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

  

(Source: Palgrave)

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

ABOUT THE BOOK

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

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

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

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

 

More info here

(source: ESCLH Blog)

LECTURE: Peter HOLQUIST: The Laws of War and Their Russian Origins (Berlin: The American Academy in Berlin, 13 FEB 2019)

 

The Laws of War and Their Russian Origins from American Academy in Berlin on Vimeo.

First paragraph:

Early-modern legal scholars, military commanders, and diplomats asserted the existence of customs and usages of war, distinguishing it from unbridled violence. But when did these “customs and usages” crystallize into the “laws of war”? Not until the second half of the nineteenth century, in fact, when scholars and statesmen sought to transform these norms into international law. In this talk, Peter Holquist discusses the first effort to codify the law of war, at the 1874 Brussels Conference, which met in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War. He focuses on the differences in how European states conceived of international law and the law of war, and explores why, of all the Great Powers, it was the Russian government that drove the codification process.

Watch the lecture here (or above). 

CALL FOR PAPERS: International Military Justice Forum: Military justice as it is, as it was, as it was compared and as it could be (Paris: Cour de Cassation, 18-19 NOV 2021) (DEADLINE: 15 APR 2021)

International Military Justice Forum

Military justice as it is, as it was, as it was compared and as it could be.

Paris, Cour de Cassation, November 18 and 19, 2021

Argument. The International Military Justice Forum (IMJF) is a place of debate, meeting and exchange that proposes to explore a variety of military justice issues. Its first objective is to highlight the diversity of military justice systems, to expose their salient features, to explore their history and to underline their actual evolution. In a comparative way, the IMJF also aims to emphasize links and similarities that may have existed - or still exist - between national military laws, which may be consequences of circulations of legal models, codes, doctrines and people or the existence geopolitical influences. This scientific event must finally allow us to imagine together what the future of military law could be, as our armed forces are transformed by new technologies. Its originality is to mix disciplines. History, law, ethics, philosophy and new technologies will be at the heart of our debates and discussions. The IMJF, which is a continuation of the work carried out by lawyers at the Research Centre of the French Military Academy Saint-Cyr Coëtquidan (CREC) from 2010, was created to bring together academics, professionals, armed forces officers, engineers and all those who share an interest for this exciting discipline. The CREC, in collaboration with the Parquet Général of the French Cour de Cassation, will host the first edition of the International Military Justice Forum in Paris on November 18 and 19, 2021.

Objectives: • To highlight contemporary military justice systems and to compare them (Military Justice as it is). This first part should be used to deepen knowledge on military justice systems that exist in the world and to identify points of comparison. Many issues are to be considered: What are the legal foundations of military justice? What is military courts’ jurisdiction? How are courts organized? How are they hierarchized? How do they work? Are they special and different from the civilian courts? Are they civilian specialized courts? Or are they organized in a mixed way? Who is the judge? What is the procedure? What are the offences? What are the penalties? What is the officer's role in military justice? All these questions could also be used to provide a critical look at a national military justice system, in terms of structure or training: how to improve military justice? • To recount the history of military justice in the world (Military Justice as it was).

This second part aims to highlight the main historical developments of military justice, from Antiquity to the contemporary period: 1/ The evolution of the sources of military justice: Military justice systems are known to have been largely built by major legislations. As, among others, the first Articles of War in England (1385), the Mandement de Montdidier (1347) and legislations of 1796 in France or the Swedish code of 1621. At the origins of these founding texts, famous legislators have left their mark on the history of military justice. However, the latter has also developed in practice, thanks to courts decisions and to political debates. In other words, what have been sources of military justice? Who are those who contributed to its history? 2/ The institutional aspect: Gradually, military justice has been structured and institutionalized, before being integrated into State administration. How has military justice been transformed in the context of the construction of states and the establishment of permanent and professional armies? This question implies others: how did new bodies of specialized lawyers appear? Broadly speaking, what have been the major structural and institutional transformations of military justice? 3/ The theoretical foundations of military justice: Christianity, Humanism or Enlightenment, for example, may have influenced development and evolution of military justice (Belli, Ayala, Grotius, Vettel, etc.). The French revolutionaries were also not insensitive to the fate of the soldier before a court. Who are the main authors and intellectuals who used their pen to call for reform? What were their arguments? Have they been influential? 4 / Military justice in its military context: Establishing a modern system of military justice is one thing. Being able to make it work properly is another. Has military justice always been effective in times of war and especially in times of debacle or defeat? 5/ Military justice in practice: The history of military justice is also that of trials and cases. Some are famous, others have been forgotten. Some have made military justice grow, others have turned public opinion against it. What are great military affairs in history? Which less well-known ones deserve to be known better?  

