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)

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) 

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) 

ADVANCE ARTICLE: Dzavid DZANIC, ''France's Informal Empire in the Mediterranean, 1815–1830" (Historical Journal)

(image source: CUP)

Abstract: 

Recent works on France's informal projection of power have begun remapping French imperialism during the nineteenth century. More studies in this vein could broaden our understanding of informal empire as an analytical category by decentring it from its roots in British imperial studies. This article argues that between 1815 and 1830, French diplomats remoulded the Regency of Tunisia into an informal imperial periphery. Although they lacked the military and economic leverage of their British counterparts, French consuls coerced the Tunisian rulers into submission by wielding threats and treaties. This strategy unfolded in three stages. First, the consuls used rumours of a possible invasion in order to impose a new vision of international law and dismantle the corsair system in the Regency. Second, they claimed French territorial sovereignty over a part of the Tunisian coast by appealing to the international legal norms enshrined in the existing treaties. And, third, the Tunisian ruler accepted most consular demands following the French invasion of Algeria in 1830. Tunisia's entrance into the French imperial orbit in turn led French diplomats to seek the establishment of French economic ascendency in Tunisia during the early 1830s.

(DOI 10.1017/S0018246X21000340) 

BOOK: Glenda SLUGA, The Invention of International Order: Remaking Europe After Napoleon (Princeton: Princeton UP, NOV 2021), 336 p. ISBN 978-0691208213, € 30,82

 

(image source: amazon)

Abstract:

In 1814, after decades of continental conflict, an alliance of European empires captured Paris and exiled Napoleon Bonaparte, defeating French military expansionism and establishing the Concert of Europe. This new coalition planted the seeds for today's international order, wedding the idea of a durable peace to multilateralism, diplomacy, philanthropy, and rights, and making Europe its center. Glenda Sluga reveals how at the end of the Napoleonic wars, new conceptions of the politics between states were the work not only of European statesmen but also of politically ambitious aristocratic and bourgeois men and women who seized the moment at an extraordinary crossroads in history. In this panoramic book, Sluga reinvents the study of international politics, its limitations, and its potential. She offers multifaceted portraits of the leading statesmen of the age, such as Tsar Alexander, Count Metternich, and Viscount Castlereagh, showing how they operated in the context of social networks often presided over by influential women, even as they entrenched politics as a masculine endeavor. In this history, figures such as Madame de Staël and Countess Dorothea Lieven insist on shaping the political transformations underway, while bankers influence economic developments and their families agitate for Jewish rights. Monumental in scope, this groundbreaking book chronicles the European women and men who embraced the promise of a new kind of politics in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars, and whose often paradoxical contributions to modern diplomacy and international politics still resonate today.

On the author:

Glenda Sluga is professor of international history and capitalism at the European University Institute, Florence, and Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Fellow and professor of international history at the University of Sydney. Her books include Internationalism in the Age of Nationalism and Women, Diplomacy, and International Politics since 1500. Twitter @IntHist 

(source: amazon) 

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 Halpérin, La 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 Ford, Rage 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 international. De 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. XIX^e-XX^e 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 Nina, Die 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)

ONLINE LECTURE: Prof. dr. Miroslav Šedivý (Univ. of Pardubice), 'The public response to international insecurity 1830–1848: The Europeans between the written law (Recht) and the law of the mightiest (Faustrecht)' (1 OCT 2020; 17:00)

Standen & Landen/Anciens Pays et Assemblées d'États Lecture: 
Prof. dr. Miroslav Šedivý (Univ. of Pardubice)

The public response to international insecurity 1830–1848: The Europeans between the written law (Recht) and the law of the strongest (Faustrecht) 

(image source: Standen&Landen)

Abstract:

The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a generally well-known attempt to ensure security and peace within the so-called family of European countries and nations. This goal was to be achieved by clearly defined legal engagements and a mutual willingness to settle international disputes in a peaceful way. A quarter century later, however, a considerable number of Europeans felt that the heritage of the congress was being eroded and that the world was becoming increasingly insecure.

