ESIL Interest Group History of International Law

ESIL Interest Group History of International Law

Wednesday 31 March 2021

JOB: Assistant Professor Public International Law (1.0 FTE) (Utrecht: Utrecht University, DEADLINE 16 APR 2021)

 

(image source: UU)

Job description:

As an Assistant Professor, you will be responsible for teaching in the School of Law at the Department of International and European Law. You will be involved in courses relating to public international law, human rights law, international humanitarian law and international security law. Courses are taught in the School of Law’s Bachelor's and Master's programmes, as well as at University College Utrecht. You will also supervise Bachelor's and Master's theses, and may be assigned additional coordination or organisational tasks. Although the emphasis will be on teaching, research is possible for 0.3 FTE.

More information here

Tuesday 30 March 2021

ARTICLE: Joseph F. PRESTIA, "‘Civilized States’ and Situational Sovereignty: The Dilemmas of Romanian Neutrality, 1914–1916" (European History Quarterly, ADVANCE ARTICLE)

 

(image source: Sage)

Abstract:

At the 1914 Crown Council, which decided to keep Romania neutral in 1914, former Conservative prime minister Petre Carp offered his succinct and direct opinion about the direction of Romanian foreign policy in the opening days of the Great War. He admonished the Council that, if Romania wanted to remain among the ‘civilized states’ (statele civilizate) it had to follow Germany and Austria-Hungary into war immediately. The idea of ‘civilized states’ that dominated the remainder of the Crown Council was not merely an intersubjective social construction. It was a legal term of art in fin de siècle international law that could be applied in the real world. It was only the legally-civilized states that enjoyed the full panoply of rights, privileges, and protections under international law. This is a study of how Romania’s policy-making elite, and Ion I. C. Brătianu’s government, in particular, confronted the challenges of ‘situational sovereignty’. It asserts that, during Romania’s two-year Period of Neutrality (3 August 1914–17 August 1916), Brătianu initially used bilateral conventions as both a method to establish recognition of Romania’s status (or at least a guarantee of territorial integrity) and as a litmus test to determine which (if any) foreign powers recognized Romania as a legal equal. Although he was able to achieve a short-term victory of having an equality clause inserted into the August 1916 political convention with the Entente, it is unclear if that clause could have been durable. Ultimately, Brătianu was trapped between a desire to secure Romania’s recognition through international agreement, but confronted with the reality that Romania’s lack of recognition as a legally-civilized equal meant those very conventions could be unenforceable.

Read the article here

Monday 29 March 2021

ARTICLE: Ntina TZOUVALA, "The Specter of Eurocentrism in International Legal History" (Yale Journal of Law & The Humanities XXXI (2021), No. 2, 413-434 (OPEN ACCES)

(image source: Yale)


First lines:

The honeymoon period of the “turn to history” in international law did not last long. On the surface everyone agreed that the past of the discipline remained under-examined and under-theorized. Additionally, few (if any) international legal scholars still believed in the most extreme versions of linear, progressivist narratives that imagined (international) law to be part and parcel of “the long march of mankind from the cave to the computer.”2 Nevertheless, important methodological differences persisted.

Read the full article here

Friday 26 March 2021

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

  

(image source: univ-droit)

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

  

Short List of Literature

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Halpérin Jean-Louis, L’histoire de l’état des juristes. Allemagne. XIXe-XXe siècles, Paris, Classique Garnier, 2015.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Organising Committee

Pierre Allorant (Université d’Orléans)

Walter Badier (Université d’Orléans)

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

 

Scientific Committee

Pierre Allorant (Université d’Orléans)

Éric Anceau (Sorbonne Université)

Yves Bruley (Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes)

Noëlline Castagnez (Université d’Orléans)

Nicolas Cornu Thénard (Paris II)

Frederik Dhondt (Vrije Universiteit Brussel)

Jean Garrigues (Université d’Orléans)

Stella Ghervas (Newcastle University)

Martti Koskenniemi (University of Helsinki)

Milos Vec (University of Vienna)


 (source: univ-droit)

