CFP: Inclusion, Exclusion, and Resistance in the Renaissance World

[Via H-Law, we have the following CFP.  DRE]

Inclusion, Exclusion, and Resistance in the Renaissance World, ca. 1300–1700

The history of rights in the Renaissance is also a history of their limits. The vocabularies of dignity, right, and resistance that Renaissance thinkers developed to claim freedom and constrain power were never universal; they were always already structured by categories that determined who belonged to the community (citizens, subjects), who was tolerated within it (religious minorities), and who was excluded from it altogether (enslaved persons, women). This session asks how those boundaries were drawn, contested, and redrawn across the Renaissance world — and how rights expanded for some while narrowing or vanishing for others.

Abstracts on any of the following are welcome: toleration and the limits of confessional belonging; colonial encounter and new categories of subjecthood; resistance theory and who may act in defense of a community; the jurisprudence of slavery and the boundaries of personhood; and the legal and political status of women, whose rights often narrowed even as others expanded.

Depending on the abstracts received, this session may take the form of a traditional panel of papers or a roundtable discussion for the 2027 Renaissance Society of America Conference in Philadelphia (March 11–13). Please indicate your preferred format, and feel free to describe your contribution as either a research paper or a set of reflections drawing on your current work.

Abstracts are invited from scholars across all relevant disciplines. Papers recovering neglected or unexpected traditions are especially welcome. Early-career scholars are encouraged to submit.

Please send a 300-word abstract and a short copy of your c.v. to karrsn@uc.edu 

Niedrist on Criminal Justice in Habsburg Austria

Franziska Niedrist has posted Crime and Criminal Justice: Habsburg's Supreme Court, Tyrol and Vorarlberg (1814-1844):

This paper examines criminal justice practices in Austria during the Vormärz period on the basis of a series of criminal case files from the Supreme Judicial Authority (Oberste Justizstelle) of the Habsburg Monarchy. The interdisciplinary study investigates a wide range of offenses prosecuted in Tyrol and Vorarlberg. At the same time, it provides a nuanced picture of Austrian criminal justice, offering insights into the decision-making practices of the supreme court as well as its interaction with lower judicial authorities. By combining traditional approaches in legal history with innovative methods drawn from the history of crime (historische Kriminalitätsforschung) and discourse analysis, the study adopts a novel perspective. Moreover, it offers valuable insights into the history of Austrian criminal law, crime and society, while also illuminating everyday life in the early 19th century. 

--Dan Ernst

CFP: European Society for Comparative Legal History

[We have the following CFP.  DRE]

Comparative Legal History: Transition and Transfers 

Lund: Lund University, June 21-23, 2027.  Deadline: October 31, 2026.

The organisers and the Executive Council of the European Society for Comparative Legal History are pleased to call for papers and posters for the upcoming European Society for Comparative Legal History 9th Biennial Conference to be held from 21 to 23 June 2027 at Lund University, Sweden.

The conference series started in Valencia (2010), followed by Amsterdam (2012), Macerata (2014), Gdansk (2016), Paris (2018), Lisbon (2022), Augsburg (2023), andSzeged (2025). The 2027 conference is hosted by the Olin Foundation for Legal History and supported by the Faculty of Law at Lund University.

The theme of the conference is ”Transitions and Transfers.” We are living in a time of unpredictability and changes, and this gives reason to pay attention to periods of transition in history. How and why did changes occur, who were the proponents and opponents? Changes in legal history have often had elements of transfer. Sometimes, legal needs have been met through drawing inspiration from other legal systems. On other occasions, legal rules have been imposed on other systems.

The papers, panels, and posters offered should deal with either transitions or transfers, or both. They should engage in dialogue with aspects of law across time and/or space that are of interest for comparative legal historians.

To offer a paper, please submit an abstract of up to 400 words. The abstract should include the title of your proposed paper and your personal data (full name, email address, work affiliation). Please also send a short CV (no more than 400 words). Anyone at any stage in their research career can offer a paper.

Abstracts will be assessed against: (1) the aim to have a diverse conference; (2) the novelty of the work; and (3) a professionally grounded proposal including a description ofthe methodology and most important sources, and a concise description of the expected research results.

It is also possible to submit a proposal for a complete panel. Panels normally consist of three papers. A panel proposal should – in addition to the abstracts and CVs of those who wish to present a paper in that panel – include an abstract for the entire panel, as well as a CV of the panel organizer.

Further, it is possible to submit a proposal for a poster. To offer a proposal for a poster, please submit an abstract of up to 400 words. The abstract should include the title of your project and your personal data (full name, email address, work affiliation). Please also send a short CV (no more than 400 words). 

