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: Filip BATSELÉ, Liberty, Slavery and the Law in Early Modern Western Europe. Omnes Homines aut Liberi Sunt aut Servi [Studies in the History of Law and Justice, eds. Mortimer SELLARS & Georges MARTYN, vol. 17] (Heidelberg: Springer, 2020), 978-3-030-36854-8, 93,8 EUR

(image source: Springer)

Book abstract:

This book investigates the legal evolution of the “free soil principle” in England, France and the Low Countries during the Early Modern period (ca. 1500–1800), which essentially stated that, as soon as slaves entered a certain country, they would immediately gain their freedom. This book synthesizes the existing literature on the origins and evolution of the principle, adds new insights by drawing on previously undiscussed primary sources on the development of free soil in the Low Countries and employs a pan-Western, European and comparative approach to identify and explain the differences and similarities in the application of this principle in France, England and the Low Countries. Divided into four sections, the book begins with a brief introduction to the subject matter, putting it in its historical context. Slavery is legally defined, using the established international law definition, and both the status of slavery in Europe before the Early Modern Period and the Atlantic slave trade are discussed. Secondly, the book assesses the legal origins of the free soil principle in England, France and the Low Countries during the period 1500–1650 and discusses the legal repercussions of slaves coming to England, France and the Low Countries from other countries, where the institution was legally recognized. Thirdly, it addresses the further development of the free soil principle during the period 1650–1800. In the fourth and last section, the book uses the insights gained to provide a pan-Western, European and comparative perspective on the origins and application of the free soil principle in Western Europe. In this regard, it compares the origins of free soil for the respective countries discussed, as well as its application during the heyday of the Atlantic slave trade. This perspective makes it possible to explain some of the divergences in approaches between the countries examined and represents the first-ever full-scale country comparison on this subject in a book.

Table of contents:

Introduction
The Legal and Institutional Framework of Slavery
The Development of a Legal Freedom Principle, Ca. 1500–1650
England Ca. 1650–1800: Neither Emancipated nor Fully Enslaved
Strains on French Freedom: Turks and Nègres in Metropolitan France
The United Provinces: Abandoning the Freedom Principle Sub Silentio(?)
A Legal Comparison of the Freedom Principle—Similarities and Differences
General Conclusion—The Soil of Europe: Free or Unfree?

More information with the publisher.

(source: ESCLH Blog)

COLLOQUIUM: La prohibition de l’esclavage et de la traite des êtres humains (23-24 January 2020, Paris)

(Source: Portail universitaire du droit)

We learned of an international colloquium on the abolition of slavery and the slave trade in Paris coming January.

Particulièrement attentatoire à la dignité de l’homme, au même titre que la torture, l’esclavage fait l’objet d’une prohibition relativement ancienne et d’une grande fermeté. Énoncée dans la convention de Genève relative à l’esclavage du 25 septembre 1926, la prohibition absolue de l’esclavage, quelles que soient les circonstances, est reprise dans l’ensemble des déclarations et conventions protectrices des droits de l’homme. Au sein des États, l’abolition est progressive.

Le Pakistan clôt, en 1992, un processus engagé deux siècles auparavant en 1777 (abolition de l’esclavage dans le Vermont). La réduction en esclavage, autrefois rouage de l’économie (traite négrière), est devenue un crime contre l’humanité (art. 7 Statut CPI).

L’esclavage institutionnel n’existe plus, mais il doit désormais être saisi dans sa réalité factuelle afin de lutter efficacement contre tous les trafics et toutes les formes d’exploitation ayant pour objet des êtres humains, hommes, femmes et enfants. Il perdure dans toutes les régions du monde y compris dans ses manifestations les plus archaïques comme en attestent les marchés aux esclaves en Libye et le traitement réservé aux femmes Yézidies par l’État islamique.

L’esclavage est non seulement une réalité contemporaine, mais il est également un amer souvenir de la conquête du monde et de la colonisation par les européens.

Quelles réponses juridiques, quels recours offrir aux victimes de cette pratique odieuse ? Quelle signification revêt ou devrait revêtir l’esclavage sans pour autant diluer la notion en l’appliquant à des situations licites dans certains États (notamment la gestation pour autrui) ? Quelle distinction opérer entre esclavage, servitude, travail forcé et traite ? Quelle valeur possède le consentement de la victime à son exploitation ? Comment affronter l’esclavage dans ses multiples modalités ainsi que dans ses dimensions spatiales et temporelles ?

L’esclavage est une pratique d’hier et d’aujourd’hui. Les plaies du passé peinent à cicatriser ; le ressentiment des descendants d’esclaves demeure vivace. Entre devoir de mémoire et réparation, comment assumer le passé ? Au présent, la lutte contre l’esclavage associe tant les États que les opérateurs privés, en particulier à travers le devoir de vigilance imposé à certaines entreprises multinationales afin d’éviter qu’elles n’entretiennent indirectement le phénomène par leurs filiales ou sous-traitants établis à l’étranger. Le colloque a pour ambition de réfléchir à ces différentes questions et aux réponses qu’elles sont susceptibles de recevoir.

