BOOK: Miroslav ŠEDIVÝ, Si vis pacem, para bellum. The Italian Response to International Insecurity 1830-1848 [International History - Internationale Geschichte; 7] (Wien: ÖAW Verlag, 2021), 346 p. ISBN 978-3-7001-8705-9, € 79

(image source: OEAW)

Book description:

It was not after 1848 but actually before this revolutionary year that Europe witnessed the abusive proceedings perpetrated by the great powers which undermined the functionality of the post-Napoleonic international order. Even worse, their abuse of power in European and overseas affairs provoked a feeling of mistrust, pessimism and fear and led to discussions about the disappearing justice from the world among a considerable number of Europeans. By the 1840s, under the influence of various crises and conflicts members of the educated middle and upper middle classes in particular changed the way they judged and approached issues of international politics, justice, security and nation building. This process was all the more important in Italy since the search for greater security against external threats became the driving force in the spread of the idea to unite her politically from the Alps to Sicily. This unity, along with well defensible frontiers, a strong army and navy and good material resources including colonial ones, was to ensure a more secure position within the system of European politics and thereby better prospects for a peaceful future according to the phrase Si vis pacem, para bellum. However, this power-oriented response to insecurity had devastating consequences for the generally shared desire to live in peace with other nations, represented by another aspiration deeply rooted in the national movement: to establish a better international order. To reveal this important process of pan-European dimension is the principal aim of this book, and the Italian arena of politics in 1830–1848 has been chosen to clarify this sea change in political behaviour.

On the author:

Is professor at the Institute of Historical Sciences at the Faculty of Arts and Philosophy at the University Pardubice.

(source: OEAW, DOI 10.1553/978OEAW87059)

ARTICLE: Andreas VON ARNAULD, "How to Illegalize Past Injustice: Reinterpreting the Rules of Intertemporality", EJIL XXXII (2021), Nr. 2, 401-432

 

(image source: OUP)

Abstract:

Attempts to legally tackle cases of historical injustice are often confronted with the problem that the events in question were not considered illegal at their time and that, in general, legal rules should not be applied retroactively. The present article suggests a conceptual framework to carefully stretch the dogmas of intertemporal law by introducing, via ethical principles as part of positive law of the time, contemporary contestation of inhumane actions and practices. Even though such contestation might not yet be enough to overturn a widely shared apologetic view among lawyers and states, it is argued that the violation of ethical-legal principles as such should give rise to a duty to give satisfaction under the law of state responsibility. In most cases of historical injustice brought to court, members of victimized groups aim at acknowledgment of their plight and at a reappraisal of the past that includes their experiences. In line with this objective, the present article makes a special case for a state obligation to negotiate with the victims of historical injustice or their descendants.

(read more here: DOI 10.1093/ejil/chab037) 

BOOK: Cristina BRAVO LOZANO & Antonio ÁLVAREZ-OSSORIO ALVARIÑO (eds.), Los embajadores. Representantes de la soberanía, garantes del equilibrio, 1659-1748 (Madrid: Marcial Pons, Historia, 2021), 472 p., ISBN 9788417945497, € 32,3

 

(image source: Marcial Pons)

Book abstract:

La figura del embajador es considerada una de las más destacadas en la cultura cortesana en la Edad Moderna. Los estudios sobre la diplomacia vienen experimentado un notable dinamismo en las últimas décadas. Trascendiendo su práctica negociadora, el papel ejercido por estos legados se dirigió hacia la representación de la soberanía y los intereses de príncipes, repúblicas e, incluso, corporaciones provinciales, y a la búsqueda del mantenimiento de hegemonías en nombre de un supuesto equilibrio entre potencias. Desde distintas perspectivas, tomando como ámbito de referencia la monarquía de España, esta obra aborda la singularidad de tan polifacético ministro para arrojar luz sobre su protagonismo en la transformación de Europa y su proyección en otros continentes durante la transición de los siglos XVII y XVIII. A lo largo de sus contribuciones se destacarán su «cursus honorum» y la instrumentalización del rango como plataforma de ascenso político y social, los valores, virtudes y obligaciones inherentes en el cargo, las estrategias y desempeño de sus funciones ordinarias en las embajadas y las esferas palatinas —con particular énfasis en la mediación de reinas y damas de la corte—, la contribución de sus gestiones en el restablecimiento de la paz en el marco sucesorio, la dimensión cultural y las vías formales e informales de autorrepresentación.

Table of contents:

Introducción, Cristina Bravo Lozano y Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño.-I. EL CURSUS HONORUM DIPLOMÁTICO, ¿PROFESIONALIZACIÓN DEL ETHOS O MEDIO DE ASCENSO POLÍTICO?-Diplomático y publicista: François-Paul de Lisola en la corte de Madrid (1665-1666), Charles-Édouard Levillain.-De conductor de embajadores a privado: Fernando de Valenzuela y las redes diplomáticas en la corte de Mariana de Austria, Antonio Álvarez-Ossorio Alvariño.-Viena-Madrid-Hungría: la mediación de los embajadores en las concesiones de la Orden del Toisón en el siglo XVII , Tibor Martí.-La embajada española del conde de Lobkowicz: de enviado extraordinario a embajador ordinario en la corte de Madrid (1689-1691), Michaela Buriánková.-El embajador de Luis XIV en la corte de Madrid, ¿un ideal del servicio al rey?, Guillaume Hanotin.-Los representantes de la nación francesa en Madrid: diplomacia, comercio y corporaciones nacionales (1709-1721), Carlos Infantes Buil.-II. NEGOCIANDO LA SUCESIÓN, BUSCANDO EL EQUILIBRIO.-Tres perfiles políticos, tres realidades sociales, Lucien Bély.-Un diplomático comprometido y controvertido: Louis-Toussaint de Brancas-Céreste, embajador francés en España (1713 y 1714), según la correspondencia entre Luis XIV y Felipe V, José Manuel de Bernardo Ares.-Embajadores y damas de la corte. La construcción de una red de poder internacional entre Madrid, París y Turín en la transición de finales del Seiscientos, Elena Riva.-El cardenal Francesco Acquaviva d’Aragona, ministro de Felipe V en Roma, Virginia León Sanz.-Un nuevo peso en la balanza: la incorporación de Rusia a la negociación del sistema del equilibrio europeo (1717-1721), Núria Sallés Vilaseca.-Los embajadores de la reina. Isabel de Farnesio y el gobierno de las Dos Sicilias, Pablo Vázquez Gestal.-III. SOBERANOS Y CORPORACIONES. LA DIPLOMACIA PROVINCIAL.-Representación y negociación. Agencias y embajadores provinciales de los parlamentos vascos en el Madrid del Seiscientos, Alberto Angulo Morales.-El reconocimiento político de una nueva institución: los representantes del Brazo Militar de Cataluña en la corte (1660-1714), Eduard Martí-Fraga.-Defender el Stato, promocionar al patriciado. La diplomacia provincial lombarda en las cortes de los Habsburgo durante la guerra de Sucesión (1706-1714), Roberto Quirós Rosado.-IV. RETÓRICA VISUAL Y CULTURA ESCRITA. LA AUTORREPRESENTACIÓN DEL EMBAJADOR BARROCO.-La diplomacia imaginada. Pinturas de negociadores en el siglo XVII, Diana Carrió-Invernizzi.-Retórica visual y persuasión política. La representación del embajador barroco: el caso del obispo Luis Crespí y Borja, Álvaro Pascual Chenel.-La aguda pluma del embajador. Ingenio y cultura política en la correspondencia entre los ministros españoles en Londres y La Haya (1675-1699), Cristina Bravo Lozano.-«Peregrino en su patria, va a peregrinar a las extrañas». La memoria del yo en la embajada del conde de Assumar ante el archiduque Carlos (1705-1713), David Martín Marcos.-Relación de autores. 

(more information here) 

BOOK: Agatha VERDEBOUT, Rewriting Histories of the Use of Force The Narrative of ‘Indifference' [Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law; 160] (Cambridge: CUP, 2021), ISBN 9781108937375

 

(image source: CUP)

On the book:

It is commonly taught that the prohibition of the use of force is an achievement of the twentieth century and that beforehand States were free to resort to the arms as they pleased. International law, the story goes, was 'indifferent' to the use of force. 'Reality' as it stems from historical sources, however, appears much more complex. Using tools of history, sociology, anthropology and social psychology, this monograph offers new insights into the history of the prohibition of the use of force in international law. Conducting in-depth analysis of nineteenth century doctrine and State practice, it paves the way for an alternative narrative on the prohibition of force, and seeks to understand the origins of international law's traditional account. In so doing, it also provides a more general reflection on how the discipline writes, rewrites and chooses to remember its own history.

On the author:

Agatha Verdebout holds a PhD in Public International Law from the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). Her main research interests lie in critical histories of international law and the use of force. She is the recipient of several prizes, awards and research grants, notably the 2017 Henri Rolin Prize.

(read more here)

ARTICLE: Thomas DAHMS, "Diligent Bureaucrats and the Expulsion of Jews from West Prussia, 1772–1786" (German History XXXIX (2021), No. 3 (Sep), 335-357 (OPEN ACCESS)

 

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Abstract:

Historiography has repeatedly highlighted the mitigating influence of the Prussian administration on Frederick the Great’s oppressive policies toward the Jews. Scholars have argued that officials frequently opposed the king’s discriminatory legislation and intentionally delayed its implementation. These actions, they claimed, were influenced by the Enlightenment humanism of the Prussian administrators and their training in natural law theories and mercantilist economics, both taught at German universities at the time. Such descriptions are central in the influential narrative of late eighteenth-century Prussia as a remarkably tolerant state that developed relatively lenient policies towards the Jews. This article challenges the traditional portrayal of the Prussian administration by examining the actions of three officials involved in the expulsion of several thousand Jews from the province of West Prussia between 1772 and 1786. It argues that the remarkably positive assessment of the Prussian bureaucrats and their role in the Jewish policies of the time needs significant revision. First, previous historiography has overstated the extent to which Prussian officials objected to the king’s discriminatory policies. Secondly, occasional instances of resistance from within the administration were mainly motivated by political, economic and demographic objectives or even careerist pursuits that had little to do with the Jewish communities. Lastly, the Prussian administrators did not merely adhere to economic principles or even to ideals of tolerance and humanity. To a significant extent, their actions were also influenced by anti-Jewish sentiment.

Read more here (DOI 10.1093/gerhis/ghab027). 

ELECTIONS: Candidacies expected by 22 OCT

The current Steering Committee of the Interest Group History of International Law needs to be renewed. ESIL Members with an interest in history are invited to submit their candidacies by the end of the current week with the ESIL Secretariat (ESIL.Secretariat at eui dot eu). The ESIL membership will subsequently elect a new Steering Committee.

Since its inception in September 2014 , the ESIL IGHIL has organised multiple Interest Group Events at the ESIL Research Fora and Conferences. The blog posts news and publications on a nearly daily basis. This unique channel of communication reaches hundreds of ESIL members, and probably has not yet reached its full potential. Service on the IGHIL’s Steering Committee is a unique opportunity in the career of early career researchers as well as established academics.