Anyone at any stage in their research career can propose a poster. Accepted participants will be asked to submit to the organisers a PDF file in size A0 with the poster design, and the posters will be printed in Lund.

One author may only propose to give one paper or present one poster at the conference in order to allow as many people as possible to present their work.

All submissions – for papers, panels, and posters – should be in English and be sent to ESCLH2027@jur.lu.se, no later than 31 October 2026.

The list of accepted papers, panels, and posters will be announced by December 2026.

A conference website will be launched with further details of the conference in the autumn of 2026. The conference website will also contain information on the attendance fee for those not members of the ESCLH, and transport to and from Lund. The conference website will allow registration for the conference, starting early in 2027. Finally, the conference will be preceded by a PhD-workshop on 21 June 2027. Further information about the workshop will also be published in the autumn of 2026.

Penna's "Byzantine Law" and Book Launch

Daphne Penna, University of Groningen and KU Leuven, has published Byzantine Law: The Law of the Eastern Roman Empire, in the "Elements in Rethinking Byzantium" series of the Cambridge University Press.  On May 28, she will speak about the book in the Law and Humanities Seminar Series of the Peking University School of Transnational Law.  Here is Cambridge's description of the book:

The purpose of this Element is to introduce the study of later Roman law (Byzantine law) to a wider academic audience. Currently a great deal of specialized knowledge is necessary to approach the field of Byzantine law. This Element works to break down the barriers to this fascinating subject by providing a brief, clear introduction to the topic. It makes a scholarly contribution by placing Byzantine law in a broader perspective and by reconsidering some of the aspects of the study of Byzantine law. The Element places Byzantine law outside of the box by comparing, for example, Byzantine law to the European legal tradition and highlighting the role that Byzantine law can have in unravelling the common legal past of Europe. It gives also information on the status of Byzantine legal studies and makes suggestions on how to study Byzantine law and why.

--Dan Ernst 

A Constitutional History of EU Law

The History of European Union Law: Constitutional Practice, 1950 to 1993 (Cambridge University Press), edited by Bill Davies, American University, and Morten Rasmussen, University of Copenhagen, has been published.  

This formative period of EU law witnessed an intense struggle over the emergence of a constitutional practice. While the supranational institutions, including the European Commission, the European Court of Justice and the European Parliament, as well as EU law academics helped to develop and promote the constitutional practice, member state governments and judiciaries were generally reluctant to embrace it. The struggle resulted in an uneasy stalemate in which the constitutional practice was allowed to influence the doctrines, shape and functioning of the European legal order that now underpins the EU, but a majority of member state governments rejected European constitutionalism as the legitimating principle of the new EU formed on basis of the Treaty of Maastricht (1992). The struggle and eventual stalemate over the constitutional practice traced in this book accounts for the fragile and partial system of rule of law that exists in the EU today.

--Dan Ernst.  TOC after the jump.

Amorosa and Suuronen on Schmitt and Vitoria

Paolo Amorosa, University of Helsinki Faculty of Law, and Ville Suuronen, University of Turku, have posted 'Ancora tu?' Questioning Carl Schmitt's Place in the Canon of International Law: 

In recent decades, the controversial intellectual legacy of Carl Schmitt, leading Nazi lawyer, has returned to prominence in political and legal theory as well as in international law. Schmitt’s work continues to inspire not only conservative and far-right thinkers but, somewhat surprisingly, also serves as a source of inspiration to leftist or even postcolonial positions. This revival is often justified through a decoupling of Schmitt’s odious political commitments from what is often seen as his uniquely valuable insight into the nature and history of the international legal order. The goal of this chapter is to problematize and question this decoupling and the resulting canonical position Schmitt has acquired as a theorist and historian of international law. As our starting point to this complex debate, we offer a critical analysis of Schmitt’s profoundly political narration of the history of international law, and in particular, his supposedly neutral appropriation of Francisco de Vitoria, usually examined apart from the historical context and motives that inspire Schmitt to take up this figure in the 1940s. By comparing Schmitt’s work on Vitoria with his earlier publications on international law, we offer a historical contextualization of the development of Schmitt’s arguments, showing how these were motivated by unscholarly and overtly political intentions. Indeed, Schmitt used Vitoria to develop a complex historical narrative of international law which not only reiterated far-right revanchist positions on the Treaty of Versailles but also aimed to offer an apologetic narrative concerning his own role within the Nazi party. 

--Dan Ernst 

Global Dissertation Prize

[We have the following announcement from the ASLH.  DRE.]