Wednesday 24 March 2021

BOOK: Société Française pour le Droit International (dir.), Le traité de Versailles. Regards franco-allemands en droit international à l’occasion du centenaire – The Versailles Treaty: French and German Perspectives in International Law on the Occasion of the Centenary [SFDI, Journées] (Paris: Pedone, 2020), 320 p. ISBN 9782233009562, € 44

 

(image source: SFDI)

Society presentation: 
La Société française pour le droit international a été créée à la suite du colloque organisé les 17-18 mars 1967 à Strasbourg sous la présidence de Suzanne Bastid. A l’issue de ce colloque consacré aux Problèmes de l’enseignement et de la recherche en droit international en France face aux besoins de la pratique, Michel Virally a proposé « la création d’un groupement scientifique destiné à favoriser l’étude et le progrès du droit international et permettant aux enseignants, chercheurs et praticiens de se rencontrer à intervalles réguliers ». La nouvelle Société a été créée en octobre 1967, avec pour siège Strasbourg et un statut d’association de droit local.

Read more here

(source: Prof. dr. Daniel-Erasmus Khan, Universität der Bundeswehr) 


Tuesday 23 March 2021

JOURNAL LIST: Legal History Periodicals (David Berg Foundation Institute for Law and History; Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University)

 

(image source: Tel Aviv University)

We were informed of an impressive list of legal history periodicals published by the David Berg Foundation Institute for Law and History (Tel Aviv). See here.

(source: Prof. dr. Daniel Erasmus-Khan, Universität der Bundeswehr)

Monday 22 March 2021

ADVANCE ARTICLE: Benjamin G. MARTIN, "The Birth of the Cultural Treaty in Europe's Age of Crisis" (Contemporary European History)

 

(image source: Cambridge Core)

Abstract:

Bilateral treaties are an age-old tool of diplomacy, but before the First World War they were only rarely applied to the world of intellectual and cultural relations. This article explores the process by which diplomatic agreements on intellectual and cultural exchange came instead to be a common feature of interwar European international relations by contrasting two types of agreements identified by period observers: ‘intellectual’ accords, typified by the agreements France signed in the 1920s, and ‘cultural’ treaties, advanced by fascist Italy in the 1930s. Comparing France and Italy's use of such agreements in Central-Eastern Europe reveals that Italy's fascist regime responded to the crises and opportunities of the interwar period by developing a distinctive model of ‘cultural treaty’ that applied state power to international cultural exchange, and mobilised the idea of ‘culture’ itself, in a new and influential manner.

Read more here: DOI 10.1017/S0960777321000023.

Friday 19 March 2021

BOOK: Alexander ORAKHELASHVILI, International Law and International Politics. Foundations of Interdisciplinary Analysis [Principles of international law series] (Cheltenham: E. Elgar, 2020), ISBN 978 1 83910 643 9

 

(image source: Elgar)

Book abstract:

This illuminating monograph examines analytical and practical aspects of the relationship between international law and international politics, providing a comprehensive analysis of the foundations on which both the international legal system and international politics rest.With an interdisciplinary perspective, Alexander Orakhelashvili compares and contrasts the methods of international legal reasoning with international relations as a discipline, focusing on timeless and central issues that connect the past, present and future. The book examines, through the use of both disciplines’ methodology, some more specific areas such as public authority, global space, and peace, with the overall outcome that political contempt towards the international legal system could have unexpected and costly adverse political consequences.Examining a broad range of theories and literature, International Law and International Politics will be an invigorating read for academics, students and practitioners of international law, international relations, politics, and diplomacy. 

Read more here.

Thursday 18 March 2021

ARTICLE: Jullia GAFFIELD, "The Racialization of International Law after the Haitian Revolution: The Holy See and National Sovereignty" (American Historical Review CXXV (2020), No. 3, 841-868)

(image: Toussaint Louverture; source: Wikimedia Commons)


Abstract:

The Haitian state shaped international definitions of sovereignty and national legitimacy after the Declaration of Independence in 1804. Haiti’s nineteenth century was not a period of isolation and decline; its first six decades were globally connected because the country’s leaders challenged their postcolonial inequality with diplomacy and state formation. This strategy aimed to establish Haiti’s membership in the “family of nations,” a central metaphor in European and American diplomatic, legal, and religious decision-making. In doing so, the Haitian state forced the Atlantic powers to redefine the boundaries of international relations. Haiti’s decades-long negotiations with the Catholic Church were tied to the racialization of the global hierarchy. After its Declaration of Independence, the Haitian state began clearing a theoretical path toward recognized sovereignty based on the dominant narrative that a society must be considered “civilized” on the world stage. But, as it cultivated internal policies and practices that rejected the dominant racist assumptions, these discriminatory ideologies became increasingly more explicit in international law. 

