2020 ESIL Research Forum will take place on Thursday 23 and Friday 24 April 2020 at the Department of Law, University of Catania, Italy. The ESIL Research Forum is a scholarly conference that promotes engagement with research in progress by members of the Society. It has a small and intensive format. The Forum targets scholars at an early stage of their careers. Approximately 15-25 paper submissions will be selected. During the Forum, selected speakers will receive comments on their presentations from members of the ESIL Board and invited experts.

The 2020 Research Forum addresses the topic: “Solidarity: The Quest for Founding Utopias of International Law”

Solidarity is a founding utopia of international law. It has long appeared in the legal discourses of leading international law scholars as a value and political concept incorporated into international legal norms and evidenced in multilateral and bilateral treaties as an essential condition of interstate cooperation. As a principle of international law, it is mostly identifiable through the trust and confidence shown by states to one another in order to reap the mutual benefits of cooperation. In a broader sense, it also reveals a highly ambiguous ethical ideal – not extraneous to the ‘civilizing mission’ – of a world order of interdependent states and communities addressing shared needs in a spirit of global cooperation and mutual responsibility.

In response to the new global challenges faced by today’s international legal system, solidarity has acquired a special prominence with unprecedented developments in various fields of international law (e.g. trade law, environmental law, humanitarian law, disaster law, health law) while its utopian dimension has been stressed and expanded towards new directions.

The 2020 ESIL Research Forum aims to inspire thoughtful reflections on the genealogy of international solidarity by focusing on the actors, norms and processes influencing its evolution over time. Beyond the search for definitions, the scope of the Forum is to explore transformations and practical manifestations of this longstanding principle in the international legal community. Special attention will be given to international solidarity as interpreted by international and domestic courts and tribunals and to the analysis of some key areas where solidaristic paradigms have led to either positive outcomes or controversial repercussions.

Preference will be given to proposals in one of the following areas:
1. The historical boundaries of international solidarity
 2. Solidarity and private law analogies
3. The invention of European solidarity
4. A human rights-based solidarity? Universal vs regional approaches
5. Peace and security: solidarity and the United Nations
6. International solidarity in emergency situations
7. Social solidarity economy and sustainable development
8. Civil society and transnational solidarity
9. International solidarity and burden-sharing: migration and refugee law
10. International solidarity and current trends: populism, nationalism vs multilateralism

Abstracts (of no more than 750 words) should be submitted to 2020esil.rf.catania@lex.unict.it by Monday 30 September 2019. Please include the following information with your abstract: your name, affiliation, email address, whether you are an ESIL member, plus a one-page curriculum vitae. Successful applicants will be notified by email by 4 November 2019. Complete paper drafts will be required by 19 February 2020. Papers may in due course be published in the ESIL SSRN Conference Paper Series.

All those who take part in the 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 and ESIL carers grants will be available to offer partial financial support to speakers who have exhausted other potential sources of funding. Speakers will be informed of several hotels that offer preferential rates to Research Forum participants. Lunch will be provided on both days, and a dinner for presenters, commentators and ESIL Board members will be hosted on the evening of Thursday 23 April 2020.












Thursday 12 September 2019

ARTICLE: Pallavi RAGHAVAN, Partition: An International History (The International History Review, Volume XLI, Issue 5)



Pallavi Raghavan (Ashoka University) has published “Parition: An international history” in the latest issue of The International History Review.

In trying to assemble the structure through which bilateral relations between India and Pakistan could be conducted, policy makers drew heavily from European models of inter-state peace-making evolved in the inter-war decades. The aftermath of the break-up of large multinational empires along ethnic-majoritarian lines posed administrative questions that were, in many ways, also similar to the aftermath of the partition of the subcontinent along religious lines. In this article, I attempt to relate these developments with the signing of the Nehru–Liaquat Pact of 1950, between the governments of India and Pakistan. According to this Pact, both governments would now be accountable to one another for the protection of their minorities in the Bengal province. I argue that this approach to dealing with the question of minority populations after a partition, had been initially developed by the League of Nations, and that emulating these models were part of an attempt by India and Pakistan to borrow from, but also further refine models of European statehood for their own purposes after their partition. This article attempts to evaluate the extent to which these expectations were met in the making of a ‘minorities’ regime’ in South Asia.