JOURNAL: Jus Gentium. Journal of International Legal History VI (2021), No. 2 (Jul)

 

(image source: Lawbookexchange)

Vol. 6, No. 2 | July 2021

ARTICLES
Theory of the History of International Law: Methodology, Grounds, and Developments
Olga Butkevych

The English Translators and Publishers of Grotius on War and Peace: 1654–1928
W. E. Butler

China and the Unequal Treaties: Localization, Variation, and Response
Zenghua Zhuo

NOTES AND COMMENTS
Ruminations on DNA and the History of International Law
W. E. Butler

Georg von Gretschaninow (1892–1973): Émigré Jurist Stateless at Berlin and Heidelberg. A Concise Bio-Bibliography
P. Macalister-Smith

DOCUMENTS AND OTHER EVIDENCE OF STATE PRACTICE
Royal Naval Instructions Implementing the 1817 Anglo-Spanish Treaty on Illicit Trafficking of Slaves
W. E. Butler

A Brief Calendar of State Practice for Shandong: 1897–1914. Part Four (1914): Into World War
P. Macalister-Smith
J. Schweitzke

FROM THE LITERATURE

(source: lawbookexchange)

BOOK REVIEW: Romain BERTRAND, Dipesh CHAKRABARTY, Provincialiser l'Europe. La pensée postcoloniale et la différence historique (transl. O. RUCHET & N. VIEILLESCAZES (Paris: ED. Amsterdam, 2009 [2000], 381 p.) (Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales LXXV (2021), N° 3-4, 821-826

 

(image source: Cambridge Core)

First paragraph:

Aussi bien à l’occasion de sa parution en anglais que lors de sa traduction en français, Provincialiser l’Europe a souvent été considéré comme un manifeste anti-européocentriste, sinon même comme un brûlot relativiste. Son titre claquait comme une injonction – à mi-chemin de la nécessité théorique et de l’impératif moral. Au sein de l’espace de réception qui se dessina autour d’une certaine idée du livre, réduit à son intitulé, le propos de l’auteur fut tenu pour l’expression d’un programme fort des études postcoloniales – ce qu’il était, mais selon des voies qui déjouaient ses appropriations les plus radicales. Il convient ainsi, pour rendre pleinement justice au propos de Dipesh Chakrabarty, non seulement de suivre pas à pas son argument, mais aussi de rattacher chaque temps fort théorique de son texte aux éléments les plus déterminants de sa trajectoire intellectuelle.

(read more on Cambridge Core: DOI  10.1017/ahss.2021.21)

BOOK: Michael REYNOLDS, Instruments of Peacemaking 1870-1914 (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 360 p. ISBN 9781509938308, 72 GBP

  

(image source: Bloomsbury)

Book abstract:

This book focuses on Anglo-American disputes arising out of the civil war in the United States and British interests in the American continent: the Geneva Arbitration, the Venezuela-Guiana Arbitration and the Bhering Sea Arbitration. It draws on those cases as model proceedings which laid the foundations and inspiration for a promotion of international law through the Hague Conferences and by the work of English and American jurists. It considers the encouragement these cases gave to the promotion of public international law and how that contributed to the resolution of inter-state disputes.

On the author:

Michael Reynolds is Visiting Senior Research Fellow in the Department of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science, UK. 

(more information with the publisher) 

(source: ESCLH Blog)

BOOK: Jens STEFFEK, International Organization as Technocratic Utopia [Transformations in Governance, ed. Liesbeth HOOGHE & Gary MARKS] (Oxford: OUP, 2021), 256 p. ISBN 9780192845573, 75 GBP

 

(image source: OUP)

Book abstract:

As climate change and a pandemic pose enormous challenges to humankind, the concept of expert governance gains new traction. This book revisits the idea that scientists, bureaucrats, and lawyers, rather than politicians or diplomats, should manage international relations. It shows that this technocratic approach has been a persistent theme in writings about international relations, both academic and policy-oriented, since the 19th century. The technocratic tradition of international thought unfolded in four phases, which were closely related to domestic processes of modernization and rationalization. The pioneering phase lasted from the Congress of Vienna to the First World War. In these years, philosophers, law scholars, and early social scientists began to combine internationalism and ideals of expert governance. Between the two world wars, a utopian period followed that was marked by visions of technocratic international organizations that would have overcome the principle of territoriality. In the third phase, from the 1940s to the 1960s, technocracy became the dominant paradigm of international institution-building. That paradigm began to disintegrate from the 1970s onwards, but important elements remain until the present day. The specific promise of technocratic internationalism is its ability to transform violent and unpredictable international politics into orderly and competent public administration. Such ideas also had political clout. This book shows how they left their mark on the League of Nations, the functional branches of the United Nations system and the European integration project. Transformations in Governance is a major academic book series from Oxford University Press. It is designed to accommodate the impressive growth of research in comparative politics, international relations, public policy, federalism, and environmental and urban studies concerned with the dispersion of authority from central states to supranational institutions, subnational governments, and public-private networks. It brings together work that advances our understanding of the organization, causes, and consequences of multilevel and complex governance. The series is selective, containing annually a small number of books of exceptionally high quality by leading and emerging scholars.

On the author:

Jens Steffek is Professor of Transnational Governance at the Technical University of Darmstadt. His research interests include international organizations, international history and international political theory. He is the author of Embedded Liberalism and Its Critics: Justifying Global Governance in the American Century (Palgrave, 2006) and has published articles in numerous scholarly journals. 

