WORKSHOP: MILC Emerging Scholars (Manchester, 25 JUN 2019); DEADLINE 15 MAR 2019

(image source: Mancester University)

MILC Emerging Scholars Workshop

Call for applications

The Manchester International Law Centre (MILC) is holding its first Emerging Scholars Workshop on 25 June 2019 in Manchester. The aim of the Workshop is to bring together a carefully selected group of eight doctoral students. During the workshop, the participants will receive tailored feedback on their research project through closed roundtable discussions with Jean d’Aspremont, Iain Scobbie and John Haskell. In addition to the roundtable discussions, the event will also include sessions on publishing in international law and how to prepare for a job interview and compose postdoc applications.

Applicants are expected to be at an advanced stage of their PhD studies and must be focusing their doctoral research on a question related to international law, international legal practice, and/or international legal theory. Successful applicants must submit a paper of no more than 3.000 words that will be shared with other participants. The selection process will be very competitive as only eight participants will be selected.

Submission of applications

Abstracts of no more than 500 words and a one-page CV should be submitted to isil.aral@manchester.ac.uk by 15 March 2019. The subject line of the email must read “MILC PhD Workshop” followed by the surname of the author. Applicants will be notified by 15 April 2019. The deadline for submission of the papers by the selected participants is 10 June 2019.

Unfortunately, MILC is unable to offer any financial support and participants will have to bear their own expenses. Lunch and refreshments throughout the day will be provided.

(source: International Law Reporter)

OPEN ACCESS ARTICLE: Jessica WHYTE, "The Dangeous Concept of the Just War": Decolonization, Wars of National Liberation, and the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions", Humanity IX (2018), nr. 3

(image source: Humanity)

First paragraph:

In 2002, the North American political theorist Michael Walzer announced the “triumph of just war theory,” which he saw as evidence of moral progress. This paper challenges Walzer’s progressive narrative by turning to the often-acrimonious debates about just and unjust wars during the drafting of the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. I show that during the International Committee of the Red Cross’s “Diplomatic Conference on the Laws of War” (1974-77) it was the Third World and Soviet states that used the language of the “just war” to distinguish wars of national liberation from wars of “imperialist aggression”—particularly the US War in Vietnam. In stark contrast, the Western states, including the US, attacked the language of just war as a medieval licence to cruelty.

Read the article for free here.

CONFERENCE: International Organizations and Decoloniation in Historical Perspective (Munich: LMU München, 25-26 Jan 2019)

(image source: LMU)

FRIDAY, February 25, 2019

Venue: Historisches Kolleg, Kaulbachstraße 15, 80539 München

9:00 – 9:15 COFFEE and REGISTRATION*

9:15 – 9:35 INTRODUCTION

Eva-Maria Muschik (University of Bern)

9:45 – 11:00 PANEL 1: Debating the Meaning of Decolonization – International Organizations as Venues

Anne-Isabelle Richard (Leiden University): “Negotiating Decolonization: African Delegates at the Council of Europe”

Elisabeth Leake (University of Leeds): “Debating Decolonization During the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan”

Chair and Discussant: Jennifer Foray (Purdue University)

11:00 – 11:30 BREAK

11:30 – 13:00 PANEL 2: The Imperialism of International Decolonization

Giorgio Poti (American University of Rome): “The Matryoshka of Empire: Egypt, Sudan and the League of Nations, 1919 –1924”

Stella Krepp (University of Bern): “America Para Los Americanos: The British Caribbean, Decolonization and the Inter-American System, 1940-1969”

Angela Loschke (Leipzig University): “Development, Decolonization and African Relations: South Africa, the UN and the Creation of the Economic Commission for Africa, 1950-1958”

Chair and Discussant: Jason Parker (Texas A&M University)

13:00 – 15:00 LUNCH BREAK*

15:00 – 16:30 PANEL 3: International Organizations as Platforms for Anti-Colonial Struggles

Giuliano Garavini (New York University Abu Dhabi): “Baghdad 1960: the Birth of OPEC as the First International Organization of the Global South”

Jeffrey Byrne (University of British Columbia): “African Unity and the Competing Apparata of the Third World Project”

Alanna O’Malley (Leiden University): “A View from Inside: Examining the Agency of UN officials on the Committee of 24 in Reconstituting the Means and Methods of Decolonization from 1961-1975”

Chair and Discussant: Simon Stevens (University of Sheffield)

16:30 – 17:00 COFFEE BREAK*

17:00 – 18:30 KEYNOTE LECTURE

Susan Pedersen (Columbia University): “Legitimation Crisis: The Italo-Ethiopian Dispute in International Politics”

Introduction: Madeleine Herren-Oesch (University of Basel)

18:30 – 19:30 RECEPTION*

SATURDAY, February 26, 2019

Venue: Historisches Seminar, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Amalienstr. 52, 80799 München; Room: K 001