The full article can be read here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

Wednesday 11 September 2019

CALL FOR PAPERS: “The Hope of Ages is in the Process of Realization” – Establishing a World Court, 1920-1922 (Nijmegen, 11-12 June 2020) (DEADLINE: 15 December 2019)



We learned of a call for papers for a workshop at the University of Nijmegen on the establishment of the Permanent Court of International Justice. Here the call:

We are approaching the centenary of the first ‘World Court’: between 1920 and 1922, experts and diplomats prepared the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), the first ‘World Court’, located in The Hague. Their work drew on the efforts of prior generations of international lawyers and activists, and yet resulted in something new and lasting: a permanent court of potentially general jurisdiction, whose basic structures have remained unchanged for nearly a century. While the PCIJ itself has remained the subject of continuous inquiry, many questions and decisions relating to its establishment have remained understudied. These include:

– The role of key protagonists in the drafting of the PCIJ’s Statute (including, but not limited to, the Advisory Committee of Jurists);
– The role of civil society and of non-European nations in the establishment phase;
– The response of the Dutch government and society to the proposed establishment of a(nother) ‘Hague court’;
– Contemporary views and predictions of the future Court’s role and relevance.

To understand these issues and to close gaps in our understanding of the PCIJ’s ‘establishment phase’, Professors Christian J. Tams (University of Glasgow) and Henri de Waele (Radboud University) will host a two-day workshop in Nijmegen, The Netherlands, on 11-12 June 2020.
As part of this workshop, we invite applications for paper presentations from scholars of international law, history, international relations, and related disciplines.

Interested applicants should submit an abstract of no more than 750 words by 15 December 2019 to the following address: pcijconference@ru.nlPlease include your name, affiliation and email address with the abstract, and indicate succinctly why you feel it offers a novel angle.
The full text of the call is available here.

(source: ESCLH Blog)

Tuesday 10 September 2019

SYMPOSIUM: The League of Nations and International Law during the Interbellum (Brussels: Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for the Arts and Sciences/VUB/KUL, 25-26 OCT 2019)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Symposium presentation:
The Committee for Legal History of the Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium of the Arts and Sciences, the Research Group CORE (VUB) and the Research Unit Roman Law and Legal History of the University of Leuven organize a two-day symposium (“Contactforum”) at the Royal Academy on the League of Nations and International Law in the Interbellum on 25 and 26 October 2019. Established researchers from various disciplines (law, history, sociology) will address issues of sovereignty and jus ad bellum, international organisation, colonialism, workers’ rights, minorities, investment law, cultural heritage protection, public opinion and national scholarly traditions through the paradigm of the Versailles Peace Treaties and the nuanced and complex story of the League of Nations, which is often classified as a mere unsuccessful predecessor of the United Nations.

Program:
Friday, 25 October 2019 (Palace of Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and Arts)
13:00
: Welcome by Prof. dr. Dirk Heirbaut (UGent/Instituut voor Rechtsgeschiedenis; President of the Committee for Legal History)

13:10:  Welcome by Prof. dr. Randall Lesaffer (Tilburg/iHilt – KULeuven/Onderzoekseenheid Romeins Recht en Rechtsgeschiedenis) – Dr. Inge Van Hulle (Tilburg/iHilt) en Prof. dr. Frederik Dhondt (VUB/UAntwerpen)
13:30-14:45: Panel 1- Prof. dr. Giulio Bartolini (Roma Trè), “The League of Nations and Italian International Law scholars”
- Dr. Camilla Boisen (NYU Abu Dhabi) and Chris Allsobrook (Fort Hare University), “'The Development of Segregated Trusteeship in Africa and its Role in Decolonisation”
14:45-15:15: Coffee break
15:15-16:30: Panel 2- Prof. dr. Péter Kovács (ICC), “Historical and Legal Sources: The Protection of Minorities under the Auspices of the League of Nations”
- Dr. Martyn Housden (University Bradford), “Who were the most progressive: statesmen, international staff or nationality leaders? A discussion of the slow emergence of the international law of minority rights after the First World War.
16:30-17:00: Coffee Break
17:00-18:15: Panel 3- Dr. Vincent Genin (KULeuven/FWO), “Belgian Lawyers and the International Labour Organization (1920-1940)”
- Prof. dr. Agatha Verdebout (Université Catholique de Lille), “The Doctrinal Debates on the Concept of ‘War’ in the LN Covenant of the League of Nations and the Evolution of the Law on the Use of Force in the Interbellum”
18:15: Intermediate reflections by Prof. Dr. Frederik Dhondt.
19:30: Conferencedinner at the university foundation
21:00:
 Facultative social activities in the city centre of Brussels