The American Society for Legal History (ASLH) is delighted to announce a new dissertation prize: the Global Dissertation Prize for the best dissertation in global legal history. The [prize] recognizes the best dissertation from the previous calendar year on topics centered outside the United States. Eligible dissertations must be written in English and submitted for a PhD, JSD, or equivalent doctoral degree, excluding the JD, awarded in the previous calendar year (for example, a dissertation for a PhD awarded in 2025 would be eligible in 2026). Dissertations should not be predominantly focused on the US and may examine contexts, processes, or institutions that are local, regional, imperial, comparative, global, or otherwise. 

Submissions should be made by the author including only (1) the dissertation as submitted to the university for the degree, and (2) a curriculum vitae. 

To be considered for the year’s prize, the author should e-mail a PDF electronic copy of the dissertation and author’s curriculum vitae to the prize committee chair (globaldissertationprize@aslh.net) with the subject heading: GLOBAL DISSERTATION PRIZE SUBMISSION. Please title the PDF as “author last name” and “short title” .pdf (for example, Adewoye Lawyers Southern Nigeria.pdf).  

Deadline for Submissions: June 1, 2026.  Award Amount: $500.

CFP: Narrating Justice: Postwar Trials in Memory and Culture

[We have the following CFP.  DRE.]

On behalf of the organizers, the Polish Academy of Sciences – Scientific Centre in Vienna, the Faculty of History, University of Warsaw, and the Museum of the Second World War, we invite you to participate in the conference "Narrating Justice: Postwar Trials in Memory and Culture”, which will take place on June 11-12, 2026, in Vienna. 

The discussion on post-war reckoning provides an opportunity to reflect on contemporary responses to violence and human rights violations, as well as on the role of scholarly research in the face of current conflicts and growing political tensions in Europe and around the world. The conference seeks to examine post-war trials as a long-term historical, legal, social, and cultural phenomenon. Drawing on approaches from different fields of scholarship, it will address the immediate post-1945 tribunals and their aftermath, as well as later trials and broader processes of post-conflict justice in diverse contexts. Attention will be given to the historical, social, and media contexts of these trials, their forms of documentation and reception, as well as their representation in literature, film, theatre, music, and the visual arts. We also invite contributions focusing on non- European contexts, perspectives, and historical settings.

We invite abstracts covering topics that include, but are not limited to:

Historical and Legal Contexts: The Nuremberg Trials and their impact on the development of international criminal law; Trials in Germany, Austria, Poland, and other countries; Shifts in legal categories: from war crimes to crimes against humanity

Social and Political Dimensions: Reception of post-war trials in European societies; Public debates on guilt, responsibility, and retribution; The role of victims’ and witnesses’ testimonies

Trials in the Media: Press, radio, television, and digital coverage of trials, Documentary recordings as historical sources, Visual and rhetorical strategies in depicting perpetrators and victims

Cultural and Artistic Representations: Trials as motifs in literature, theatre, film, and the visual arts; Artistic reconstructions, reinterpretations, and revisitations; Documentary literature and nonfiction in the context of legal history

Memory Studies and Politics of Memory: Post-war trials in European cultural memory; Transnational and comparative perspectives; Institutionalization of the memory of trials
(museums, archives, education)

Contemporary Relevance: Continuities between post-war tribunals and modern international courts; Narratives of responsibility in the context of contemporary conflicts; Challenges for law, memory, and justice in the twenty-first century.

Timeline and Submissions:  Proposals must include, in a single PDF file: (1) paper abstract (max. 1,000 words); and 2) brief biography of the author(s).  All conference submissions must be in English, and all accepted works are to be presented in English.  Proposals for the conference should be submitted to office@vienna.pan.pl by March 22, 2026.

Accommodation and Travel.  The conference will take place over two days, on 11–12 June 2026, at the Polish Academy of Sciences – Scientific Centre in Vienna (Boerhaavegasse 25, 1030 Vienna).  The organisers encourage in-person participation by all speakers. However, depending on the circumstances, some presentations could be delivered online. Please note that invited speakers will be responsible for their transport to and from Vienna.

Participation in the conference is free of charge, and participants will be offered lunch and coffee during the breaks. Participants without institutional support may receive reimbursement of travel expenses up to €150 per person, as well as modest complimentary accommodation at the PAS Scientific Centre in Vienna. For those requesting support, a brief statement of purpose (500–650 words) should be submitted with the abstract and biography.