(source: OUP) 

ROUNDTABLE: The Historical Turn in International Economic Law - Ghent/Brussels, 12.10.2021 – 12h30-14h (on Zoom)

 

(Source: Rolin-Jaequemyns International Law Institute Ghent)

The historical turn in international has been followed by various subdisciplinary turns to, for example, the history of human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law. Nevertheless, the origins and history of international economic law has received less attention from both international economic lawyers and international legal historians. This roundtable will reflect on the current state of the art, its gaps and potential avenues for future research, in particular with respect to interdisciplinarity, periodization, method, the role of non-state actors and eurocentrism.

Convenors:

Drs. Filip Batselé (Ghent University – Université Libre de Bruxelles, Ghent Legal History Institute – Centre de droit international)

Dr. Gustavo Prieto (Ghent University, Human Rights Center - Human Rights in Context)

Drs. Florenz Volkaert (Ghent University, Ghent Legal History Institute)

Introduction by:

Prof. Dr. Em. Ernst-Ulrich Petersmann (European University Institute): ‘Reflections on the history of international economic law’

Panelists:

Dr. Mona Pinchis-Paulsen (London School of Economics)

Dr. Sabine Pitteloud (Université de Genève)

Dr. Raphaël Lima Sakr (University of Sheffield)

Moderated by Dr. Gustavo Prieto

Jointly hosted by the Ghent Legal History Institute, the Ghent Rolin-Jacquemyns Institute and Contextual Research in Law (Free University of Brussels), in collaboration with the ESIL Interest Groups International Economic Law and History of International Law.

12.10.2021 – 12h30-14h (Zoom-link to register).

 

 

BOOK: Pierre NOUAL, Restitutions. Une histoire culturelle et politique (Paris: Noto, 2021), 432 p.

 

(image source: noto revue)

Book abstract:

Prise de guerre, pillage, spoliation, saisie, confiscation… nombreux sont les mots pour désigner le déplacement des œuvres d’art dont l’histoire est émaillée depuis l’Antiquité jusqu’à l’actuel trafic illicite des biens culturels, en passant par les guerres et la colonisation des territoires. Cet ouvrage aborde, pour la première fois, frontalement et analytiquement les restitutions. Après une mise au point linguistique, historique et juridique de la restitution, un nécessaire état des lieux contemporains permet de décrire et analyser les nouvelles formes de revendications et leurs enjeux. Enfin, un épilogue interroge la portée d’une nouvelle conception politique des retours et la nécessité d’une nouvelle culture des restitutions pour comprendre ce que le patrimoine et l’histoire ont à gagner et à perdre. Docteur en droit et historien de l’art, Pierre Noual enseigne dans diverses universités et collabore régulièrement avec plusieurs revues culturelles et juridiques. Ses travaux portent sur le patrimoine culturel et le droit de l’art. Restitutions. Une histoire culturelle et politique est son premier ouvrage.

(read more here) 

VIDEO: Guillaume CALAFAT, Pourquoi faire l’histoire du drapeau pirate ? (Arte)

 

(image source: L'Histoire)

Author interview with L'Histoire

Guillaume Calafat : Avec l’équipe de « Faire l’histoire », nous avons d’abord eu l’idée d’une émission consacrée au drapeau, un objet à la fois familier et télégénique. Il nous est cependant vite apparu qu’un seul épisode ne pourrait suffire pour aborder la variété des usages sociaux et politiques des étendards à travers les siècles. Nous nous heurtions en effet aux pans nombreux et complexes de l’étude des drapeaux et des pavillons, la vexillologie, qui nécessite des compétences allant de l’héraldique aux arts de la guerre, de l’histoire de la formation des États-nations jusqu’à l’analyse sociohistorique des institutions et des fêtes (défilés, commémorations, manifestations, événements sportifs…). A l’inverse, se concentrer sur le drapeau d’un seul pays nous semblait réducteur et arbitraire.

Read more here. 

BOOK: Davide RODOGNO, Night on Earth A History of International Humanitarianism in the Near East, 1918–1930 (Cambridge: CUP, 2021), ISBN 9781108689892

 

(image source: CUP)

Book presentation:

Night on Earth is a broad-ranging account of international humanitarian programs in Central and Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Near East from 1918 to 1930. Davide Rodogno shows that international 'relief' and 'development' were intertwined long before the birth of the United Nations with humanitarians operating in a region devastated by war and famine and in which state sovereignty was deficient. Influenced by colonial motivations and ideologies these humanitarians attempted to reshape entire communities and nations through reconstruction and rehabilitation programmes. The book draws on the activities of a wide range of secular and religious organisations and philanthropic foundations in the US and Europe including the American Relief Administration, the American Red Cross, the Quakers, Save the Children, the Near East Relief, the American Women's Hospitals, the League of Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

(source: CUP) 

RESEARCH GUIDE: History of International Law (Peace Palace Library, The Hague)

(image source: PPL)

Presentation

The History of International Law examines the evolution and development of public international law in both state practice and conceptual understanding. Modern international law developed out of Renaissance Europe and is strongly entwined with the development of Western political organisation at that time. The development of European notions of sovereignty and nation states would necessitate the development of methods for interstate relations and standards of behaviour, and these would lay the foundations of what would become international law.

(read further on the PPL website) 

 

RESEARCH GUIDE: Public International Law (Peace Palace Library, The Hague, updated version)

(image source: Peace Palace)

The Peace Palace Library in The Hague has updated its Research Guide on Public International Law.

Read more here.

VACANCY: Professorship in Legal History (Tilburg: Tilburg University, DEADLINE 24 SEP 2021)

 

(image: "Hoofdwacht te Tilburg" (1830); source: Europeana/Rijksmuseum)

Tilburg University advertises a vacancy for a professorship in legal history (80%).

More information can be found here.