This conviction was primarily caused by the abuse of power by the most powerful states at the expense of weaker ones in Europe as well as the former’s imperialist policies in overseas regions. The most influential in this respect was the great powers’ competition in the Near East which had significant negative repercussions on the relations among the great powers themselves and on the general peace in Europe, such as happened in late 1840 during the so-called Rhine Crisis when a military conflict in the Ottoman Empire provoked a general war scare on the Continent. What was symptomatic for the Rhine Crisis was the increasing mistrust in the great powers’ policies and in the stability of the whole structure of the post-Napoleonic states system: a growing number of Europeans no longer had faith in the functionality of this system and generally became convinced that the security of their own countries and other nations in the world where the rule of force (Faustrecht) dominated was to be best preserved by material strength. That is why this widespread reaction to the law-breaking in international affairs, resulting in international insecurity, was one of the important points in various political/national programmes and stimulated the pursuit of national unifications, well defensible frontiers, land and naval armaments and colonial adventures.

At the same moment, however, a great number of Europeans did not abandon the belief that the security of their homeland also depended on the quality of the whole European states system, which made a considerable number advocate a more normative approach: new international law was to be introduced to ensure the equality as well as more justice and peace in relations among all states. This request was popular not only among the adherents of the peace movement being on rise in the 1840s but also in the nationalist camps across the Continent; both groups proposed the reconstruction of the international order by introducing new principles of international law, being a real law of (free) nations, and the creation of a pan-European organisation in the form of either a monarchical confederation or a congress of nations. The paper’s principal goal is to introduce this at the first sight contradictory debate about law and power in international relations before the mid 19th century and explain not only its causes but also the reason of the failure to establish a new better international political-legal order in Europe.

Reservation:

RSVP with standenenlanden@gmail.com. The lecture is scheduled for 1 October 2020 at 17:00 CET.

(source: Standen & Landen/Anciens Pays & Assemblées d'États)

BOOK: Beatrice DE GRAAF, Fighting Terror after Napoleon How Europe Became Secure after 1815 (Cambridge: CUP, 2020), ISBN 9781108842068, 29,99 GBP

 

(image source: CUP)

Abstract:

After twenty-six years of unprecedented revolutionary upheavals and endless fighting, the victorious powers craved stability after Napoleon's defeat in 1815. With the threat of war and revolutionary terror still looming large, the coalition launched an unprecedented experiment to re-establish European security. With over one million troops remaining in France, they established the Allied Council to mitigate the threat of war and terror and to design and consolidate a system of deterrence. The Council transformed the norm of interstate relations into the first, modern system of collective security in Europe. Drawing on the records of the Council and the correspondence of key figures such as Metternich, Castlereagh, Wellington and Alexander I, Beatrice de Graaf tells the story of Europe's transition from concluding a war to consolidating a new order. She reveals how, long before commercial interest and economic considerations on scale and productivity dictated and inspired the project of European integration, the common denominator behind this first impulse for a unification of Europe in norms and institutions was the collective fight against terror.

On the author:

Beatrice de Graaf is Distinguished Professor and holds the Chair of History of International Relations at Utrecht University. She was awarded the Stevin Prize in 2018, the highest distinction in Dutch academia. Tegen de Terreur, the Dutch version of this book, was shortlisted for the Libris Prize.

(source: CUP) 

BOOK: Raphaël CAHEN & Nicolas LAURENT-BONNE (dir), Joseph-Marie Portalis. Diplomate, magistrat et législateur (Aix-en-Provence: PUAM, 2020), 244 p. ISBN 9782731411744, € 23

 

(image source: PUAM)

Abstract:

Fils du célèbre Portalis corédacteur du projet de code civil, Joseph-Marie est un personnage historique de premier rang : homme aux huit serments politiques à l’image d’un Talleyrand ou d’un Fouché, Portalis a traversé les bouleversements sociaux, économiques, technologiques, politiques et juridiques de la France et de l’Europe, de la fin de la Révolution au Second Empire. Ancien émigré, diplomate, conseiller d’État, pair de France, académicien, publiciste, ministre des Cultes par intérim, de la Justice, des Affaires étrangères, premier président de la Cour de cassation pendant plus de vingt ans et même sénateur au début du Second Empire, Portalis « fils » a laissé à la postérité une œuvre importante qui n’a pas suscité, jusqu’à présent, l’intérêt des historiens et des juristes à de rares exceptions près. Par le biais de sources inédites mais également des œuvres publiées et rarement étudiées de Joseph-Marie Portalis, ce livre entend proposer un aperçu de la vie et de l’œuvre de ce personnage.