Inquiries can be made by e-mail to monika.gromala@vienna.pan.pl, milena.blahuta@vienna.pan.pl

Dhondt on Jurisdiction and Taxation in the Habsburg Netherlands

Frederik Dhondt has posted Jurisdiction and Taxation in the Habsburg Netherlands: The Manuscripts of Goswin Arnould de Wynants, Emperor Charles VI’s Belgian Councillor, which also appears in Handelingen van de Koninklijke Commissie voor de Uitgave der Oude Wetten en Verordeningen van België /Bulletin de la Commission Royale pour la Publication des Anciennes Lois et Ordonnances de Belgique 59 (2025): 231-352:

Goswin-Arnould de Wynants (1661-1732), councillor (judge) in the Council of Brabant, and member of the High Council for the Netherlands in Vienna appointed by emperor Charles VI of the Holy Roman Empire, was one of the most privileged observers of law and administration in the Spanish and then Austrian Netherlands at the turn of the eighteenth century. Most of his work has never been published, although copies of his manuscripts circulated relatively widely and can be found in various Belgian heritage institutions. Although Wynants is a reference for nineteenth- and early twentieth century legal historians, scholarship in legal history seems to have forgotten both the author and the eighteenth century in the Southern Netherlands. Part of the explanation lies with Wynants’s informal writing style and lack of explicit references, which render his work less suitable for handwritten text recognition and computational legal history. However, a traditional close reading highlights his extensive use of implicit legal reasoning and elements of broader legal culture. Building on the work of Ben Croon (1991) and the institutional study of Klaas Van Gelder (2016) as well as the comprehensive study of public law manuscripts of Martin Schennach for the Holy Roman Empire (2020), two of Wynants’s main works are analysed. First -for the battle over jurisdiction between secular and ecclesiastical power- his Memoirs on the institutions of the Austrian Netherlands. Secondly, the treatise on taxation in Brabant. Although it is still solid to see Wynants as a ‘regalist’ (Croon), defending the secular ruler against ecclesiastical competition and fiscal exemptions, this image has to be complemented. In fine, Wynants primarily defends the judge as a crucial actor in the early modern legal ‘cacophony’ of legal sources and languages (Herzog 2024).

--Dan Ernst 

Petruccelli's History of the Origins of Interpol

David Petruccelli, Dartmouth College, has published A Scourge of Humanity: The Origins of Interpol and the End of Empire in Central and Eastern Europe in the series Oxford Studies in International History:

As the First World War came to a chaotic end, Europeans feared that a wave of crime and anarchy would sweep across their continent. The upheavals of the war and of the subsequent violent breakup of the Habsburg, German, and Ottoman empires magnified longstanding fears that an increasingly interconnected world offered the enterprising and unscrupulous new opportunities to break the law and evade capture. New kinds of international criminals and criminal enterprises demanded novel forms of international cooperation. Thus was born the International Criminal Police Commission, known today as Interpol. In the 1920s and 1930s, Interpol's police officials and the lawyers who collaborated with them created lasting programs to combat counterfeiting, sex and drug trafficking, terrorism, and human smuggling, and other forms of international crime, which they labelled "a scourge of humanity."

Drawing on press reports, police files, and criminal records in numerous languages and across multiple countries, David Petruccelli explores the origins of Interpol and the role Central and Eastern European actors played in developing criminal policing and law during the interwar period to bring stability to their region and reshape international institutions and norms. He shows how legal experts replaced a liberal focus on individual rights with an emphasis on a collective of international societies and of police officers who looked to the international sphere as a space for eluding the constraints of the rule of law at home. In doing so, their initiatives posed an alternative to the imperial and liberal internationalist programs pursued by many Western Europeans and Americans and laid the groundwork for more radical forms of persecution during the Second World War.

While bringing to life the stories of individuals involved in shady activities across borders, A Scourge of Humanity explores the vigorous policing and harsh criminal laws established by Interpol to combat their crimes and highlights illiberal forms of internationalism that have left a lasting mark on our world.

--Dan Ernst

den Hollander's "Court, Credit, and Capital"

Maurits den Hollander, Tilburg University, has published Court, Credit, and Capital: Amsterdam's Insolvency Legislation in the Dutch Golden Age (Cambridge University Press).  It appears in Studies in Legal History, a book series sponsored by the American Society for Legal History.

Seventeenth-century Amsterdam was a city of innovations. Explosive economic growth, the expansion of overseas trade, and a high level of religious tolerance sparked great institutional, socioeconomic and legal changes, a period generally known as "the Dutch Golden Age." In this book, Maurits den Hollander discusses how insolvency legislation contributed to the rise of a modern commercial order in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. He analyzes the procedure and principles behind Amsterdam's specialized insolvency court (the Desolate Boedelskamer, 1643) from a theoretical perspective as well as through the eyes of citizens whose businesses failed. The Amsterdam authorities created a regulatory environment which solved insolvency more leniently, and thus economically more efficiently, than in previous times or places. Moving beyond the traditional view of insolvency as a moral failure and the debtor as a criminal, the Amsterdam court recognized that business failure was often beyond the insolvent's personal control, and helped restore trust and credit among creditors and debtors.