(read more with OUP Journals: DOI 10.1093/ahr/rhz1226)

Wednesday 17 March 2021

ESIL RESEARCH FORUM CATANIA: Registration mandatory (by 8 APRIL 2021)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

The ESIL IGHIL organizes a pre-conference event at the ESIL Research Forum in Catania (see program here).

The organising committee and the ESIL Board request all participants (presenters, but also the audience) to register by 8 April:  http://www.2021esilcatania.unict.it/register

Tuesday 16 March 2021

JOB OFFER: 3 PhD Students (m/f/d) (Dr. Inge VAN HULLE, Legal Connectivities and Colonial Cultures in Africa; Frankfurt: MPILHLT, DEADLINE 1 MAY 2021)

(image source: MPI for Legal History and Legal Theory)
 

Project description:

The legal history of colonialism has for a long time been embedded in the paradigm of the nation state, where the focus lies on investigating the history of individual colonies within a single colonial or national legal tradition. State-centrism in colonial legal history means that the colonies and metropole are often separated from developments that took place on a regional or international level. However, insights from global history, histoire croisée and entangled history, have illustrated the impact on historical developments of the movement and the spatial interconnectedness of people, goods and ideas. This project starts from the premise that the same may be said for the movement of legal concepts and ideas in and about Africa during the colonial period of the late nineteenth- and twentieth centuries. The project maps the connectivities of legal developments in colonial Africa across the local, regional and international level by identifying normative exchanges, for example, between international treaty- and diplomatic negotiations, lobby groups, colonial governments and local actors. Here, the actions of and networks between historical actors who often held plural and conflicting allegiances take centre-stage.

Duties and responsibilities:

 Your key responsibility is to develop and complete a doctoral dissertation within the confines of the research group in one of the three themes described above. Doctoral students are expected to publish and disseminate their research findings in close co-operation with the other members of the research group.

Your profile:

A university degree in law, humanities or social sciences that has been completed with above-average success is required. You have an excellent command of English, both spoken and written and are proficient in either French or German. Knowledge of African languages is not a requirement but will be considered as an asset. Your curriculum vitae shows the potential to conduct research at an internationally high level. You work meticulously and are able to handle deadlines. You work independently and have a strong interest in interdisciplinary, archival and comparative work. You have the ability to play an active collaborative role in the research group.

Job: 

The PhD positions (39 hours per week) are paid the equivalent of 65% of the German Civil Service Collective Agreement (TVöD Bund), level E13, and are primarily intended to enable the preparation of a doctoral thesis. The positions are fixed-term appointments for three years; in exceptional cases, a position can be extended for one additional year. The Max Planck Society is committed to increasing the number of individuals with disabilities in its workforce and therefore encourages applications from such individuals. Furthermore, the Max Planck Society seeks to increase the number of women in those areas where they are underrepresented and therefore explicitly encourages women to apply. The Max Planck Society strives for gender equality and diversity. We welcome applications from all backgrounds.

 Application process:

 Your application must be submitted online via the link below by the closing date of May 1, 2021. Please forward your application documents to your indicated reviewers. If you are shortlisted, we will request a review. If your application is convincing, we will invite you to a selection interview.

The application should be in English or German and should contain the following documents:

  • Names and addresses (by post and electronically) of three researchers who have agreed to issue you with a letter of reference
  • Detailed CV containing a list of any publications you might have
  • Copies of your school leaver’s certificate and degree certificate
  • Preliminary research project (up to five pages) fitting within one of the three themes; Cover letter naming your research project and explaining to what extent your profile meets the selection criteria
  • Written sample of approx. 20 printed pages (e.g. master thesis sample, journal articles, book chapters, etc.)