9:30 – 10:30  PANEL 4: Shaping Decolonization through Advocacy, Standard Setting and Law Making

Meredith Terretta (University of Ottawa): “Early Human Rights NGOs, Anticolonial Activists and Freedom of Movement in Decolonizing Africa”

Bastiaan Bouwman (London School of Economics): “Christianity after Empire: The Ecumenical Movement’s Advocacy of Religious Freedom in Decolonizing Indonesia and Nigeria, 1945-1960”

Boyd van Dijk (University of Amsterdam): “Pluralizing Colonial Sovereignty: Creating International Law for the Wars of Decolonization”

Chair and Discussant: Pamela Ballinger (University of Michigan)

10:30 – 10:45 COFFEE BREAK*

10:45 – 12:15 PANEL 5: Decolonizing Knowledge and Expertise

Bogdan Iacob (University of Exeter): “Malariology, Peripheries, and Decolonization: East European Experts from the League of Nations to the World Health Organization”

William Carruthers (University of East Anglia): “Archaeological (Non?) Alignments: Egypt, India and the Scientific Geographies of UNESCO’s Nubian Campaign”

Su Lin Lewis (University of Bristol): “Competitive Cultural Diplomacy and Civil Society in 1950s Burma”

Chair and Discussant: Jessica Pearson (Macalaster College)

12:15 – 13:15 LUNCH BREAK*

13:15 – 14:45 PANEL 6: Decolonization and Humanitarian Interventions

Noelle Turtur (Columbia University): “Mothers without Milk: A Humanitarian Crisis in British Occupied Italian East Africa”

Brian McNeil (US Air War College): “The Battle of Geneva: The International Committee of the Red Cross and the Humanitarian Crisis in Biafra”

Emily Baughan (University of Sheffield): “Decolonising Development? The International Council of Child Welfare in Western Nigeria, 1963-1970”

Chair and Discussant: Tehila Sasson (Emory University)

14:45 – 15:00 COFFEE BREAK*

15:00 – 16:00 CONCLUDING DISCUSSION

Introduction: Roland Wenzlhuemer (Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich)

(more information here)

JOURNAL: Thematic Issue "Merchants and commercial conflicts in European History" (Continuity and Change, A Journal of Social Structure, Law and Demography in Past Societies XXXIII (2018), No. 3)

(image source: Cambridge Core)

Alain Wijffels, Introduction: Commercial quarrels--and how (not) to handle them
Abstract:

The settlement of structural commercial conflicts of interest cannot be exclusively subsumed under the heading of dispute resolution. Even when a particular conflict opposing specific individuals or groups of interests could be settled, the broader underlying conflicts of interest would subsist and re-emerge. Both commercial and institutional or political actors would therefore rely on various techniques of conflict management, a process imposing restraint on the opposing parties while allowing sufficient leeway for business to be continued. Both conflict resolution and conflict management were devices of public and corporate governance, and therefore, following the late medieval tradition, instruments more or less based on established patterns of legal or quasi-legal models legitimised by accepted or conventional parameters of ‘justice’

Flávio Miranda, Conflict Management in western Europe: the case of the Portuguese merchants in England, Flanders and Normandy, 1250-1500
Abstract:

Recent historiography argues that the legal autonomy of municipal governments created the necessary conditions for successful commercial transactions and economic growth in certain parts of Europe in the later Middle Ages, and that these features attracted foreign merchants. This article uses empirical data from England, Flanders and Normandy to test the following questions: were there significant differences in rules, laws and institutions between one place and another in late medieval western Europe? Were the Portuguese merchants drawn to markets that hypothetically had more effective institutions? The findings demonstrate that legal institutions and conflict management were very similar across western Europe, and that there is no evidence that the Portuguese opted for trading in a certain market because of its effective institutions. Moreover, the article claims that the merchants seemed to prioritise protection and privilege while trading abroad, and it highlights the role of commercial diplomacy in conflict management.

Thomas K. Heebøll-Holm, Law, order and plunder at sea: a comparison of England and France in the fourteenth century
Abstract:

This article addresses the management of maritime plunder and conflict in the waters of England and France in the fourteenth century. It argues that during this century a fundamental change occurred. Around 1300, maritime conflict was handled by recourse to the strictly civil law merchant and law maritime, or by Marcher law. However by the 1350s and 1360s the kings of England and France, moved by contemporary political events and theories of sovereignty at sea, created courts of Admiralty that challenged the previous systems’ jurisdiction. These initiatives eventually paved the way for the criminalisation of private maritime conflict.