The circulation of military justice models in the world (Military Justice as it was compared) Comparative studies can answer two sets of questions. 1/ Why compare national military law? It seems that many authors, lawyer or not, military or not, have compared in the past and still compare military national laws or military justice systems today. And there is a variety of reasons: criticizing a system, promoting or rejecting reform, categorizing or classifying laws or procedures, or simply exposing diversity. It also seems that several national military laws have been models used to build other national legal systems. The aim is to look at the circulation of military law models around the world, and to expose methods and motives of legal comparison. 2/ Are there "families" of military law? French comparatist René David identified several "families" of legal systems in the world (Common Law, Civil Law, Religious Law, etc.)? But could it be possible to identify families of military laws? In other words, have colonization, international treaties of all kinds (e.g. NATO), intergovernmental organizations (Ex: Commonwealth), political unions (Ex: USSR), political and economic associations (Ex: EU) or simply interstate cultural or diplomatic bounds, contributed to the emergence of "families" of military justice systems, whose members share common features and similarities?  

Imagine tomorrow’s military law and military justice (Military Justice as it it could be). Battlefield robotization, augmented soldier, artificial intelligence; technological developments present and to come and their use by armed forces will necessarily be controlled and regulated by law. Stakes are numerous: responsibility, consent, courts’ jurisdiction, etc. Which future for military law and military justice?

Papers will be given in English or in French (interpreters will translate from English to French and from French to English). Organization committee: Stéphane Baudens (CREC Saint-Cyr) Eric Gherardi (CREC Saint-Cyr) Gwenaël Guyon (CREC Saint-Cyr) Gérard de Boisboissel (CREC Saint-Cyr) Proposals for communication (400 words maximum), should be sent to the forum’s organizers, specifying in which section papers would be included: militaryjusticeforum@gmail.com The deadline to submit a proposal is April 15, 2021.

(source: ESCLH Blog)

BOOK: Alexander GILLESPIE, The Causes of War. Vol. IV: 1650-1800 (Oxford: Hart, 2021), 504 p. ISBN 9781509912179, 108 GBP

(image source: Hart)

Book abstract:

This is the fourth volume of a projected six-volume series charting the causes of war from 3000 BCE to the present day, written by a leading international lawyer, and using as its principal materials the documentary history of international law, largely in the form of treaties and the negotiations which led up to them. These volumes seek to show why millions of people, over thousands of years, slew each other. In departing from the various theories put forward by historians, anthropologists and psychologists, the author offers a different taxonomy of the causes of war, focusing on the broader settings of politics, religion, migrations and empire-building. These four contexts were dominant and often overlapping justifications during the first four thousand years of human civilisation, for which written records exist.

 Table of contents:

I . Introduction 

1. The Conversation on Sunday Afternoon
2. Utopia
3. Facts
4. Casus Belli in Practice
5. Volumes One to Three
6. Volume Four
II. The Glorious Revolution
1. Introduction
2. Republics
3. The First War between the Dutch and English Republics
4. Allies with France, War with Spain
5. The Restoration
6. Alliance with Portugal and Further War with Spain
7. A Second War with the Dutch, and then the French
8. Alliance with France, Further War against the Dutch, and Another Peace
9. War and Peace with English and the Indigenous Communities in the Colonies
10. The Causes of the Revolution in England
11. The Invasion of England
12. The Glorious Revolution
13. John Locke
14. Constitutional Monarchy Entrenched
15. Liberty
16. Conclusion
III. The Wars of Louis XIV
1. Introduction
2. The Ongoing Conflict with Spain
3. The War of Spanish Inheritance
4. The War of France and England against the Dutch Republic
5. The Reunion Wars
6. The Nine Years War
7. The War of Spanish Succession
8. Conclusion
IV. The Interregnum
1. Introduction
2. Succession and Dynastic Considerations
3. The War of the Quadruple Alliance
4. The 1720s
5. Skirting a Major Conflict in the 1730s
6. Conclusion
V. The War of Austrian Succession
1. Introduction
2. The Prize
3. Frederick II
4. The Opportunities for Others of the Habsburg Inheritance
5. Splintering the Opposition and Building New Alliances
6. The Slide Towards World War
7. Coming to the Boil
8. Full Boil
9. Bonnie Prince Charlie
10. Expansion and Exhaustion
11. The Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle
12. Conclusion
VI. The Seven Years War
1. Introduction
2. The New Plan
3. Trouble in the Colonies
4. Austria Backs Away from its Alliance with Britain
5. Britain Makes a Deal with Russia
6. The Treaty of Westminster Trumps that with Russia
7. Misreading the Opposition
8. New Friends and New Neutrals: The First Treaties of Versailles
9. The Deepening Conflict
10. The Invasion of Saxony
11. The Widening Conflict in India and North America
12. The Expansion of the Anti-Prussian Alliance
13. Extreme Pressure Applied on Prussia
14. The Push Back
15. A Good Year for Britain
16. The Pressure on Prussia and Victories for Britain
17. The Entry of Spain
18. The Exit of Russia
19. The Last Actions
20. The Peace of Paris
21. The Peace of Hubertusburg
22. Conclusion
VII. The War of American Independence
1. Introduction
2. Before the Revolution
3. After the Seven Years War
4. Land and Native Americans
5. Sugar and Stamps
6. A Revised Approach
7. Tea
8. The Intolerable Acts
9. 1774: The Reaction
10. A Shot Heard Across the World
11. The Justification and Escalation
12. The First Help and Assistance
13. Common Sense
14. The Declaration of Independence
15. Military Survival and Political Cohesion
16. The French Enter the War
17. As the War Grinds on in North America, it Expands into Other Parts of the World
18. Spain Enters the Fray
19. Tupac's Rebellion in Peru
20. A Global War
21. The League of Armed Neutrality
22. The Last Years of the Conflict
23. Peace
24. The Native American Question
25. What the Americans Fought for
26. The United States and the Wider World in the 1790s
27. The French Revolution and the Turn Towards Isolationism
28. Conclusion
VIII. The French Revolution
1. Introduction
2. Kings
3. Philosophers
4. The Fuse to Revolution in France
5. The Foreign Context
6. War
7. The First Coalition against the Republic of France
8. Internal Enemies
9. The War Changes, Turns and Expands
10. Britain Fights Alone
11. The Second Coalition
12. Napoleon
13. Conclusion
IX. Slavery
1. Introduction
2. Numbers and Impact
3. Supply
4. Traders
5. Indentured Labour
6. The Laws of Slavery
7. Slave Revolts in the Second Half of the Seventeenth Century
8. Dissent against Slavery
9. Slave Revolts up to 1765
10. The American Revolution
11. The Abolitionist Movement in Britain
12. The French Revolution
13. Saint Dominique/Haiti
14. The Revolt
15. Conclusion
X. The Wars of North and Eastern Europe
1. Introduction
2. The First Northern War
3. The Second Northern War
4. Between the Wars
5. The War of Polish Succession
6. The Austrian War of Succession
7. The Seven Years War
8. Catherine the Great
9. The First Partition of Poland
10. Rebellions against Serfdom
11. The Almost War of Bavarian Succession
12. The Second Partition of Poland
13. The End of the Commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania
14. Paul I
15. Conclusion
XI. Religion
1. Introduction
2. Enlightenment
3. Religion as a Pretext for War
4. The Movement Towards Tolerance
5. Religion in the Revolutionary Wars
6. Conclusion
XII. The Muslim Territories
1. Introduction
2. The Ottoman Empire
3. The Siege of Vienna
4. North Africa
5. New Ottoman Conflict with Russia
6. New Ottoman Conflict with the Venetians and the Habsburgs
7. The End of the Safavid Dynasty
8. The Rise of Nader Shah
9. The Austro-Russian and Ottoman War of 1735 to 1739
10. Aurangzeb and the Mughal Empire
11. Nader Shah at Full Strength
12. The Rise of the British in India
13. Three Decades of Russian-Ottoman Conflict
14. War and Peace in Eighteenth-century North Africa
15. The Challenge at the Epicentre of the Ottoman Empire
16. Conclusion
XIII. China and its Neighbours
1. Introduction
2. The Shunzhi Emperor
3. The Kangxi Emperor
4. The Yongzheng Emperor
5. The Qianlong Emperor
6. Europeans
7. Conclusion
XIV. Grand Plans for Peace
1. Introduction
2. Hobbes
3. Penn
4. Leibniz
5. The Abbé Charles de Saint-Pierre
6. Vattel and Wolff
7. Voltaire
8. Rousseau
9. Bentham
10. Kant
11. Conclusion
XV. Conclusion
1. Absolute Rulers
2. Religion
3. Ideologies of the Enlightenment
4. The Muslim Territories 

