The ESCLH aims to promote comparative legal history and seeks affiliation with individuals and organisations with complementary aims.
First sentence:
Als Rechtshistoriker war Bernhard Diestelkamp ein Pionier. Sein bleibendes Verdienst ist die Erforschung der mittelalterlichen Königsgerichtsbarkeit und des Reichskammergerichts. Nun ist er im Alter von 95 Jahren gestorben.
Read more here.
Interroger le droit et son historiographie au prisme du genre (Prune Decoux & Hélène Duffuler-Vialle)
DOI 10.4000/14075
Abstract:
Apart from a few rare initiatives, the encounter between legal history and gender studies has remained marginal. The ANR-HLJPGenre project has been designed to fill this historiographical gap and bring researchers together: it aims to analyse law through a gender lens, focusing on the study of formal law and legal discourse. Epistemological issues play an important role here, allowing us to challenge the myth of 'axiological neutrality' that still prevails in our discipline. At the same time, the study of different methodological approaches opens up perspectives for the renewal of legal history. It was in this context that the international conference Legal Discourse, Gender and History was held in Douai in 2023. Thanks to the interdisciplinarity and decompartmentalisation of disciplines inherent to gender studies, contributions from law, history, sociology, political science, linguistics and philosophy enriched the discussions. Some of their contributions, reworked and expanded, appear in this issue alongside independent articles on the same theme.
Déconstruire la neutralité axiologique et l’androcentrisme
Le congé menstruel : entre avancée sociale et biais discriminatoire (Maéva Caron-Thérage)
DOI 10.4000/14076
Abstract:
Menstrual leave is a divisive issue. Whether it's a stigmatising measure, a discriminatory bias, a social advance or a measure to restore professional equality, opinions on this measure oscillate between vice and virtue. It is all the more divisive because it covers different realities. Linguistic precision is essential if this measure is to be a real social advance in the interests of professional equality. The term “menstrual leave” should therefore be replaced by the term “adaptation of the presence, working hours or working conditions of menstruating women due to the constraints associated with menstruation”. There is a risk of discrimination, but this should not obscure the need to address the issue of menstruation-related constraints in the workplace. Raising awareness of this issue and breaking the taboo surrounding menstruation, and women's bodies in general, would make it possible to go beyond the issue of gender equality and work towards a right for human beings by human beings.
Avocates et accusées dans l’ombre virile du prétoire. Biais de genre, agentivité et colonialité sous le protectorat tunisien (Hend Guirat et Florence Renucci)
DOI 10.4000/14077
Abstract:
This article aims to analyse the gender prejudices and biases encountered by women in the justice system – lawyers and defendants – in the virile space of the courtroom, where legal, linguistic, and social "codes" are masculine and those who judge ought to be men. Based on the empirical case of the Tunis criminal court from the turn of the 1910s-20s to the 1940s, we explore the prejudices and biases encountered by female lawyers and defendants either in entering the courtroom or within it during debates and convictions. Our approach treats these prejudices and biases relationally, in articulation with the agency of these women and the context of coloniality.
L’accession des femmes à la magistrature non-professionnelle : Un parcours de combattante entre arguments naturalistes et réalité du terrain. Mise en parallèle des cas belge et français (Mathilde van Ackere)
DOI 10.4000/14079
Abstract:
In Belgium, women acquired the right to be lay judges through the Law of May 15, 1910, regarding labor courts, and the Law of June 13, 1924, concerning commercial courts. In France, they acquired this right respectively through the Law of November 15, 1908, and the Law of December 9, 1931. An analysis of the preparatory works for these laws allows for the construction of a typology of the various arguments raised by the proponents of these legislative projects as well as their opponents. The latter notably put forward naturalistic arguments, relying on a supposed feminine nature and inherently feminine professions. Our study highlights the fact that these arguments come into conflict with on-the-ground realities, as emphasized by proponents of the reforms: the significant number of female workers, employees, and business owners; the presence of women leading major businesses; and the increasing access of women to a growing range of professions and positions.