Contact:

Informal enquiries may be directed to Dr. I. Van Hulle (vanhulle@rg.mpg.de). For questions as to the terms and conditions of employment please contact Ms. Anna Heym (jobs@rg.mpg.de).

Link to application here

Monday 15 March 2021

BOOK: Torben SPAAK & Patricia MINDUS (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism [Cambridge Companions to Law] (Cambridge: CUP, 2021), ISBN 9781108447010

 

(source: Cambridge Core)

Book abstract:

Legal positivism is one of the fundamental theories of jurisprudence studied in law and related fields around the world. This volume addresses how legal positivism is perceived and makes the case for why it is relevant for contemporary legal theory. The Cambridge Companion to Legal Positivism offers thirty-three chapters from leading scholars that provide a comprehensive commentary on the fundamental ideas of legal positivism, its history and major theorists, its connection to normativity and values, its current development and influence, as well as on the criticisms moved against it.

(more information on Cambridge Core

Friday 12 March 2021

BOOK: Amanda WILCOX, The Italian Empire and the Great War (Oxford: OUP, 2021), 288 p. ISBN 9780198822943, € 38,14

 

(image source: Blackwells)

Book abstract:
The Italian Empire and the Great War brings an imperial and colonial perspective to the Italian experience of the First World War. Italy's decision for war in 1915 is contextualised in light of Italian imperial ambitions from the late nineteenth century onwards, and its conquest of Libya in 1911-12. The Italian empire was conceived both in conventional terms as a system of settlement or exploitation colonies under Italian sovereignty, and as an informal global empire of emigrants; both were mobilised in support of the war in 1915-18. The war was designed to bring about 'a greater Italy' both literally and metaphorically. In pursuit of global status, Italy endeavoured to fight a global war, sending troops to the Balkans, Russia, and the Middle East, though with limited results. Italy's newest colony, Libya, was also a theatre of the Italian war effort, as the anticolonial resistance there linked up with the Ottoman Empire, Germany, and Austria to undermine Italian rule. Italian race theories underpinned this expansionism: Vanda Wilcox examines how Italian constructions of whiteness and racial superiority informed a colonial approach to military occupation in Europe as well as the conduct of its campaigns in Africa. After the war, Italy's fate at the Peace Conference is examined in an imperial framework to show that the 'mutilated victory' was an imperial as well as a national sentiment. Events in Paris are analysed alongside the military occupations in the Balkans and Asia Minor as well as the efforts to resolve the conflicts in Libya, to assess the rhetoric and reality of Italian imperialism.

(source: Blackwells

Thursday 11 March 2021

YEARBOOK: German Yearbook of International Law 62 (2019): Symposium on the Treaty of Versailles at 100


(demonstrations in Berlin against the Treaty of Versailles; source: Wikimedia Commons)


The German Yearbook of International Law devoted a focus section to the hundreth anniversary of the Peace of Versailles.

Table of contents:

Contents

Forum – Comparative Disciplinary Perspectives on the Challenges Facing the Human Rights Council

Rosa Freedman & Samuel Gordon

An International Law Perspective on the Challenges Confronting the Human Rights Council

11

Wolfgang S. Heinz

An International Relations Perspective on the Reform Needs of the Human Rights Council

43

Focus – The Treaty of Versailles at 100

Andreas von Arnauld

The Treaty of Versailles at 100: By Way of Introduction

83

Christian J. Tams

Experiments Great and Small: Centenary Reflections on the League of Nations

93

Thomas Kleinlein

The Versailles Peace Treaty Before the Permanent Court of International Justice: Tracing the Legalism of the Paris Settlement

129

Claus Kreß

The Peacemaking Process After the Great War and the Origins of International Criminal Law Stricto Sensu

163

Lauri Mälksoo

The Treaties of Brest-Litovsk, Versailles and Moscow: Contesting Sovereignty and Hegemony in Eastern Europe in 1918–1939

189

Jochen von Bernstorff

From Versailles to the Kellog-Briand Pact: Prohibiting and Justifying Aggression in the Interbellum

211

Markus P. Beham

A Forgotten Lighthouse of International Law: Heinrich Lammasch and the League of Nations

245

Magnan Johannes Mohr

Between Pacifism and Patriotism: Walther Schücking (1875–1935)

275

Walther Schücking Lecture

Alan Boyle

Progressive Development of International Environmental Law: Legislate or Litigate?