Table of contents:

Avant-propos (Raphaël Cahen & Nicolas Laurent-Bonne)  
D’un Portalis à l’autre : la constance d’une lignée (Joël-Benoît d'Onorio)
4 janvier 1811, Portalis est chassé du Conseil d’État (Thierry Lentz)

Première partie: Portalis, haut magistrat

Joseph-Marie Portalis, premier président de la Cour de cassation (Xavier Prétot)
Joseph-Marie Portalis à la Chambre criminelle : les audaces d’une présidence (1824-1829) (Claire Bouglé-Le Roux)

Deuxième partie: Portalis, penseur et législateur

Joseph-Marie Portalis et le « milliard » des émigrés (Marion Narran-Finkelstein)
Joseph-Marie Portalis, législateur et théoricien de la science des lois (Sylvain Bloquet)
« Les limites des deux mondes », Portalis et l’historien (François Jankowiak)

Troisième partie: Portalis, diplomate et penseur des relations internationales

Avant-propos (Martine de Boisdeffre)
Joseph-Marie Portalis – penseur et acteur de la diplomatie napoléonienne (Raphaël Cahen)
Reconstruire le centre par la périphérie : le ministère Portalis et la guerre russo-ottomane de 1828-1829 (Gabriel Leanca)
Portalis le jeune et le droit des gens (Frederik Dhondt)

Quatrième partie: Portalis et les cultes

Portalis accompagne l’échec du Concordat de 1817 (Brigitte Basdevant-Gaudemet; Dominique Rodde)
Portalis et sa mission à Rome pour les affaires concordataires (Audrey Virot)
Les discours de Portalis à la chambre des pairs en matière religieuse (Cyrille Dounot)

More information with the publisher. 

 

BOOK: Nicolas BOURGUINAT & Gilles VOGT, La guerre franco-allemande de 1870. Une histoire globale [Champs Histoire] (Paris: Flammarion, 2020), 528 p. ISBN 9782081510555, € 15

 

(image source: Flammarion)

Abstract:

La guerre de 1870 est méconnue. Un affrontement localisé, mené sur le seul territoire français par deux puissances rivales ; une Prusse dirigée d’une main de fer par l’habile chancelier Bismarck, qui met à genoux une France affaiblie par les errements d’un Second Empire en déclin et d’une République encore mal assurée ; la perte traumatique de l’Alsace-Lorraine sous les yeux indifférents d’une Europe muette : tels sont les traits qu’en a retenus notre mémoire nationale. Dans cette synthèse issue de travaux de première main, Nicolas Bourguinat et Gilles Vogt la peignent sous un nouveau visage. Mettant en lumière ses multiples résonances internationales, dans les chancelleries et les opinions publiques, ils montrent que l’affrontement de 1870 fut non seulement une étape clé de la question nationale mais aussi une date majeure pour le droit des conflits armés et les initiatives humanitaires face aux guerres. Faisant la part belle aux sources du for privé, ils font entendre les voix des individus qui l’ont vécu, soldats, assiégés, francs-tireurs ou simples civils éloignés des combats, pour éclairer d’un jour nouveau ce conflit déterminant dans l’histoire contemporaine.

(source: Flammarion) 

BOOK: Inge VAN HULLE & Randall LESAFFER (eds.), International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century (1776-1914). From the Public Law of Europe to Global International Law ? [Legal History Library, 28; Studies in the History of International Law, 11] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2019), 242 p. ISBN 9789004412088, € 99

(image source: Brill)

Book description:

International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century gathers ten studies that reflect the ever-growing variety of themes and approaches that scholars from different disciplines bring to the historiography of international law in the period. Three themes are explored: ‘international law and revolutions’ which reappraises the revolutionary period as crucial to understanding the dynamics of international order and law in the nineteenth century. In ‘law and empire’, the traditional subject of nineteenth-century imperialism is tackled from the perspective of both theory and practice. Finally, ‘the rise of modern international law’, covers less familiar aspects of the formation of modern international law as a self-standing discipline.