The full conference program can be found here
(source: ESCLH Blog)

BOOK: Duncan BELL (ed.), Empire, Race and Global Justice, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019). ISBN 9781108427791, £ 75.00

(Source: CUP)

Cambridge University Press is publishing a new book on the role of race and empire in debates over global justice.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The status of boundaries and borders, questions of global poverty and inequality, criteria for the legitimate uses of force, the value of international law, human rights, nationality, sovereignty, migration, territory, and citizenship: debates over these critical issues are central to contemporary understandings of world politics. Bringing together an interdisciplinary range of contributors, including historians, political theorists, lawyers, and international relations scholars, this is the first volume of its kind to explore the racial and imperial dimensions of normative debates over global justice.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

Duncan Bell, University of Cambridge
Duncan Bell is a Reader in Political Thought and International Relations at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction: empire, race, and global justice Duncan Bell
1. Reparations, history, and the origins of global justice Katrina Forrester
2. The doctor's plot: the origins of the philosophy of human rights Samuel Moyn
3. Corporations, universalism and the domestication of race in international law Sundhya Pahuja
4. Race and global justice Charles W. Mills
5. Association, reciprocity and emancipation: a transnational account of the politics of global justice Inés Valdez
6. Global justice: just another modernisation theory? Anne Phillips
7. Globalizing global justice Margaret Kohn
8. Challenging liberal belief: Edward said and the critical practice of history Jeanne Morefield
9. Cosmopolitan just war and coloniality Kimberley Hutchings
10. Indigenous peoples, settler colonialism, and global justice in Anglo-America Robert Nichols
11. Decolonizing borders, self-determination, and global justice Catherine Lu.

More information here
(source: ESCLH Blog)

CALL FOR PAPERS: White Slavery in Transnational and International Context, 21 June 2019 (University of Warwick, Deadline: 31 January 2019)

(Source: University of Warwick)

Via Legal History Blog, we learned of a CFP on “White Slavery in Transnational and International Context”.

White Slavery in Transnational and International Context, 1880-1950.  June 21, 2019, University of Warwick (UK).  Keynote: Brian Donovan ((University of Kansas)

This is a call for abstracts for paper, poster and creative presentations for a one day interdisciplinary conference on white slavery, as trafficking in women was historically called. The conference seeks to question how white slavery manifested in transnational and international contexts but welcomes papers on any localities.

We welcome papers exploring different aspects of white slavery from nationalism to visual representations, and their impact on anti-white slavery legislation. The conference seeks to investigate white slavery and its legacies from conceptual, legal, popular culture perspectives. It also seeks to place it in relation to wider themes of nationalism, race, gender, and labour, and question how white slavery relates to critiques of modernity.

We invite paper and poster presentations from range of disciplines that explore how white slavery manifested in these different contexts, in different localities, during the years 1880- 1950. The conference is particularly interested in exploring white slavery through the following themes:

* Race, nationality and nationalism
* Regulation / criminalisation of white slavery in domestic and international sphere
* Rhetoric of slavery and neo-abolitionism
* Age, innocence and purity
* Agency, autonomy and free will
* Gender; trafficking in boys / men
* Migration and gendered labour
* Critique of modernity
* White slavery in popular culture / media

We also welcome creative responses to the subject, and in particular poster presentations that engage the audience and foster debate on the conference themes. PG students at any stage of their studies are particularly encouraged to submit proposals for posters or other visual presentations. Poster presentations must be printed in advance of the conference and be size A1, either portrait or landscape (H: 84.1cm x W: 59.4cm); and you have to present in person. Poster session participants populate boards with pictures, data, graphs, diagrams, narrative text, and more - and will informally discuss their presentations with conference attendees during an assigned session.

Please send 300-word abstract for papers and 200-word abstracts for posters with a short bio to the organisers. Deadline is 31 January 2019. PG bursaries may be available.

Dr Catherine Armstrong (Loughborough University) C.M.Armstrong@lboro.ac.uk  and Dr Laura Lammasniemi (University of Warwick) laura.lammasniemi@warwick.ac.uk

(source: ESCLH Blog)

BOOK: Will SMILEY, From Slaves to Prisoners of War - The Ottoman Empire, Russia, and International Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018). ISBN 9780198785415, £65.00

(Source: OUP)

Oxford University Press has published a book on the concept of prisoners of war in the context of the 18^th century Ottoman-Russian wars.

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Ottoman-Russian wars of the eighteenth century reshaped the map of Eurasia and the Middle East, but they also birthed a novel concept - the prisoner of war. For centuries, hundreds of thousands of captives, civilians and soldiers alike, crossed the legal and social boundaries of these empires, destined for either ransom or enslavement. But in the eighteenth century, the Ottoman state and its Russian rival, through conflict and diplomacy, worked out a new system of regional international law. Ransom was abolished; soldiers became prisoners of war; and some slaves gained new paths to release, while others were left entirely unprotected. These rules delineated sovereignty, redefined individuals' relationships to states, and prioritized political identity over economic value. In the process, the Ottomans marked out a parallel, non-Western path toward elements of modern international law. Yet this was not a story of European imposition or imitation-the Ottomans acted for their own reasons, maintaining their commitment to Islamic law. For a time even European empires played by these rules, until they were subsumed into the codified global law of war in the late nineteenth century. This story offers new perspectives on the histories of the Ottoman and Russian Empires, of slavery, and of international law.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Will Smiley, Assistant Professor of History & Humanities, Reed College

Will Smiley is a historian of the Middle East and of international and Islamic law, with a particular interest in the Ottoman Empire. He is Assistant Professor of History and Humanities at Reed College in Portland, Oregon. He received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and his JD from Yale Law School, and previously held fellowships in Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University, and in Legal History at New York University.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

1: Into Captivity

2: Slavery and Ransom

3: From the Law of Ransom to the Law of Release

4: Defining the Law of Release

5: Prisoners of War

6: Negotiating the Prisoner-of-War System

7: The Rules Expand

8: Those Left Out

9: Reform and Reciprocity

10: Humanitarianism and Legal Codification

Conclusion

More information with the publisher

(source: ESCLH Blog)