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: Christopher R. ROSSI, Whiggish International Law. Elihu Root, the Monroe Doctrine, and International Law in the Americas [Legal History Library, 29/Studies in the History of International Law, 12] (Leiden/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2019), ISBN 97899004379510 (DUE 29 MAY 2019)

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

International law’s turn to history in the Americas receives invigorated refreshment with Christopher Rossi’s adaptation of the insightful and inter-disciplinary teachings of the English School and Cambridge contextualists to problems of hemispheric methodology and historiography. Rossi sheds new light on abridgments of history and the propensity to construct and legitimize whiggish understandings of international law based on simplified tropes of liberal and postcolonial treatments of the Monroe Doctrine. Central to his story is the retelling of the Monroe Doctrine by its supreme early twentieth century interlocutor, Elihu Root and other like-minded internationalists. Rossi’s revival of whiggish international law cautions against the contemporary tendency to re-read history with both eyes cast on the ideological present as a justification for misperceived historical sequencing.

On the author:

Christopher R. Rossi teaches international law at the University of Iowa College of Law. He is the author of Equity and International Law (Transnational), Broken Chain of Being: James Brown Scott and the Origins of Modern International Law (Kluwer), and Sovereignty and Territorial Temptation (Cambridge).

(more information with Brill)

ESIL ANNUAL CONFERENCE MANCHESTER - PRE CONFERENCE EVENT : Non-European experiences with the law of nations in comparative perspective (Manchester, 13 Sep 2018)

(image source: Travelodge)

The path from the European law of nations to a universal system of international law has attracted wide scholarly attention in the past decade. A variety of approaches have challenged the narrative of a European system that simply expands and covers most of the planet in the late 19th century. For example, scholars identifying with the TWAIL movement (Third world approaches to international law) have criticized modern international law as a product of western imperialism and colonialism. Building from this critique, other scholars have begun to ask how non-European conceptions and influences shaped and re-formed the European law of nations on its path towards becoming a global system. How can we read non-European jurists, lawyers, state leaders and peoples as producers, not just consumers, of international law?

Politicians, lawyers and activists from non-European countries are now seen as more than mere vessels through which the tradition of the European law of nations was stamped into new contexts. Rather, scholars now explore the impact of local elites in shaping the way international law was received into their regions. But to what extent were they successful in shaping international law as a whole? We need a stronger analytical framework to explore the broader picture and a more precise understanding of how each region’s or nation’s encounter with international law shaped both their own experience and aspects of the international system. 

After a double blind peer review-process, the ESIL Interest Group History of International Law selected the following papers:

Prof. dr. Aiko Nakai (Kyoto University, Kyoto): Latin American International Law as the First Regional International Law: The First Step of Irreversible Relativisation of European International Law
dra. Lys Kulamadayil (Graduate Institute, Geneva): Fairy-Tale International Law

Dr. Oleksandr Vodyannikov (OSCE): Forgotten Europe’s Borderland: the Rise and Fall of Indigenous System of ius gentium intermariae (X – XVII centuries) and postcolonial histories of Eastern Europe

The Steering Committee warmly invites all members and conference attendants to join us for the discussion.

Steering Committee
Jan Lemnitzer (president) (University of Southern Denmark)
Markus Beham (Vienna/Passau)
Martin Clark (LSE)
Frederik Dhondt (VUB/UAntwerpen)
Hossein Piran (Iran/US Claims Tribunal)

 More information (including registration) on the ESIL Conference's main page.

BOOK: Sam ERMAN, Almost Citizens: Puerto Rico, the U.S. Constitution, and Empire [Studies in Legal History] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018). ISBN 9781108415491, £ 39.99

(Source: Cambridge University Press)

Via the American Society for Legal History, we learned of a new forthcoming book (November 2018) in their “Studies in Legal History” series. The book deals with the US annexation of Puerto Rico in 1898 and the imperial governance issues this created. The book can be pre-ordered here

ABOUT THE BOOK

Almost Citizens lays out the tragic story of how the United States denied Puerto Ricans full citizenship following annexation of the island in 1898. As America became an overseas empire, a handful of remarkable Puerto Ricans debated with US legislators, presidents, judges, and others over who was a citizen and what citizenship meant. This struggle caused a fundamental shift in constitution law: away from the post-Civil War regime of citizenship, rights, and statehood and toward doctrines that accommodated racist imperial governance. Erman's gripping account shows how, in the wake of the Spanish-American War, administrators, lawmakers, and presidents together with judges deployed creativity and ambiguity to transform constitutional meaning for a quarter of a century. The result is a history in which the United States and Latin America, Reconstruction and empire, and law and bureaucracy intertwine.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sam Erman, University of Southern California

Sam Erman is Associate Professor at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1. 1898: 'The constitutional lion in the path'

2. The Constitution and the new US expansion: debating the status of the Islands

3. 'We are naturally Americans': Federico Degetau and Santiago Iglesias pursue citizenship

4. 'American aliens': Isabel Gonzalez, Domingo Collazo, Federico Degetau, and the Supreme Court, 1902–1905

5. Reconstructing Puerto Rico, 1904–1909

6. The Jones Act and the long path to collective naturalization

Conclusion.

More information here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

CONFERENCE: Latin America and International Law (Hamburg, 8-9 Feb 2018)

(image source: Wikipedia)

The University of Hamburg (Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholy Graduate School of Law) hosts a conference on Latin America and International Law, announced earlier on this blog.