On the contibutors:

Contributors are: Camilla Boisen, Raphaël Cahen, James Crawford, Ana Delic, Frederik Dhondt, Andrew Fitzmaurice, Vincent Genin, Viktorija Jakjimovska, Stefan Kroll, Randall Lesaffer, and Inge Van Hulle.

DOI 10.1163/9789004412088.

(see earlier on this blog)

BOOK: Miroslav ŠEDÍVY, The Decline of the Congress System: Metternich, Italy and European Diplomacy (London/New York: I.B. Tauris, 2018), X + 351 p. ISBN 9781784538521

(image source: Bloomsbury)

Book abstract:

Following the Congress of Vienna in 1815 the 'Congress System' became the primary instrument of diplomacy in Europe. So central was the Austrian Chancellor Metternich to the political-legal Congress System that the period has often been referred to as the 'Age of Metternich'. In this book, Mirolsav Šedivý analyses Metternich's policy towards the pre-united Italian states from 1830 to 1848. With an emphasis on geopolitics and international law and drawing attention to the unsettled role of the Italian states within European diplomacy in the period, this book explains why the Italian peninsula never developed into the stable region that Metternich hoped to establish at the heart of the Congress System. Owing to the self-interested policies of some European Powers as well as the larger of the Italian states Metternich proved unable to bring about 'the transformation of European politics' in Italy. Using a thorough analysis of the role that Italy played in the Congress System and based on extensive research in eighteen European archives, this book explains why it was in Italy that the first war broke out after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, an event representing the first brutal blow to the Congress System.

Table of contents:

List of Illustrations;List of Abbreviations;Introduction;Part I: 1815–30;1. The Heritage of the Congress of Vienna;Part II: 1830–3;2. The Impact of the July Revolution;3. The Occupation of Ancona;4. The Non-Intervention Principle and Honour;Part III: 1840;5. The Sulphur War;6. The Rhine Crisis;7. The Weak Hegemony;Part IV: 1846–8;8. The Salt-Wine Affair;9. The Ferrara Affair;10. The War;Conclusion;Notes;Bibliography;Index 

Praise:

“This book is a readable, traditional diplomatic history in which scholars will learn something new about events both well and less known. Summing Up: Highly recommended.” –  G.R. Sharfman, Oglethorpe University, CHOICE;“'Miroslav Šedivý has convincingly demonstrated that he is an expert on European diplomacy and has skilfully and persuasively demonstrated his revisionist case that Metternich's Congress System was in decline as a result of self-seeking policies of Britain, France and the Italian city-states. I can hardly say enough in praise of the author's extensive multi-lingual research.'
” –  Robert D. Billinger, Jr, Emeritus Professor of History, Wingate University;“'A masterpiece on the subject of the search for greater security in a precarious world. Anyone interested in international politics in the period between the Congress of Vienna and World War I must read this critical revision of the mainstream view of history.'” –  Wolfram Siemann, Emeritus Professor of Modern and Contemporary History, Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich;“This tour-de-force will become required reading for all students of nineteenth-century Europe.” –  Mark Jarrett, author of The Congress of Vienna and its Legacy;

(source: Bloomsbury)

BOOK: Reider PAYNE, War and Diplomacy in the Napoleonic Era. Sir Charles Stewart, Castlereagh and the Balance of Power in Europe [International Library of Historical Studies] (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 11 July 2019), 288 p. ISBN 9781788315128, 81 GBP

(image source: Bloomsbury)

Bloomsbury announces a new book on "War and Diplomacy in the Napoleonic Era", devoted to Sir Charles Stewart, Castlereagh and the Balance of Power in Europe.