Parler pour ne rien dire ? Retour sur la controverse ancienne du sexe de l’arbitre (XVIe-XVIIIe siècle) (Claire Bouglé-Le Roux)
DOI 10.4000/14078
Abstract:
Based on the fictional figure of Austreberte, the casuist Jean Pontas, in his Dictionnaire de cas de conscience of 1724, envisages the hypothesis of a woman arbitrating a dispute between two men in conflict. A potentially powerful woman, whose voice would take precedence over male divisions. On this hapax, Pontas examines the arguments in a dispute that has been raging in French legal doctrine since medieval times over the competence of women in arbitration, and the contradictory legal grounds for excluding them as unfit, or, on the contrary, recognising their excellence. This controversy, which the jurist Antoine Loisel echoed in his Institutes coutumières (1607) with the adage: ‘Women have voice and responsibility in court and so receive bets and arbitration’, continued unabated until the dawn of the 20th century. The question of the introduction of women to the bar and the judiciary overshadowed this initial dispute, which prefigured it on a strictly discursive level, but which we propose to examine here from the definitive condemnation of women's arbitration at the dawn of the 17th century to the eve of the French Revolution. At a time when the practice of female arbitration was declining and disappearing under the blows of the jurisprudence of the Parlement de Paris in 1602 and 1603, the motif of ‘the woman arbitrator’ was being used in legal doctrine, as a pretext for describing her qualities and faults. Transposing the women's quarrel from the literary register to legal works, this debate helped to identify a representation of female heroism in the modern era, paving the way for the crystallisation of a claim that would lead to the emergence of women's rights from the French Revolution onwards. The controversy thus fostered the expression of an alternative discourse to those relating to the (in)legal capacity of married women or the exclusion of women from public magistracies, testifying to the heterogeneous positions of French jurists on this sensitive issue.
Histoire du droit et « théorie du gender ». Les approches critiques du genre (Pierre-Anne Forcadet)
DOI 10.4000/1407a
Abstract:
The article aims to confront gender studies with their critics that come from legal historians based upon a so-called “gender theory”. The scientific legitimacy itself is often questioned with accusation of lack of objectivity, but the debate lies essentially around the neo-jusnaturalism of most of the authors defending a symbolical order, that enters in contradiction with modern society and the recent turn in favour of gender studies in french legal history.
Renouveler les méthodes de recherche grâce aux concepts issus des études de genre
Décrypter l’expression linguistique et la représentation textuelle dans les sources du droit (Caroline Laske)
DOI 10.4000/1407b
Abstract:
This paper proposes textual representation as a conceptual tool for researching women’s legal capacity by placing language (both the explicit discourse and the encoded meanings) at the centre of the study. The hypothesis is that a major element of the reality of women’s legal capacity lies in the experience of the attitudes/biases women face, which impose constraints on their capacity to act with legal authority. To achieve an all-round understanding of that reality, there is a need to go beyond the normative framework that can be found in the legal/administrative sources and examine these for the linguistic expression used to regulate women’s legal status and their legal capacity to act.
Le rôle du langage ordinaire dans la subversion du droit, un défi pour l’épistémologie juridique : analyse de processus de renversement et de resignification du droit du mariage (1960-2013) (Elena Mascarenhas)
DOI 10.4000/1407c
Abstract:
This article explains the mechanisms by which ordinary language subverts positive law in a case study devoted to marriage law between the 1960s and 2013. By comparing the evolution of norms with that of the the vocabulary of unions, it identifies two subversive processes: renversement and resignification. This juridical study feeds its approach with analytical philosophy (Austin) and social philosophy (Wittig, Butler, Haslanger), which enables it to refine the theoretical understanding of the discursive subversion of law and tends to challenge the boundaries of juridicity. At a time when legal language is defined as a specialised language in the image of the law, the legal sciences are invited to think of ordinary language as a source of knowledge about the law, and to draw the consequences for legal epistemology.
Une approche juridique et féministe de la maternité : étude au prisme du genre de De la condition légale de la mère (1890) par Sarmiza Bilcescu (Ophélie Colomb)
DOI 10.4000/1407d
Abstract:
In 1890, Sarmiza Bilcescu (1867-1935) was the first woman in France to be awarded a doctorate in law. A pioneering figure in her field, she remains invisible in legal history research, and more specifically in the history of legal thought. This article aims to bring her writings out of oblivion through an analysis of her thesis De la condition légale de la mère, taking into account gender as a structuring element of her legal discourse. To this end, Sarmiza Bilcescu’s thesis must be seen in the light of the context in which it was written and published. Her subject – maternity in civil law – places her at the crossroads of law and feminism at the end of the nineteenth century. For her, it was also a question of entering the world of law, then closed to women. In this way, her arguments in favor of a moderate reform of the mother’s legal status – against a backdrop of morality, the essentialization of maternity and, of course, civil law, the technique of which she mastered perfectly – become clearer. Her approach to motherhood can thus be understood in the light of a historically situated and embodied discourse: that of a bourgeois woman, pioneer in her field and forced to come to terms with the institution she aspired to conquer.
Genre et discours pénal : la bigamie dans la doctrine juridique européenne de l’époque moderne (XVI-XVIIIe siècle) (Tanguy Le Marc'hadour)
DOI 10.4000/1407e
Abstract:
This study attempts to trace the evolution of European criminal doctrine (Italy, Spain, Germany, the Netherlands, France) from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries in relation to the crime of bigamy, which seemed relevant for a study of legal discourse from a gender perspective. The legal existence of the crime of bigamy, hitherto little studied, depends mainly on doctrinal writings, and the study seeks to identify the differences in the discourse concerning men and women. It shows that the two different criminal qualifications for women and men found in the Roman texts were transformed by doctrine into a single, sexually undifferentiated offence in the modern period, while paradoxically maintaining a gendered apprehension in the degree of repression, in accordance with the expected social roles of women and men.