Justyna Wubs-Mrozewicz, The late medieval and early modern Hanse as an institution of conflict management
Abstract:

Ever since research on the Hanse began in the nineteenth century, there have been repeated efforts to redefine the boundaries and the core of the phenomenon. Views of the Hanse have evolved, and it has been seen by turns as a profoundly German league of towns, and as a network or organisation of towns and traders that was present in commercial centres and harbours from Novgorod to Portugal, and from Norway to Italy. In more general discussions on the institutional development of commerce in Europe, many of them influenced by the New Institutional Economics, the Hanse has even appeared as a mega-guild. The revival of the field of institutional economics and the history of commerce in pre-modern Europe has recently spawned a reappraisal of Hanseatic sources. The present article contributes to this debate by arguing that from the perspective of conflict management, the late medieval and early modern Hanse was an institution. There were several institutional mechanisms, such as a strong preference for mediation and arbitration in conflicts between individuals, as well as a mediation strategy for internal conflicts between towns. All of these mechanisms combined in a multifaceted institution of conflict management, which represented the added value of Hanse membership for traders, and for their towns.

Andrea Caracausi, A reassessment of the role of guild courts in disputes over apprenticeship contracts: a case study from early modern Italy
Abstract:

This article analyses the mechanisms of conflict resolution in apprenticeship contracts using a large database of disputes from early modern Italy. It finds that the guild court under investigation (the Padua Woollen Guild court) did not enforce training contracts, but rather sought to improve on incomplete contracts by adding clauses, thereby helping individuals renegotiate and redefine the contractual arrangements into which they had decided to enter. However, power relations within the court operated largely in favour of employers, both merchants and master craftsmen. The article concludes that alternative contract enforcement systems, such as municipal or state courts, were probably better suited than corporative systems for resolving disputes surrounding apprenticeship.

Read more on Cambrige Core.

(source: Legal History Blog)

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)

SSRN PAPER: Thomas KLEINLEIN, "Managing the German Debt"

(image: the "Big Four" at the Versailles Peace Conference; source: Wikimedia Commons)

Abstract:

This chapter analyses the essential provisions of the Versailles reparations scheme and argues that this scheme, with its concept of reparations and with other features, was unprecedented in the history of peace treaties. The chronology of the management of the German debt – a story of treaty execution and treaty revision from 1920 to 2010 – can be divided into various reparation schemes, most significantly those of the Dawes Plan and the Young Plan. However, the degree to which already the Paris Conference set the basic patterns for this entire history of reparations is striking. Its themes, schemes and devices appeared again and again in one guise or another. The chapter concludes on what these recurrent themes can mean for the legal framework of sovereign debt management beyond the singular experience of the Versailles Treaty.

Read more on SSRN.

(source: International Law Reporter)

CALL FOR PAPERS: ESIL/EUI Doctoral Forum on International Law (Firenze, 10 JUN 2019); DEADLINE 15 FEB 2019

(image source: EUI)

EUI Doctoral Forum on International Law
European University Institute (Florence, Italy), Villa Salviati, 10 June 2019

The Law Department of the European University Institute (EUI) is delighted to share this call for papers for an intensive one-day Doctoral Forum on international law, taking place in Florence on 10 June 2019, and sponsored by the European Society of International Law (ESIL). 

The Forum allows PhD candidates to present their research and receive feedback from peers and EUI faculty members. The Forum welcomes submissions on any sub-field of international law, especially human rights, international economic law, and international dispute settlement. Researchers performing multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary analysis are in particular encouraged to apply. 

To apply, please send an abstract of maximum 600 words and your CV to euidoctoralforum@gmail.com by 15 February 2019. 

If selected, we will ask you to submit a short paper of maximum 6000 words by 15 May 2019. The paper may be a partial draft of the final paper. Please note that failure to share a short paper with the Forum organisers may result in exclusion from the Forum. All participants will receive the papers in advance and will be expected to have read them prior to the start of the Forum. 

Unfortunately, the Forum cannot cover expenses related to travel and accommodation for all participants. However, the Forum will offer a limited number of scholarships to contribute to the travel expenses of participants who do not have access to sufficient funding. An important objective of these scholarships is to ensure a balanced group of participants in terms of nationalities and home institutions. To apply for a scholarship, please include in your application, in addition to your abstract and CV, a short motivational letter stating why you are not able to cover your travel expenses, how much funding you would need, and how participation in the Forum fits your research plans. 

A presentation on the post-doc opportunities offered by the Max Weber Programme of the EUI will take place on 10 June 2019. 

The Forum will provide lunch and coffee breaks on the day of the conference; social activities will be organized on the evenings of 9 and 10 June. 

Please take note of the following timeline: 
15 February – deadline for submission of abstracts and scholarship applications
1 March – applicants will be informed of the results of the selection process
15 May – deadline for submission of short papers
10 June – forum event 

Confirmed EUI faculty participants: Prof. Jürgen Kurtz and Prof. Martin Scheinin.

Organisers: Martin Christensen, Margherita Melillo, and Mike Videler (researchers at the EUI Law Department). 

(source: EUI)