(Source: Bloomsbury)

CONFERENCE: Bicentenary of the 1820 Revolution (Lisbon, 12-14 October 2020); DEADLINE 30 JUN 2019

(image "The General and Extraordinary Cortes of the Portuguese Nation that approved the first Portuguese Constitution" source: Wikimedia Commons)

Argument

The 1820 Revolution was the founding event of liberalism in Portugal and Brazil. It was part of a broader movement that spread across Southern Europe and the two Latin American empires of the Atlantic region. In all cases, the epicentre consisted of political constitutions, inspired by the Spanish model of the 1812 Cadiz Constitution. The Nation, understood as a new political pillar of the constituent power of parliament, lay at the foundations of the broad concept of national sovereignty that characterised the first Portuguese Constitution of 1822. National independence was an aim that was inscribed in the goals of the 1820 revolution, as was also the case in other southern countries. The parallel outbreak of the movement for independence in the colonies of Latin America resulted in conflicts that would subsequently reveal the imperialist nature of Iberian liberalism.The liberal movement in Southern Europe was counter-cyclical in relation to the political situation of Central and Northern Europe, namely France and England, which were now incorporated into the Holy Alliance, formed to guarantee the political stability of Europe after Napoleon. It was against this unfavourable international background that the complex process of the independence of the South American colonies first began to unfurl. The programme of this Congress seeks to reflect upon this geopolitical perspective of the revolutionary movement.One of the characteristics of the revolutionary movement was its formal prudence. Frequently, the word “regeneration” was preferred to the term “revolution”, since it suggested moderation. The spectre of the violence of the French Revolution hung over both sides, those who wished for a change and those who defended the conservation of the status quo. The desire for moderation and the fear of unleashing conflicts were visible features of all the activity of the Cortes of 1821-22. However, the mere proclamation of the Basis of the Constitution and the rights of citizenship represented a profound shock to the existing society. The very concept of citizenship was revolutionary in itself and represented a major innovation in the relationship between the individual and the State, calling into question the corporative society of orders. A constitution defining the newly-established powers also represented a rupture with the pre-existing concept of royal power. This was how its enemies immediately understood things. Revolution and counter-revolution were the two different faces of this time, within which the thematic axes that form the structure for the programme of this Congress are also to be found intertwined.Different generations of essayists and historians have turned their attention to the 1820 Revolution. Despite the considerable bibliography already existing about this event and its time, the commemoration of the bicentenary represents a challenge for reviewing the subject in the light of present-day historiography, as well as providing a stimulus for the presentation of new approaches and new perspectives of analysis. Accordingly, we now present the academic community with the programme for the Congress, setting out the thematic panels that seem to us to be the most relevant. In each case, the presentation of the themes is the responsibility of the coordinators who were invited to organise the respective sessions.

Submission guidelines
by 30 June 2019.

Those interested in submitting a proposal for a paper to be presented at the International Congress of the Bicentenary of the 1820 Revolution must complete the form available HERE and send it to the Congress secretariat cbr1820@gmail.comThe proposals must indicate the thematic panel under which the paper is to be presented. The description of the thematic panels is available HERE.Each applicant may present only one proposal for a paper.All decisions relating to the acceptance of papers will be taken by the coordinators of the thematic panels, and applicants will be informed of the respective decision by 31 October 2019.The authors of accepted papers must deliver the text of their papers (in accordance with rules to be established in due course) by 31 May 2020.The final programme for the Congress will be established once the texts of the approved papers have been received.Languages for the Congress: Portuguese, Spanish and English.Informations: cbr1820@gmail.com

Organising Committee

• Miriam Halpern Pereira (ISCTE-IUL), Presidente;

• Jorge Fernandes Alves (UPorto/FL);

• Ana Cristina Araújo (UCoimbra/FL);

• José Luís Cardoso (ULisboa/ICS);

• Zília Osório de Castro (NOVA FCSH);

• Maria Alexandre Lousada (ULisboa/FL);

• Luís Espinha da Silveira (NOVA FCSH)

Scientific Committee

• José Viriato Capela (UMinho);

• Fátima Sá e Melo Ferreira (ISCTE-IUL);

• Sérgio Campos Matos (ULisboa/FL);

• Maria Fátima Nunes (UÉvora);

• José Miguel Sardica (UCP/FCH);

• Cristina Nogueira da Silva (UNL/FD);

• Maria Beatriz Nizza da Silva (USP);

• Susana Serpa Silva (UAçores);

• Luís Reis Torgal (UCoimbra/FL);

• Isabel Vargues (UCoimbra/FL);

• Telmo Verdelho (UAveiro)

(source: Calenda)