The program is now available:

Friday February 8

11:30-12:00 Registration
12:15-12:30: Welcome Address
12:30-13:15: Keynote 1: José Manuel Barreto Soler (Catholic University of Colombia)

13:30-15:00: First Panel Session
Panel 1: Colonialism and International Law in the Americas
Alexis Alvarez-Nagakawa: "The Conquest of the (New) World as Picture: Images of the Colo- nial Origins of International Law"
Nikitas Hatzimihail: "The Buffalo in the Room: The Americas in Early Classical Private International Law"
Yolanda Gamarra: "Material and Discursive Reconfiguration of ‘Spanish America’ in International Law"
Panel 2: Latin America and International Law 1
Walter Arévalo, Ricardo Abello-Galvis (Universidad of the Rosario), "The Influence of the Latin American Doctrine on International Law: The Rise of Latin American Doctrines and Principles at The Hague Academy Courses during the Early 20th Century"
Andreas Timmermann (Hamburg): "Hipólito Yrigoyen (1850 – 1933): ‘Krausism’ and International Understanding"
Christopher R. Rossi (University of Iowa): "Burying the Undertaker: The Resilience of Standard of Civilization"

15:30-16:15 Keynote 2: Miloš Vec (University of Vienna)

16:30-18:00: Second Panel Session
Panel 3: Second Scholasticism and Latin America
Ahmed Raza Memon (University of Kent):  "Birth of Network Governance in Vitoria: Territorial Enclaves and the Holy Roman Church"
Michelle Alves Monteiro, Tatiana A.F.R. Cardoso Squeff (Rio Grande do Sul, Pontifica university & Federal University): "The „Paradise Destroyed“ by „the Just War“: A Dialogue between Bartolomé de las Casas and Francisco de Vitoria in the Concealment of Latin American Natives by European Colonizers"
Stefano Cattelan: "Iberian Mare Clausum policies in the Americas"

Panel 4: Latin America and International Law II
Tania Ixchel Atilano (Humboldt Universität Berlin): "The Crime of „Violations of the Duties to Humanity“ in the 1871 Mexican Criminal Code; an Example of Incorporating International Law in Mexico"
Rodrigo Géspedes (MPI for Social Anthropology): "On Wars and Revolutions: The Chilean Contribution to Modern International Law"
Ulrich Mücke (Hamburg): "International Law and the Abolition of Slavery in Nine- teenth-Century Brazil"

Friday February 9

09-09:45 Keynote 3: Liliana Obregón (University of the Andes)

10:00-11:30 Third Panel Session
Panel 5: Latin America and its Independence
Nicolás Carrillo-Santarelli (La Sabana University), "Doctrinal and Diplomatic Efforts of the Latin American Republics to Legitimise their Independence in the 19th Century"
Edward Martin (Hamburg): "Contextualising Haitian Indepen- dence"
Alexandra Téllez (Frankfurt): "Francisco de Miranda and his Contributions to International Law"

Panel 6: Arbitration and Investment Treaties
Henrique Lenon (Federal University of Paraiba, University Centre of João Pessoa), "The missing epitácio pessoa: A new historical approach to Latin American Resistance to Invest- ment Arbitration"
Javier García Olmedo (Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law), "International Investment Law and Latin America: Perpetuating Colonial Economic Relations th- rough Unequal Treaties"
Gustavo Preito (University of Verona), "Mixed Claims Commissions and International Law in Latin Ame- rica: Adjudicating ‚Investment‘ Disputes in the 19th and 20th Century"

11:30-12:00 Break

12:00-13:30 Fourth Panel Session
Panel 7: A Latin American Doctrine of International Law?
Samira Allioui (Strasbourg): "The Discussion on the Existence of an Independent Sphere of International Law: International Law in Latin America or Latin American International Law?"
Nina Keller-Kemmerer (Frankfurt): "The Mimicry of International Law: Andrés Bello‘s „Principios de derecho internacional"
Aiko Nakai (Kyoto): "To seek the Basis of Regional International Law: The Concep- tions of American International Law by 19th Century‘s Latin American Thinkers"

Panel 8: Adjudication
Alan Nissel (Dudley Lotus LLP, Wilshire Skyline): "The US Professionalization of International Arbitration in Latin America (1870 - 1900)"
Fabia Fernandes Veçoso (Melbourne): "Intervention, Sovereign Debt, and the Making of Spatial Order: Revisiting the 1902 - 1903 Venezuelan Blockade"
Jean Rodrigo Ribeiro de Pontes (State University of Rio de Janeiro): "Brazil and the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice"

13:30-14:00 Lunch Break

14:00-15:15 Keynote 4: Ingacio de la Rasilla del Moral (Brunel University London)

15:30-17:00 Fifth Panel Session
Panel 9: Latin American International Law and Natural Ressources
Lucas Lixinski, Mats Ingulstad (UNSW Sydney, Norwegian University of Science and Technology), "Displacing Beginnings and Undermining Revolutionary Achievements: The Making of Perma- nent Sovereignty over Natural Resources in the Americas"
Petra Gümplová (Max Weber Kolleg, University of Erfurt), "Right of Conquest and the Origin of Territorial Sovereignty over Natural Resources - The Case of the Spanish Empire"

Panel 10: Developments in International Law after 1945

Victor Ventura (University of Hamburg) "Latin American Territorialism in the Law of the Sea: A Disservice to the Ocean Rule of Law? The Brazilian State Practice"
Maria Victoria Cabrera (University Espiritu Santo Ecuador), "International Law on Indigenous Peoples: Latin America as a Leader - but with few Followers"
Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín (University of the Andes), "An Atmosphere of Genuine So- lidarity and Brotherhood: Development, Catholicism, and the Latin American Contribution to Social Rights"

More information with Matthias Packeiser (matthias.packeiser@uni-hamburg.de) or at the conference website.