Here are some encomia:

"Amsterdam's ‘golden age' has long fascinated economic historians. They have undertaken close studies of its unique organizations, e.g., the Wisselbank and the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, in an attempt to explain the tremendous growth and vitality of the city and its surrounding region. Maurits den Hollander's important study of Amsterdam's Desolate Boedelskamer makes a significant contribution to this literature. By documenting how a specialized legal organization could alter the resolution of insolvency cases, promoting composition rather than dissolution and therewith engendering trust rather than conflict, it raises profound questions about the function of economic institutions. This book should be required reading for scholars in the field."

Thomas Max Safley, Professor Emeritus of History, University of Pennsylvania

"This book is simply superb. Den Hollander offers a study of insolvency in the booming Dutch economy of the seventeenth century that is both a first-rate piece of socio-economic analysis and a consummate exercise in social history."

James Q. Whitman, Yale Law School

Weekend Roundup

• Reminder: at noon on September 10, the Supreme Court Historical Society will sponsor a virtual lecture and conversation with John Q. Barrett, “Away Without Leave but Back in Washington, Briefly: Nazi Prosecutor Justice Robert H. Jackson on the Road to Nuremberg, September 1945.”  Register here.  

• The Supreme Court Historical Society’s latest episode in its Breaking History video series treats “two extraordinary behind-the-scenes stories from the latest Journal of Supreme Court History” concerning Reed v. Reed (1971) and Miranda v. Arizona (1966)

• In an episode of Historians & Their Histories, the Massachusetts Historical Society spoke with Cornelia H. Dayton, University of Connecticut, about her her research into the life of John Peters, the husband of acclaimed poet Phillis Wheatley, as well as abour Professor Dayton’s “path to becoming an historian, her early interest in constitutional law, and the challenges of researching subaltern subjects, such as Peters, who left few firsthand accounts.”  The transcript is here.

• Over at ESCLH Blog: a post on the "(Dis)continuity of Legal Systems in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland after WWII: Difficult Heritage." 

• On Monday, September 8, at 6:30 p.m. at Paul Sawyier Public Library in Frankfort, Kentucky, Thomas C. Mackey, University of Louisville emeritus, will discuss his book, Opposing Lincoln: Clement L. Vallandigham, Presidential Power, and the Legal Battle over Dissent in Wartime (State-Journal).  

• Also on Monday, September 8, Aziz Rana, BC Law, will give the 2025 Kops Freedom of the Press Lecture, "The Constitution in crisis: how Americans came to idolize a document that fails them," at Cornell University, from 12-1 p.m.  More.  

• In C-SPAN’s “Bell Ringer” series, Joseph Crespino, Emory University, talks about “the changes in society, politics, institutions and the U.S. Senate in the 20th and 21st centuries.”  

• Keith Whittington, Yale Law School, will deliver the Constitution Day address at Washington and Lee University at 5 p.m. on September 18 on “By Birth Alone: The Original Meaning of Birthright Citizenship in the Fourteenth Amendment" (More). 

• Notre Dame Law’s notice of the second ASLH/Notre Dame Graduate Legal History Colloquium.

• A columnist praises the appointment of Lee Strang to direct the new Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society at the Ohio State University because the center promises to address "the partisan biases that have oozed into the teaching of American history and civic responsibility" (Columbus Dispatch).   

• The 14th Amendment Center for Law and Democracy at the Howard University School of Law has launched a newsletter, The Refounding.

• ICYMI:  How a Chinese Laundryman Shaped US Civil Rights (KQED).  The Evolution of the Bail System in America (History). The Volatile History of Flag Burning in the US (History).  The "Founders Museum" from White House and PragerU blurs history, AI-generated fiction (NPR).  Speaking of Founders: How about the one who lost a leg?  (Smithsonian).  And there's no rest for the Madison revisionist: “'If we truly want to look at the birthplace of the United States Constitution, it’s not in Philadelphia, it’s on the second floor of this home,' Montpelier’s Director of Interpretation and Visitor Engagement Kyle Stetz said." (29News).

 Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.

Stenlund and Erkkilä on Memory, Law, and Politics

Karolina Stenlund and Ville Erkkilä, University of Helsinki, have published the introduction to a special issue of in Law and Critique on "Memory, Law, and Politics".