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)

BOOK: Kathryn GREENMAN, State Responsibility and Rebels. The History and Legacy of Protecting Investment Against Revolution [Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law; 161] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), ISBN 9781009043779, 85 GBP

 

(image source: CUP)

Book abstract:

This book traces the emergence and contestation of State responsibility for rebels during the nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In the context of decolonisation and capitalist expansion in Latin America, it argues that the mixed claims commissions-and the practices of intervention associated with them-served to insulate economic order against revolution, by taking the question of who assumed the risk of harm by rebels out of the scope of national authority. The jurisprudence of the commissions was contradictory and ambiguous. It took a lot of interpretive work by later scholars and codifiers to rationalise rules of responsibility out of these shaky foundations, as they battled for the meaning and authority of the arbitral practice. The legal debates were structured around whether the standard of protection against rebels owed to aliens was nationally or internationally determined and whether it was domestic or international authority that adjudicated such standard-a struggle over the internationalisation of protection against rebels.

On the author:

Kathryn Greenman is Lecturer in Law at the University of Technology Sydney. She is a co-editor of Revolutions in International Law: The Legacies of 1917 (Cambridge University Press, 2021) with Anne Orford, Ntina Tzouvala and Anna Saunders.

(source: CUP) 

BOOK: Dominique BAUER & Randall C.H. LESAFFER (eds.), History, Casuistry and Custom in the Legal Thought of Francisco Suárez (1548-1617). Collected Studies [Legal History Library, 51; Studies in the History of International Law, 19] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2021), viii + 160 p. ISBN 9789004464803, € 93

 

(image source: Brill)

Book abstract:

The thought and work of the Jesuit Francisco Suárez (1548-1617) is widely acknowledged as the culmination point of the contribution of the theologians and jurists of the so-called School of Salamanca to the development of modern Western law. This collection of studies on the legal work of Suárez explores some of his major forays into the law. Both his theoretical system-building as well as his interventions in practical questions are covered. Next to discussions on the nature of law and its different categorisations, they extend to various subbranches of the law including family law, property law, the law of obligations, criminal law and international law.

Contributors:

Dominique Bauer, Daniel Schwartz, João Manuel Azevedo Alexandrino Fernandes, Lisa Brunori, Wim Decock, Bart Wauters, Gaëlle Demelemestre, Jean-Paul Coujou, and Cintia Faraco.  

Read more with Brill (DOI 10.1163/9789004464810) 

BOOK: Richard WHATMORE, The History of Political Thought: A Very Short Introduction [Very Short Introductions] (Oxford: OUP, 2021), 160 p. ISBN 9780198853725

 

(image source: OUP)

Abstract:

Thinking about politics has tended to be historical in nature because of the comparisons and contrasts that can be drawn between past and present. Different periods in politics have used the past differently. At times political thought can be said to have been drawn directly from the study of history; at others, perhaps including our own time, the relationship is more indirect. This Very Short Introduction explores the core concerns and questions in the field of the history of political thought. Richard Whatmore considers the history of political thought as a branch of political philosophy/political science, and examines the approaches of core theorists such as Reinhart Koselleck, Strauss, Michel Foucault, and the so-called Cambridge School of Quentin Skinner and John Pocock. Assessing the current relationship between political history, theory and action, Whatmore concludes with an analysis of its relevant for current politics.

On the author:

 Richard Whatmore is a Professor of Modern History and Co-Director of the Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St. Andrews. He is the author of Republicanism and the French Revolution (OUP, 2000); Against War and Empire (Yale, 2012); What is Intellectual History? (Polity, 2015); and Terrorists, Anarchists and Republicans (Princeton, 2019).

(read more with OUP) 

BOOK: Daniel LEE, The Right of Sovereignty. Jean Bodin on the Sovereign State and the Law of Nations [The History and Theory of International Law] (Oxford: OUP, 2021), 320 p. ISBN 9780198755531, 80 GBP

 

(image source: OUP)

Abstract:

Sovereignty is the vital organizing principle of modern international law. This book examines the origins of that principle in the legal and political thought of its most influential theorist, Jean Bodin (1529/30-1596). As the author argues in this study, Bodin's most lasting theoretical contribution was his thesis that sovereignty must be conceptualized as an indivisible bundle of legal rights constitutive of statehood. While these uniform 'rights of sovereignty' licensed all states to exercise numerous exclusive powers, including the absolute power to 'absolve' and release its citizens from legal duties, they were ultimately derived from, and therefore limited by, the law of nations. The book explores Bodin's creative synthesis of classical sources in philosophy, history, and the medieval legal science of Roman and canon law in crafting the rules governing state-centric politics. The Right of Sovereignty is the first book in English on Bodin's legal and political theory to be published in nearly a half-century and surveys themes overlooked in modern Bodin scholarship: empire, war, conquest, slavery, citizenship, commerce, territory, refugees, and treaty obligations. It will interest specialists in political theory and the history of modern political thought, as well as legal history, the philosophy of law, and international law.

On the author:

Daniel Lee is Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of Graduate Studies in Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley. He specializes in political theory, the history of political thought, and jurisprudence. He is the author of Popular Sovereignty in Early Modern Constitutional Thought (OUP, 2016) and A Division of the Whole Law (forthcoming with OUP).

(source: OUP) 

BOOK: Edward JONES CORREDERA, The Diplomatic Enlightenment. Spain, Europe, and the Age of Speculation [History of European Political and Constitutional Thought; 5] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2021), ISBN 978-90-04-46906-8

 

(image source: Brill)

Book abstract:

This book reconfigures the study of the origins of the Enlightenment in the Spanish Empire. Challenging dominant interpretations of the period, this book shows that early eighteenth-century Spanish authors turned to Enlightenment ideas to reinvent Spain’s role in the European balance of power. And while international law grew to provide a legal framework that could safeguard peace, Spanish officials, diplomats, and authors, hardened by the failure of Spanish diplomacy, sought instead to regulate international relations by drawing on investment, profit, and self-interest. The book shows, on the basis of new archival research, that the Diplomatic Enlightenment sought to turn the Spanish Empire into a space for closer political cooperation with other European and non-European states and empires.