Saturday, 
26 October 2019 (Palace of Royal Flemish Academy of Belgium for Science and Arts)

08:30
 Welcome

08:45-10:00: Panel 4- Dr. Megan Donaldson (Cambridge University), “Diplomacy by other means: international law, international lawyers, and the practice of codification”
- Dr. Sebastian Spitra (Universität Wien) , “The League of Nations and Cultural Heritage”
10:00-10:15: Coffee Break
10:15-12:00: Panel 5- Dr. Rose Parfitt (Kent University), “The Process of International League-al Reproduction”
- Prof. Dr. Morten Rasmussen (University of Kopenhagen) & Dr. Karin Van Leeuwen (Maastricht University), “Promoting the general interest in international law? Joost Adriaan van Hamel and the early years of the League of Nation’s Legal Section (1920-1925)”
- Dr. Klaas Dykmann (University of Roskilde), “Pan Americanism and its Imprint on the League of Nations”
12.00: Final Remarks (Prof. Dr. Randall Lesaffer)
Practical information:
 The congress
The congress takes place at Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en kunsten, Hertogsstraat 1, 1000 Brussel
For more information about the location and how to reach it, click here
The dinner

The Dinner takes place at universitaire stichting, Egmontstraat 11, 1000 Brussel

More information and registration here.




                                                                 

Monday 9 September 2019

PRE-CONFERENCE MEETING: New Histories of Sovereigns and Sovereignties (Athens: ESIL 2019 Annual conference, 12 SEP 2019)

European Society of International Law

Interest Group on the History of International Law

New Histories of Sovereigns and Sovereignties
ESIL Athens 2019 Meeting


Faculty Club, Academias 48, 10672 Athens

(for directions see: https://esilathens2019.gr/venues/)



08.15-08.30
Welcome and Introduction

8.30-10.30
Panel One: Sovereignty before the Twentieth Century

Greg Ablavsky (Stanford) — ‘Species of Sovereignty: Native American Nationhood, the United States, and International Law, 1783–1795’

Connor McBain (Glasgow) — ‘Parcel of Rogues in a Nation: The Story of the Darien Company and the Forgotten Role of Corporate Sovereignty in Scots Colonisation of the “New World”’

Commentator: Markus Beham (Passau)

————
10.30-11.00 Coffee break

11.00-13.00
Panel Two: Sovereignty in the Twentieth Century

Diane Marie Amann (Georgia) — ‘Intersectional Sovereignties: Dr Aline Chalufour, Woman at Nuremberg — and at Paris, Ottawa, and Dalat’

Tsvetelina van Benthem (Oxford) — ‘Sovereignty, Sanctions and Functionalism’

Commentator: Jan Lemnitzer (University of Southern Denmark)

13.00-13.30
Future IG events


Friday 6 September 2019

BOOK: Will SMILEY and John Fabian WITT, eds., To Save the Country : A Lost Treatise on Martial Law (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019). ISBN 9780300222548, $55.00





Yale University Press has published a recently rediscovered book by Abraham Lincoln’s law of war expert Francis Lieber.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A Civil War-era treatise addressing the power of governments in moments of emergency

The last work of Abraham Lincoln’s law of war expert Francis Lieber was long considered lost—until Will Smiley and John Fabian Witt discovered it in the National Archives. Lieber’s manuscript on emergency powers and martial law addresses important contemporary debates in law and political philosophy and stands as a significant historical discovery.