305

General Articles

James Gerard Devaney

Reapprasing the Role of Experts in Recent Cases Before the International Court of Justice

337

Nikolay Marin & Bilyana Manova

The Constraints of International Courts as a Tool for Resolving the Ukrainian-Russian Conflicts

371

Ulf Linderfalk

The Exercise of Discretion in International Law – Why Constraining Criteria Have a Proper Place in the Analysis of Legal Decision-Making

407

Bjørn Kunoy

Sharing is Caring: Transboundary Hydrocarbon Deposits on the Continental Shelf

431

Julian Scheu & Petyo Nikolov

The Incompatibility of Intra-EU Investment Treaty Arbitration With European Union Law – Assessing the Scope of the ECJ’s Achmea Judgment

475

Ilya Berlin

Western Sahara, Morocco, and the EU: Did the CJEU Get it Wrong? A Commentary of Advocate-General Wathelet’s Opinion and the CJEU Decision in the Western Sahara Campaign UK Case

505

German Practice

Alexander Grimmig

The German Constitutional Court’s Pronouncement on Self-Defence Against Non-State Actors in Syria

539

Leander Beinlich

Drones, Discretion, and the Duty to Protect the Right to Life: Germany and its Role in the United State’s Drone Programme Before the Higher Administrative Court of Münster

557

Liv Christiansen & Lilo Rösch

German Practice Concerning the Implementation of the 2015 Paris Agreement

581

Alexandra Lily Kather & Britta Redwood

Universal Jurisdiction in Germany: Framework and Practice Insights

599

Outstanding Theses

Andreas von Arnauld, Kerstin von der Decken & Nele Matz Lück

Editor’s Note

615

Laura Hering

The Consequences of Errors in the European Union’s Direct Administrative Proceedings: A Comparative Analysis of ‘Rectification’ and ‘Irrelevance’

617

Isabella Risini

The Inter-State Application Under the European Convention on Human Rights

621

Cornelia Kirchbach

The Right to Health Regulation in Investment Arbitration as Illustrated by the Example of Philip Morris v. Uruguay

625

Martin Jarret

Contributory Fault and Investor Misconduct in Investment Arbitration

629

José Guilherme Moreno Caiado

Commitments and Flexibilities in the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures: An Economically Informed Analysis

633

Sebastián Mantilla Blanco

Full Protection and Security in International Investment Law

635

Kevin Grimmeiß

Sezession und Reaktion. Zur völkerrechtlichen Regelung des Sezessionsvorgangs

639

Moritz von Rochow

Transnational Nomads in International Law – Borders and the Migration of Peoples

643

Book Reviews

W. A. Schabas: The Trial of the Kaiser (REIJNTJES)649
Harold Hongju Koh: The Trump Administration and International Law (SLOSS)651
Gina Heathcote: Feminist Dialogues on International Law: Success, Tensions, Futures
(O’DONOGHUE)
656
Steven Wheatley: The Idea of International Human Rights Law (CHINEN)658
Marco Longobardo: The Use of Force in Occupied Territory (BOTHE)660
Shavana Musa: Victim Reparation Under the Ius Post Bellum: An Historical and
Normative Perspective (IVERSON)
663
Russell Buchan: Cyber Espionage and International Law (DELERUE)664
Alejandro Rodiles: Coalitions of the Willing and International Law: The Interplay
Between Formality and Informality (TONDINI)
667
Cindy Wittke: Law in the Twilight: International Courts and Tribunals, the Security
Council and the Internationalisation of Peace Agreements Between State and Non-
State Parties (ZULUETA-FÜLSCHER)
669
P. Chandrasekhara Rao and Philippe Gautier: The International Tribunal for the Law of
the Sea: Law, Practice and Procedure (SCHATZ)
672
Lloyd Freeburn: Regulating International Sport. Power, Authority and Legitimacy
(TAMS)