Table of contents:

Preface 
Acknowledgements 

1 The Missing Century
 The Enlightenment, the Nation, and Modern Spain
 1 Introduction
 2 The Nineteenth-Century Spanish Enlightenment
 3 The Twentieth-Century View of the Absence of the Spanish Enlightenment
 4 Religion and the Spanish Political Elites
 5 The Diplomatic Enlightenment

2 Predicting War and Peace
 1 Introduction
 2 Spain, Europe, and Arbitrary Monarchy
 3 Crisis and Catharsis: The Dawn of the Early Spanish Enlightenment
 4 What News Do You Bring?
 5 Information Overload and Elite Political Debate

3 Investing in the Luces
 1 Introduction
 2 Shorting Diplomacy
 3 Representations of the Spanish Empire
 4 The Assembly of Public Trust
 5 Luces in the Mines
 6 The Seminary of Lawsuits: Law, Trade, and Corporations
 7 José Carvajal y Lancaster and the Arbitration of Europe
 8 Private Vices, Public Virtues, and Diplomatic Cooperation
 9 Coins, Corporations, China, and Europe
 10 The Naval Officer and the Aristocrat

4 Revolts and Returns
 Free Trade and the Fear of Independence
 1 Introduction
 2 Investing in a New Timepiece
 3 Mapping Reform in Enlightenment Europe
 4 Free Trade: The Farce of Independence and the Growth of Spanish Political Economic Debate
 5 The Perils of Emulation: Corporations and the Meaning of the Spanish Empire
 6 The Criticism of Carvajal’s Joint-Stock Companies

5 The Lever of the Balance of Power
 1 Introduction
 2 Iberia’s Role in Europe
 3 Borders and Trade
 4 Investing in Peace
 5 A Monarchy without a King

6 Carthage’s Contractors
 The Ends of the Spanish Empire
 1 Introduction
 2 The Grain Monopoly and the Voice of the People
 3 The Idea of the Nation: Outsourcing Propaganda and Colonisation
 4 Constitutionalism in the Spanish Empire and the International Order

7 Conclusion

Bibliography
Index

On the author:

Edward Jones Corredera is a Senior Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He completed his doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge in 2020.

(see Brill's site: DOI 10.1163/9789004469099)

BOOK: Marcel BERNI & Tamara CUBITO (Eds.), Captivity in War during the Twentieth Century - The Forgotten Diplomatic Role of Transnational Actors (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021). ISBN 978-3-030-65094-0, 127.19 EUR

  

(Source: Palgrave)

Palgrave Macmillan is publishing a book on the role of IOs, neutral nations and other transnational actors in supporting civilian and military captives in the 20^th century.  

ABOUT THE BOOK

This book offers new international perspectives on captivity in wartime during the twentieth century. It explores how global institutions and practices with regard to captives mattered, how they evolved and most importantly, how they influenced the treatment of captives. From the beginning of the twentieth century, international organisations, neutral nations and other actors with no direct involvement in the respective wars often had to fill in to support civilian as well as military captives and to supervise their treatment. This edited volume puts these actors, rather than the captives themselves, at the centre in order to assess comparatively their contributions to wartime captivity. Taking a global approach, it shows that transnational bodies - whether non-governmental organisations, neutral states or individuals - played an essential role in dealing with captives in wartime. Chapters cover both the largest wars, such as the two World Wars, but also lesser-known conflicts, to highlight how captives were placed at the centre of transnational negotiations.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Marcel Berni is a Research and Teaching Fellow at the Swiss Military Academy at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. He specialises in the history of the Cold War. His dissertation on the treatment of communist captives during Vietnam's American War has won the André Corvisier Prize.

Tamara Cubito is a Research and Teaching Fellow at the Swiss Military Academy at ETH Zurich, Switzerland. She recently completed her PhD on the treatment of enemy aliens in the British colonies during the First World War.

 

More info here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

BLOG: Bruno LIMA, “Hidden thunder”: Who Was Luiz Gama? (Legal History Insights Blog, MPILHLT)

(image source: Legal History Insights)

First paragraph:

In 1847, fourteen years after escaping slavery in Kentucky (USA), William Wells Brown published an autobiography that soon became a best-seller and a landmark in the abolitionist propaganda. The epigraph of Brown’s famous Narrative brought about an existential question. Or, rather, a plea, that reflected the author’s state of mind:

Read more here.

BOOK: Philippe RYGIEL, L’ordre des circulations ? L’Institut de Droit international et la régulation des migrations (1870-1920) [Coll. « Histoire contemporaine »] (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2021), ISBN 9791035106348

 

(image source: CNRS Histoire Sociale)

Description:

Le contrôle des migrations affectant le territoire d’un État est souvent conçu comme relevant de la seule compétence de celui-ci : tout passage de frontière, tout séjour d’un étranger, pourtant, mettent en contact plusieurs souverainetés et instaurent entre elles des échanges, des négociations, ou suscitent des conflits. Les fondateurs du droit international moderne, réunis à la fin du XIXe siècle par l’Institut de droit international, en étaient bien conscients. Fins observateurs du monde de leur temps, qu’ils entendaient ordonner selon le droit, ils consacrent alors aux implications des mobilités humaines des milliers de pages, et au meilleur moyen de les régler de nombreux débats, soucieux qu’ils étaient d’instaurer un ordre des circulations libéral, condition à leurs yeux de la prospérité de chacun et de la paix entre les nations occidentales. Ils entreprennent ainsi, non sans connaître de véritables succès, d’assurer un statut juridique aux étrangers résidant en Occident, de protéger les réfugiés de la vindicte des États, de dénoncer enfin les entraves trop manifestes à la liberté de circulation. Les guerres brutales que connut l’Europe, sa division en aires d’influence rivales, l’affaissement de la civilisation européenne consécutif à la Première Guerre mondiale ont fait tomber dans l’oubli ces travaux fondateurs autant que leurs réalisations effectives, dont beaucoup ne survécurent toutefois pas à l’effondrement du monde qui les avait vu naître. Ce livre retrace leur histoire et leurs combats, en un temps que marque à nouveau autant la nécessité d’un ordre mondial des mobilités humaines que l’apparente impossibilité de le faire advenir.

(read more here) 

BOOK: Annabel BRETT, Megan DONALDSON & Martti KOSKENNIEMI (eds.), History, Politics, Law. Thinking Through the International (Cambridge: CUP, SEP 2021), ISBN 9781108903516

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

Historians of political thought and international lawyers have both expanded their interest in the formation of the present global order. History, Politics, Law is the first express encounter between the two disciplines, juxtaposing their perspectives on questions of method and substance. The essays throw light on their approaches to the role of politics and the political in the history of the world beyond the single polity. They discuss the contrast between practice and theory as well as the role of conceptual and contextual analyses in both fields. Specific themes raised for both disciplines include statehood, empires and the role of international institutions, as well as the roles of economics, innovation and gender. The result is a vibrant cross-section of contrasts and parallels between the methods and practices of the two disciplines, demonstrating the many ways in which both can learn from each other.

On the editors:

Annabel Brett, University of Cambridge Annabel Brett is a leading historian of late medieval and early modern political thought, with a particular interest in natural law and the law of nations. She is the author of Liberty, Right and Nature: Individual Rights in Later Scholastic Thought (1997) and Changes of State: Nature and the Limits of the City in Early Modern Natural Law (2011).  Martti Koskenniemi is a leading critical scholar of the theory and history of international law. His works are studied by lawyers, historians and international relations scholars across the world. He has held visiting professorships at many of world's leading universities, is Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy, and a Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Martti Koskenniemi, University of Helsinki Megan Donaldson, University College London Megan Donaldson has published on nineteenth and twentieth-century shifts in treaty-making, statehood and international organisations. Her forthcoming monograph traces the evolution of secrecy in the international legal order.

Contributors:

Annabel Brett, Martti Koskenniemi, David Kennedy, Armin von Bogdandy and Adeel Hussain, Jennifer Pitts, Emma Hunter, Megan Donaldson, Surabhi Ranganathan, Joel Isaac, Anna Becker, Karen Knop

(read more on Cambridge Core) 

JOURNAL: Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire 410-411 [Numéro Spécial: L'impérialisme informel de la France et de l'Espagne au XIXe siècle] (JUN 2021)

 

(image source: SFHOM)

Description:

"La Société Française d’Histoire des Outre-mers publie dans ce numéro de sa revue un travail novateur d’Arnaud Bartolomei, de Xavier Huetz De Lemps et de Martín Rodrigo Y Alharilla sur l’impérialisme informel de la France et de l’Espagne au XIXe siècle. Si la notion d’impérialisme informel a été mobilisée par les historiens britanniques pour comprendre la puissance coloniale hégémonique d’outre-manche, cette notion a été plus rarement sollicitée pour analyser les trajectoires impériales d’autres puissances européennes. Les auteurs pallient cette carence pour les empires français et espagnol dont l’historiographie s’est trop longtemps attachée à la seule conquête territoriale afin d’évaluer leur puissance impériale. Toute proportion gardée avec le modèle britannique, les auteurs interrogent la puissance heuristique d’une telle perspective et les modalités de domination informelle envisagées par la France et l’Espagne au XIXe siècle. David Todd focalise son attention sur les agents français et les collaborateurs autochtones des outre-mers, sur les promoteurs et les bénéficiaires de ces nouvelles formes d’influence en France métropolitaine. Ce cadre établi, Arnaud Bartolomei, Manuel Talamante et Xavier Daumalin ouvrent respectivement des perspectives sur l’expansion commerciale de la France au Mexique, à Montevideo mais aussi en Afrique. Pour l’Espagne, les contributions d’Eloy Martín Corrales et de Juan Inarejos Muñoz portent sur l’analyse des motivations des politiques d’expansion espagnole qui vont à l’encontre de la seule lecture de la « matrice » du désastre de 1898. D’autres acteurs et d’autres intentions ont pu générer de nouvelles formes d’impérialisme. Martín Rodrigo y Alharilla et Lizbeth Chaviano Pérez montrent ainsi que la question de l’esclavage et de la traite a constitué le principal moteur de l’implantation de l’Espagne en Afrique sub-saharienne. De même, L. Chaviano Pérez met clairement en évidence des formes de sous-impérialisme informel en montrant que le sort des établissements espagnols en Guinée a été intimement lié aux intérêts cubains et aux pressions de ses planteurs. En focalisant leur attention sur la fin de l’époque moderne et le début de la reprise de l’expansion européenne dans le dernier tiers du XIXe siècle, l’ensemble de ces contributions invite le lecteur à appréhender les « conditions d’une domination économique » qui se voulait « si possible exclusive ou privilégiée, sur le reste du monde »."