5. China and Asia 

(source: Hart/ESCLH Blog) 

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

(Source: Yale University Press)

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

ABOUT THE BOOK

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

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

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

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

ABOUT THE EDITORS

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

More info here 
(source: ESCLH Blog)

CONFERENCE: Grotius on Contract and Force (Leuven: KULeuven, 15-16 NOV 2018)

(image source: goodreads)   

Legal Theory and Doctrine in Grotius’s De Jure Belli ac Pacis

Grotiana Conferences for the Preparation of the Quattrocentenary of De Jure Belli ac Pacis

GROTIUS ON CONTRACT AND ON FORCE

Organised by the Department of Roman Law and Legal History, University of Leuven

Auditorium Zeger Van Hee, Tiensestraat 41, B 3000 Leuven

PROGRAMME

Thursday, 15 November 2018: Grotius on Contract

Convener: Wim Decock

12.00-13.00                Registration and Lunch

13.00-13.30                Opening Session

Welcome by Randall Lesaffer

Introduction by Wim Decock

13.30-15.30                Suarez and Grotius

MARK SOMOS (Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law)

Suárez v Grotius: James Brown Scott’s Enduring Revival

SYDNEY PENNER (Asbury University)

Grotius and Suárez on Natural Law

ORAZIO CONDORELLI (University of Catania)

"Grotius' Doctrine of Alliances with Infidels and the Idea of Respublica Christiana"

FRANCESCA IURLARO (Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Neo-Latin Studies)

The ‘Fate’ of Legal Voluntarism: Suárez and Grotius Reading Alexander of Aphrodisias on Fate and Free Will

15.30 – 16.00             Coffee Break

16.00 – 18.00             Grotius on Consent, Contract and the Polity

GIOVANNI CHIODI (University of Milano-Bicocca)

Jus Commune Origins of Grotius’ Contract Law

PAOLO ASTORRI (KU Leuven)

Grotius’ Contract Theory: Between Moral Theology and Natural Law

SÖREN KOCH (University of Bergen)

The Reception of Grotius’ Contract Law in Scandinavia

CHRISTOPH A. STUMPF (University of Halle)

Consent and the Ethics of International Law - Revisiting Grotius’ System of States in a Secular Setting

18.00 – 18.30             Grotius on the Use of Force: Perfect War

                                   VALENTINA VADI (Lancaster University)

Gentili on the Use of Force and the Early Modern law of Nations

Friday, 16 November 2018: Grotius on the Use of Force

Conveners: Viktorija Jakjimovska and Randall Lesaffer

9.00 – 10.30               Grotius on the Use of Force: Perfect War [continued]

CAMILLA BOISEN (New York University Abu Dhabi)

Grotius and Humanitarian Intervention

AGATHA VERDEBOUT (Université Catholique de Lille)

Grotius’s Impact on the 17th, 18th and 19th Centuries

GUGLIELMO VERDIRAME (King’s College London)

Is Grotius's Idea of Perfect War Relevant to International Law today?

           

10.30 – 11.00             Coffee Break

11.00 – 13.00             Grotius on the Use of Force: Imperfect War

PHILIPPINE VAN DEN BRANDE (KU Leuven)

The Pre-Grotian Development of Reprisals

RANDALL LESAFFER (Tillburg University/KU Leuven)

Reprisal in the Grotian System

ROTEM GILADI (University of Helsinki)

A Corporate History of the Laws of War: Corporate Belligerency from Grotius to the Delegation Theory

TOM RUYS (University of Ghent)

                                   Grotius on Self-Defence and Defensive War: A Contemporary Perspective

13.00 – 14.00             Lunch

14.00 – 16.00             Grotius on the Use of Force: Internal Strife and War

DANTE FEDELE (KU Leuven/Université d'Artois)

Before Grotius: Some Remarks on Rebellion and Civil Strife in the Late-Medieval Ius Commune

RAYMOND KUBBEN (Associate fellow at i-Hilt Tilburg)

A Prodigy Child of the Dutch Revolt or Eighty Years’ War: Immediate ‘Precursors’ to Grotius on War and Revolt

VILLE KARI (University of Helsinki)

Hugo Grotius and the Law of Civil War in De Jure Belli ac Pacis Libri Tres  

VIKTORIJA JAKJIMOVSKA (KU Leuven)

                                   From ‘Pirates’ to ‘Belligerents’: A Post-Grotian Reading of the Debate on Enmity​

(more information here)