As a key legal advisor to the Lincoln White House, Columbia College professor Francis Lieber was one of the architects and defenders of Lincoln’s most famous uses of emergency powers during the Civil War. Lieber’s work laid the foundation for rules now accepted worldwide. In the years after the war, Lieber and his son turned their attention to the question of emergency powers. The Liebers’ treatise addresses a vital question, as prominent since 9/11 as it was in Lieber’s lifetime: how much power should the government have in a crisis? The Liebers present a theory that aims to preserve legal restraint, while giving the executive necessary freedom of action.

Smiley and Witt have written a lucid introduction that explains how this manuscript is a key discovery in two ways: both as a historical document and as an important contribution to the current debate over emergency powers in constitutional democracies.

ABOUT THE EDITORS

Francis Lieber (1798–1872) was professor at Columbia College who advised Abraham Lincoln on the law of war. G. Norman Lieber (1837–1923), Francis’s son, taught law at West Point. Will Smiley is an assistant professor of humanities at the University of New Hampshire. John Fabian Witt is the Allen H. Duffy Class of 1960 Professor of Law at Yale Law School and the Head of Yale’s Davenport College.

More info here 
(source: ESCLH Blog)

Thursday 5 September 2019

CONFERENCE: A Century of Internationalisms – The Promise and Legacies of the League of Nations (Lisbon, 18-20 September 2019)


(Source: IHC)

The Universidade Nova de Lisboa is organizing a conference on the League of Nations later this month. The provision programme can be found here

This international conference aims to contribute to renew the interest and improve the knowledge of the League of Nations (LoN) and its impact in this last century marked by strong waves of internationalism and globalization, but also of crisis and nationalist reactions.

A multilateral institution such as the LoN is the ideal object for a truly global and connected history that goes beyond national historiographical traditions. That is what we intend to do with this conference, through presentations on these themes by 65 speakers affiliated with 60 institutions from 18 different countries.

The death toll of millions in World War I (1914-1918) led to an effort at the 1919 Paris peace conference to design a new international order with new norms and institutions. The creation in 1920 of the first permanent multilateral organization in the form of the League of Nations, the direct predecessor of the UN, was the most ambitious and controversial result of this effort. Although the LoN eventually failed to achieve its main goal of preventing a World War II, it did imprint, and does help to better understand the multiple dimensions of global life in the two decades of its existence. Many of these issues, which will be dealt with in the different panels of this conference, continued to be of great relevance up to today: from refugees to gender issues, from empires to their complex legacies, from territorial conflicts to terrorism, from workers’ rights to global financial system.

All info on the conference can be found here

(See call earlier on this blog)

(source: ESCLH Blog)

Tuesday 3 September 2019

BOOK: Stephen ALLEN, Daniel COSTELLOE, Malgosia FITZMAURICE, Paul GRAGL & Edward GUTRIP (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Jurisdiction in International Law [Oxford Handbooks] (Oxford, OUP, 2019), 624p. ISBN 9780198786146, 125 GBP


Table of contents:

  • Stephen Allen, Daniel Costelloe, Malgosia Fitzmaurice, Paul Gragl, & Edward Guntrip, Introduction: Defining State Jurisdiction and Jurisdiction in International Law
  • Kaius Tuori, The Beginnings of State Jurisdiction in International Law until 1648
  • Stephane Beaulac, The Lotus Case in Context - Sovereignty, Westphalia, Vattel, Positivism
  • Nurfadzilah Yahaya, The European Concept of Legal Jurisdiction in the Colonies
  • Stephan Wittich, Immanuel Kant and Jurisdiction in International Law
  • Helen Quane, Navigating Diffuse Jurisdictions: An Intra-State Perspective
  • Paul Schiff Berman, Jurisdictional Pluralism
  • Mariana Valverde, Deepening the Conversation Between Sociolegal Theory and Legal Scholarship About Jurisdiction
  • Shaun McVeigh, Critical Approaches to Jurisdiction and International Law
  • Cedric Ryngaert, Cosmopolitan Jurisdiction and the National Interest
  • Paul Gragl, Jurisdictional Immunities of the State in International Law
  • Dino Kritsiotis, The Establishment, Change, and Expansion of Jurisdiction through Treaties
  • Uta Kohl, Territoriality and Globalization
  • Alex Mills, Private law Regulation and Private Interests in Public International Law Jurisdiction
  • Kimberly Trapp, Jurisdiction and State Responsibility
  • Stephen Allen, Enforcing Criminal Jurisdiction in the Clouds and International Law's Enduring Commitment to Territoriality
  • Wouter Vandehole, The 'J' word: Driver or Spoiler of Change in Human Rights Law?
  • Edward Guntrip, International Investment Law, Hybrid Authority and Jurisdiction Daniel Costelloe, Concepts of State Jurisdiction in the Contentious and Advisory Jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice and the Permanent Court of International Justice
  • Georg Kerschischnig & Blanca Montejo The Evolving Nature of the Jurisdiction of the Security Council - a Look at Twenty-First Century Practice
  • Kirsten Schmalenbach, International Criminal Jurisdiction Revisited
  • James Summers, Jurisdiction and International Territorial Administration
Book abstract:
The Oxford Handbook of Jurisdiction in International Law provides an authoritative and comprehensive analysis of the concept of jurisdiction in international law. Jurisdiction plays a fundamental role in international law, limiting the exercise of legal authority over international legal subjects. But despite its importance, the concept has remained, until now, underdeveloped. Discussions of jurisdiction in international law regularly refer to classic heads of jurisdiction based on territoriality or nationality, or use the SS Lotus decision of the Permanent Court of International Justice as a starting point. However, traditional understandings of jurisdiction are facing new challenges. Globalization has increased the need for jurisdiction to be applied extraterritorially, non-State forms of law provide new theoretical challenges and intersections between different forms of jurisdiction have become more intricate. This Handbook provides a necessary re-examination of the concept of jurisdiction in international law through a thematic analysis of its history, its contemporary application, and how it needs to adapt to encompass future developments in international law. It examines some of the most contentious elements of jurisdiction by considering how the concept is being applied in specific substantive and institutional settings.
More information with OUP.

(source: International Law Reporter)

Monday 2 September 2019

BOOK: Alexandra HARMON, Reclaiming the Reservation: Histories of Indian Sovereignty Suppressed and Renewed [Emil and Kathleen Sick Book Series in Western History and Biography] (Washington: University of Washington Press, 2019), 424 p. ISBN 9780295745855, 35 USD


Book description:
In the 1970s the Quinault and Suquamish, like dozens of Indigenous nations across the United States, asserted their sovereignty by applying their laws to everyone on their reservations. This included arresting non-Indians for minor offenses, and two of those arrests triggered federal litigation that had big implications for Indian tribes’ place in the American political system. Tribal governments had long sought to manage affairs in their territories, and their bid for all-inclusive reservation jurisdiction was an important, bold move, driven by deeply rooted local histories as well as pan-Indian activism. They believed federal law supported their case. In a 1978 decision that reverberated across Indian country and beyond, the Supreme Court struck a blow to their efforts by ruling in Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe that non-Indians were not subject to tribal prosecution for criminal offenses. The court cited two centuries of US legal history to justify their decision but relied solely on the interpretations of non-Indians. In Reclaiming the Reservation, Alexandra Harmon delves into Quinault, Suquamish, and pan-tribal histories to illuminate the roots of Indians’ claim of regulatory power in their reserved homelands. She considers the promises and perils of relying on the US legal system to address the damage caused by colonial dispossession. She also shows how tribes have responded since 1978, seeking and often finding new ways to protect their interests and assert their sovereignty.
On the author:
Alexandra Harmon is professor of American Indian studies at the University of Washington. She is the author of Rich Indians: Native People and the Problem of Wealth in American History and editor of The Power of Promises: Perspectives on Pacific Northwest Indian Treaties.
(source: International Law Reporter)