(source: SFHOM) 

BLOG: Christian POGIES, The Cannon. A Tool for Delimiting Maritime Space (Legal History Insights, MPILHLT)

(image source: MPILHLT)

 First paragraph:

This is the story of the cannon as a tool to delimit maritime space in the history of the law of the sea. It is a story that spans from the 17th to the 20th century – it is a story about a state practice that became legal theory, technological progress and Western dominance in international law.

Read more here.

JOURNAL: Monde(s) 19 [La Société des nations. Une expérience de l'internationalisme, eds. Jean-Michel GUIEU & Stanislas JEANNESSON] (JUL 2021) (ISBN 9782753582682)

 

(image source: CAIRN)

Articles

« L’expérience de Genève » (1920-1946) (Jean-Michel Guieu & Stanislas Jeannesson)

The League of Nations Secretariat: An Experiment in Liberal Internationalism? (Karen Gram-Skjoldager & Haakon Andreas Ikonomou)

Employées à la Société des nations : carrières et conditions de travail, 1920-1932 (Myriam Piguet)

Usages du droit et espaces de pouvoir transnationaux. La pratique pétitionnaire de la section des minorités de la SDN face aux rescapés d’un crime de masse, 1920-1939 (Dzovinar Kévonian)

Beware of Pity: The League of Nations’ Treatment of Prostitution (Magaly Rodríguez García)

Breaking Even for the Future: The Financial History of the League of Nations Between 1919 and 1933 (Hannah Tyler)

Joseph Paul-Boncour à Genève : une pratique de l’internationalisme (Matthieu Boisdron)

Un Uruguayen à Genève : Julián Nogueira et l’internationalisme latino-américain à la Société des nations (Yannick Wehrli)

Missed Opportunities to be Global Conversion and Diversion of the Scientific Field of Knowledge of International Relations of the International Studies Conference and the Institute of Pacific Relations (Tomoko Akami)

Débat autour d'un livre

Les États-Unis et la Société des nations (1914-1946) Le système international face à l’émergence d’une superpuissance, Berne, Peter Lang, 2016 (Andrew Barros, Nicolas Vaicbourdt, Ludovic Tournès)

Varia

En quête de légitimité. Le Comité international de la Croix-Rouge et l’Afrique durant les années 1960 (Marie-Luce Desgrandchamps)

Les maoïstes suisses et « l’or de Pékin » au cœur de la Guerre froide (Cyril Cordoba)

Read all articles on Cairn. Or buy the special issue in book form with the PUR.

BOOK: Peter SCHRÖDER (ed.) Concepts and Contexts of Vattel's Political and Legal Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021), ISBN 9781108784009

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

Swiss-born Emer de Vattel (1714–1767) was one of the last eminent thinkers of natural law. He shaped the later part of early-modern natural jurisprudence. At the time, the subject had become a fashionable academic sub-discipline in both jurisprudence and philosophy. Vattel's considerable impact on statesmen, political thinkers, diplomats and lawyers during his lifetime and after rested primarily on the fact that his The Law of Nations (1758) transformed natural law into the basis of a more comprehensive and practicable theory of interstate relations. His ideas served to promote reform programmes whose comprehensive natures spanned the domains of economic reform, constitutionalism and international diplomacy and foreign trade policy. Vattel's conception centred round the principle that defined all sovereign states as nations composed of societies of free men and profoundly influenced legal and political debates in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

See table of contents on Cambridge Core.

 

BLOGGING BREAK: Summer (no posts until 16 AUG)

(image: Veduta of Venice, Canaletto; source: Wikimedia Commons)

 

Dear reader, the ESILHIL Blog will be quiet until 16 August.

Enjoy the Summer !

ENCYCLOPEDIA ENTRY: Michel ELPERDING, "Mixed Courts of the Colonial Era" (MPEiPro)

 

(image source: MPEiPro)

First sentences:

Mixed courts of the colonial era were a form of domestic courts with international participation (Mixed Courts, Other (National Courts with International Participation)) established between the first half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century in non-Western polities. Serving as an alternative to consular jurisdiction in countries where Western states were unwilling to accept the jurisdiction of ordinary local courts over their nationals or their nationals’ interests, they blended domestic and international features. These features...

Read more on OPIL.

RESEARCH PROJECT: NYU-Yale American Indian Sovereignty Project

(image: Prof. Maggie Blackhawk; source: NYU)

Description: 

On July 2, NYU Law announced the establishment of the NYU-Yale American Indian Sovereignty Project, whose goals include supporting the sovereignty of Native nations and addressing the impact of American colonialism on Native peoples. Professor of Law Maggie Blackhawk (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe) and Ned Blackhawk (Te-Moak Tribe of Western Shoshone Indians of Nevada), professor of history and American Studies at Yale University, will jointly run the multi-year project.

Read more here. 

SCHOLARSHIP: Academy Scholars Program (recent PhD Recipient/doctoral candidates,, DEADLINE 1 OCT 2021)

 

(image source: Harvard)

Description:

The Academy Scholars Program identifies and supports outstanding scholars at the start of their careers whose work combines disciplinary excellence in the social sciences or law with a command of the language and history or culture of countries or regions outside of the United States or Canada. Their scholarship may elucidate domestic, comparative, or transnational issues, past or present. The Academy Scholars are a select community of individuals with resourcefulness, initiative, curiosity, and originality, whose work in cultures or regions outside of the US or Canada shows promise as a foundation for exceptional careers in major universities or international institutions. Academy Scholars are appointed for a two-year, in-residence, postdoctoral fellowship at The Harvard Academy for International and Area Studies, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. They receive substantial financial and research assistance to undertake sustained projects of research and/or acquire accessory training in their chosen fields and areas. The Senior Scholars, a distinguished group of senior Harvard University faculty members, act as mentors to the Academy Scholars to help them achieve their intellectual potential.

Read further here.