This introduction to the Law and Critique special issue explores the complex interplay between collective memory, law, and politics. It argues that “moral remembrance” — the strategic use of selected pasts — shapes political legitimacy, identity formation, and legal interpretation across liberal and illiberal regimes. Rejecting teleological views of legal progress, the authors highlight how both remembering and forgetting serve ideological purposes. Contributions examine diverse contexts, from authoritarian memory regulation in the GDR and contemporary Hungary to EU and international legal frameworks surrounding Holocaust remembrance, slavery memory laws, and museum-based memory practices. Together, these studies show that law not only regulates but also constructs collective memories, influencing which histories are legitimized or suppressed. By integrating perspectives from history, legal studies, and critical theory, the issue invites readers to critically assess the political stakes of legal memory-making and the selective mobilization of history in contemporary governance.

--Dan Ernst 

Queen Mary Symposium on Wheatley's "Life and Death of States"

[We have word of the first event in a new collaboration between the Selden Society and the School of Law at Queen Mary University of London, an annual symposium on a “first book” of an author in the field of “historicising jurisprudence.’” A registration page for the event is still forthcoming.  DRE.]

Historicising Jurisprudence: First Book Symposium

2025 Selected Book: Natasha Wheatley, The Life and Death of States: Central Europe and the Transformation of Modern Sovereignty (Princeton UP, 2023)

Co-Sponsored by the Selden Society and the School of Law, Queen Mary University of London.  Co-Hosted and Co-Organised by Maks Del Mar and Michael Lobban.  30 September 2025.  Room 313, Department of Law, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Campus

2-3pm: Opening Conversation with Natasha Wheatley (Princeton), Michael Lobban (Oxford), and Maks Del Mar (QMUL)

3-3.15pm Break

3.15 - 4.45pm Panel 1 – Chaired by Isobel Roele (QMUL)
Thinking with the book: Roxana Banu (Oxford), Anat Rosenberg (IALS), and Gerry Simpson
(LSE)

4.45-5pm: Break

5pm - 6.30pm Panel 2 – Chaired by Georgios Varouxakis (QMUL)
Thinking with the book: Charlotte Johann (QMUL), Alvin Jackson (Edinburgh), and Angus
Nicholls (QMUL)

6.30pm: drinks / nibbles

Lange on Nazi Lawyers and the Invasion of Poland

Felix Lange, University of Cologne, has published, open access, Claiming Legality: German Lawyers under the Swastika and the Aggression against Poland, in Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht 85:1 (2025) 17-42:

The article studies how German lawyers under the swastika justified the German aggression against Poland in 1939 and questioned the support of the United States for Poland and its Allies. It distinguishes three lines of argument: First, they claimed that the Kellogg-Briand Pact was devoid of normative content and thus could not bind the German Reich. This argument was coupled with a political critique of the League of Nations Covenant and the Kellogg-Briand Pact as instruments for maintaining the territorial status quo. Second, they put forward that the German Reich was acting in self-defence and that it was Poland, France, and Great Britain who had violated the Covenant and the Pact. Third, they rejected efforts to reconceptualise the existing rules of neutrality in light of the Covenant and the Pact. Reliance on a more traditional understanding of neutrality was intended to raise legal obstacles to siding with Poland, France, and Great Britain for third states such as the United States.

--Dan Ernst.  H/t ESCLH.

Symposium: The Worlds of Pre-Modern Neutrality

[We have the following announcement.  H/t: H-Law.  DRE]

Symposium: The Worlds of Pre-Modern Neutrality (ca. 1400-1800): Norms, Institutions and Practices.  Antwerp, May 8, 2025 - May 9, 2025

To ensure their security in a world dominated by competing Great Powers, states have the choice between an alliance or a neutral position. If we consider the world as governed by brute force, neutrality (the choice not to participate in a conflict between two or more other polities) would merely be a factual condition, dependent on the big players’ goodwill. Even today the ongoing war in Ukraine and the geopolitical tensions between China and the US pose existential challenges to third countries and their positioning, demonstrating the persistent vitality of the concept of neutrality in the 21st century. This equally reverberates on third states’ nationals and other non-state actors. The articulation of the set of rights and duties associated with neutrality has a long pedigree in legal history. The rhetorical use of legal arguments is intertwined with the protection of one’s territory and population but also with the interdependence that fosters trade, especially at sea, connecting markets, spaces and peoples. Law and power are never disconnected in matters related to neutrality, a mutual and reciprocal influence of both tenets is usually present.

This symposium aims to contribute new insights to the long-term history of neutrality, focusing on its ‘pre modern’ dimension broadly understood (ca. 1400-1800). Indeed, the law of neutrality started to emerge in the Early Modern Age through the practices and beliefs of the European state system, but also from its interactions with non-European normative and cultural systems. Different but complementary angles of approach can be used to understand this phenomenon: e.g. diplomatic history, IR history, political history, economic history and legal history. Throughout history, polities as well as private actors have interpreted neutrality in flexible and divergent ways, e.g. proposing a proactive-assertive approach or a more passive and inward looking one.

Benefiting from multiple disciplinary perspectives, the symposium takes into consideration both the theory and the practice of neutrality, advancing our knowledge of the often-contested conceptualisation of legal regimes at sea as well as on land. Such a conceptualisation depended on the interaction between situations of peace and war, diverging across different temporal and spatial coordinates. The participants’ contributions will also unravel the recurrent misalignment between legal-dogmatic approaches and practical uses of knowledge, as well as its intellectual and bureaucratic production. As such, the symposium participates in a broader turn to bottom-up approaches in the history of international law, a booming field of interdisciplinary research.

[Complete schedule here.]

Weekend Roundup

• Bernie Meyler, Stanford Law School, on presidential pardons, with Pamela Karlan and Richard Thompson Ford on the Stanford Legal podcast.  
  

• Over at JOTWELL: Richard Murphy (Texas Tech University) has posted an admiring review of Ashraf Ahmed, Lev Menand, & Noah A. Rosenblum, The Making of Presidential Administration, 137 Harv. L. Rev. 2131 (2024).

• Amanda Tyler, Berkeley Law, will discuss Mitsuye Endo before the Supreme Court Historical Society via Zoom on January 23, 2025, 12:00 pm (EDT).  Register here.
  

• "Johns Hopkins University’s recently launched School of Government and Policy seeks to recruit members of its founding faculty in multiple disciplines and fields of study, including (but not limited to) political science, economics, law, sociology, and history" (H-Law).

• 
  The Balkinization blog is running a symposium on Rogers M. Smith and Desmond King, America’s New Racial Battle Lines: Protect versus Repair (University of Chicago Press, 2024). Here's a link to a recent post, by Rebecca Zeitlow (University of Toledo). Other contributors include Evan Bernick (Northern Illinois), Alexandra Filindra (Illinois-Chicago), Jim Fleming (B.U.), Damon Linker (Penn), Linda McClain (B.U.), Carol Nackenoff (Swarthmore), Corey Robin (Brooklyn College), and Chloe Thurston (Northwestern). 
  

• Over at the LPEBlog: Henry Tonks (PhD candidate, Boston University) on Mehrsa Baradaran's Quiet Coup: Neoliberalism and the Looting of America.

• An interview of John Bardes, Louisiana State University, about his book, The Carceral City:Slavery and the Making of Mass Incarceration in New Orleans, 1803-1930 (WWNO). 
  

• Much of the discussion of Nicholas Bagley's forthcoming book on the administrative state was historical when he presented to Yale’s Institution for Social and Policy Studies.  Amy Kapczynski, Dave Schleicher, and Stephen Skowronek provided comments.
  

• Otto Vervaart’s notice of the new portal Goetgevonden for the resolutions of the Staten-Generaal of the Dutch Republic between 1576 and 1786 launched by the Huygens Institute of the Royal Dutch Academy of Sciences
  

• Allison S. Finkelstein on Finding Fulfillment as a Federal Historian: From PhD to Arlington National Cemetery (AHA Perspectives). 
  

• Lawbook Exchange's December 2024 catalogue of Scholarly Law and Legal History.
  

• ICYMI: Andrew Jackson and prorouging Congress (WaPo).  Korematsu v. United States remembered (Smithsonian; The Nation).   Audrey Pope's Feminist History and Tradition for SisterSong v. State of Georgia (HLRblog)
  

  Weekend Roundup is a weekly feature compiled by all the Legal History bloggers.

CFP: Hugo and the Law

“Hugo and the Law,” 8 May 2025, Maastricht University Faculty of Law, Maastricht, The Netherlands

On the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Actes et Paroles, the collection of Victor Hugo’s political speeches, the UM Law and Popular Culture Research Network organizes a Workshop on 8 May 2025 dedicated to the author’s conceptualization of several legal issues. The Workshop will take place at the Faculty of Law of Maastricht University (The Netherlands), with a fully in-person program.

Goal and Background of the Workshop.  In his several works, Victor Hugo has often delved into profound perspectives into the relationship between humanity and the law. Hugo was not merely a renowned novelist but a visionary thinker who engaged with multiple societal issues, including the intricacies of the legal system, the condition of women, the rise of socialism, and the future of Europe. On the 150th anniversary of the publication of Actes et Paroles – which perfectly captures such themes– this Workshop aims to examine Hugo’s conception of the law.

Hugo’s conception of the law is multifaceted, encompassing both its theoretical foundations and its practical implications. His writings often reflect a deep concern for the struggle for power and the ethical responsibilities of institutions. Through an examination of Hugo’s literary corpus, the Workshop will explore how his books’ characters grapple with the complexities of law and its impact on individuals and society. One key aspect of the Workshop is Hugo’s emphasis on the moral dimension of the law. His characters navigate questions of morality, duty, and conscience by their interactions with legal systems. At the same time, the Workshop will address Hugo’s critique of the legal machinery, shedding light on his observations regarding the potential for injustice and the abuse of power. Furthermore, this Workshop will investigate the historical context in which Hugo lived and wrote, considering the political and social upheavals that influenced his views on the law. From the aftermath of the French Revolution to the establishment of the Second French Republic, through the rise and fall of the Empire of Napoleon III, until the experience of the Commune, Hugo’s observations of the evolving legal landscape are integral to understanding his perspective on the nature of power, the State and the foundations of Europe, and the condition of women.

By examining the philosophical, historical, and theoretical underpinnings and practical implications of Hugo’s thoughts on law, the Workshop aims to illuminate the enduring relevance of his insights and their potential to inspire contemporary discussions on law and justice.

Abstract Submissions.  The “Hugo and the Law” Workshop will feature panel sessions. Submissions should relate to the overarching theme of the Workshop.

Submissions should indicate the title of the contribution, an abstract (max. 400 words), and the contact information and a short biography of the speaker (max. 150 words). Fully written papers are not required. We encourage submissions in English, and co-authored papers will be also considered.

Who Can Participate in this Workshop?  The “Hugo and the Law” Workshop is not restricted to lawyers. We welcome proposals that offer multi-disciplinary perspectives from various areas of law (including civil, criminal, tax, and labor law), as well as from scholars in e.g. the humanities and other social sciences (e.g. history, economics, political science, sociology) with an interest in the Workshop’s theme. We welcome submissions from senior and junior scholars (including doctoral students) and interested practitioners.

How and When to Submit?  Send your submission to agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl.  The Call for Papers closes on 22 December 2024. Shortly after that, the authors will be informed whether their papers are selected for a presentation during the Workshop.

Conference Organizing Committee.  Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact a member of the Workshop Organizing Committee:

Eline Couperus(e.couperus@maastrichtuniversity.nl)
Agustín Parise (agustin.parise@maastrichtuniversity.nl)
Franco Peirone (franco.peirone@maastrichtuniversity.nl)
Livia Solaro (l.solaro@maastrichtuniversity.nl)
Arthur Willemse (arthur.willemse@maastrichtuniversity.nl)

Artists and the Law in Baroque Rome at UAM

[With help from an automatic translator, we have the following announcement.  DRE]

The next session of the Coloquios Historia Derecho at the Universidad Autnóma de Madrid will take place on Wednesday, March 6, at 3:00 p.m., in Seminar VIII of the Faculty of Law.

Professor Antonia Fiori (Università degli studi di Roma – La Sapienza), will speak about her research on artists' contracts in Baroque Rome, with the presentation titled “ Rome wasn't built in a day: Artists and the Law in Renaissance and Baroque Rome.”  More information on the Ccolloquim is here.

To connect via Zoom: Meeting ID: 829 1079 8716 / Passcode: 609743

The next session, taught by Professor María Teresa Calderón, will now be held on March 22.

Transformation of Consumer Law and Policy in Europe

The Transformation of Consumer Law and Policy in Europe, ed. Hans-W Micklitz and , Christian Twigg-Flesner (Hart/Bloomsbury) has been published:

This book analyses the transformation of consumer law and policy in Europe from 4 perspectives: first, the temporal transformation, i.e., changes that can be tracked from the turn of the millennium; secondly, the substantive dimension, i.e., changes in the scope of the rights and remedies provided by consumer law, as well as the underpinning values; thirdly, the institutional dimension, i.e., changes in the role of national courts, national Parliaments, consumer agencies, and consumer organisations; and fourth, the procedural element, i.e., the shift from individual enforcement via courts to enforcement by public regulators, consumer associations, alternative dispute resolution, and the development of collective enforcement exercised by consumer agencies and/or consumer organisations.

With contributions by leading consumer law scholars from across Europe, this book is a fascinating account of how consumer law has often been shaped by national as much as European interests.

--Dan Ernst.  TOC after the jump