De maîtresse à domestique. La circonstance aggravante de « vol dans une auberge » au prisme du genre (1799-1815) (Prune Decoux)
DOI 10.4000/1407g
Abstract:
This article examines the concept of theft and, more specifically, one of its aggravating circumstances, theft from an inn. While the law of 16 December 1799 provided for an aggravation of the punishment if the theft was committed by the 'master or mistress of the inn', the penal code of 1810 took up this circumstance, masculinising it by removing the term 'mistress'. A study of the text and the debates reveals the performativity of the language of the law and its role in the gender order: the doctrine points to a ruling that chooses the qualification of 'domestic theft' and makes the wife of an innkeeper a 'servant' rather than a 'mistress' - although there was nothing to prevent this. Under the umbrella of the supposedly universal masculine, women are made invisible and denied the status to which they are not explicitly entitled.
Le divorce de Napoléon par sénatus-consulte, les droits d’une épouse sacrifiés sur l’autel de la nécessité (Ambre Jarassier)
DOI 10.4000/1407f
Abstract:
Inspired by ancient Rome, the Napoleonic senatus-consulte is a legal norm drafted by the conservative Senate under the aegis of Napoleon. This text embodies a norm that is both contra legem and contra constitutionem. The dissolution of the marriage between Napoleon and Josephine was contrary to the articles of the Civil Code concerning divorce by mutual consent. Joséphine's rights were violated. Moreover, the senatus-consulte violated article 14 of the Imperial Constitution of Floréal 28, Year XII, which provided for the establishment of a statute relating to the imperial family. The latter, dated March 30, 1806, prohibits divorce for all members of the imperial family, including the Emperor. Such violations were justified by necessity: the continuity of the Empire depended on the birth of an imperial prince. Joséphine would thus be responsible for the absence of a male heir, according to the Emperor and the Senate. The senatus-consulte, the Emperor's political weapon, crossed a new threshold with Napoleon's divorce. Whereas this senatorial norm had hitherto been used in the context of public law to further the Emperor's designs, it now came to regulate private law and provoke Empress Josephine's vulnerability.
Surveiller les femmes incarcérées en maison centrale. La construction d’une différenciation de la surveillance pénitentiaire au XIXe siècle (Amélie Imbert et Anne Jennequin)
DOI 10.4000/1407h
Abstract:
This article challenges the androcentric perspective that has historically and currently dominated representations of prisons, focusing on the issue of the surveillance of female prisoners in the 19th century. In France, during the July Monarchy, a prison policy aimed at segregating inmates by sex established the principle that female convicts in central detention and correctional facilities should be supervised by individuals of the same sex. The Sisters’ Service Regulations of 22 May 1841 helped to achieve this, by establishing the involvement of specific staff, namely nuns. These regulations contributed to the creation of a specific organisation for women's prisons, reconfiguring the function of surveillance by distinguishing it from that performed by guards in men’s prisons. This article sheds light on the specific nature of the role assigned to these nuns, highlighting that the conditions for a special 'prison education' for female prisoners were established on religious grounds. The introduction of differentiated prison supervision for men and women had a lasting impact on the organisation of penal institutions and their staffing.
Surveiller les femmes incarcérées en maison centrale. La construction d’une différenciation de la surveillance pénitentiaire au XIXe siècle (Amélie Imbert & Anne Jennequin)
DOI 10.4000/1407h
Abstract:
This article challenges the androcentric perspective that has historically and currently dominated representations of prisons, focusing on the issue of the surveillance of female prisoners in the 19th century. In France, during the July Monarchy, a prison policy aimed at segregating inmates by sex established the principle that female convicts in central detention and correctional facilities should be supervised by individuals of the same sex. The Sisters’ Service Regulations of 22 May 1841 helped to achieve this, by establishing the involvement of specific staff, namely nuns. These regulations contributed to the creation of a specific organisation for women's prisons, reconfiguring the function of surveillance by distinguishing it from that performed by guards in men’s prisons. This article sheds light on the specific nature of the role assigned to these nuns, highlighting that the conditions for a special 'prison education' for female prisoners were established on religious grounds. The introduction of differentiated prison supervision for men and women had a lasting impact on the organisation of penal institutions and their staffing.
Éradiquer l’homosexualité en prison. Le fondement hétéronormatif de l’encellulement individuel (Quentin Markarian)
DOI 10.4000/1407j
Abstract:
The principle of cell imprisonment was introduced into French law on the 5th of June 1875. Inextricably linked to the nineteenth century reform of the penitentiary system, this model of imprisonment aimed to replace collective dormitories with individual cells. From the Restoration to the Third Republic, this shift in regime was supported for its ability to eradicate homosexuality in prison. The sexual obsession and panic provoked by the “capital vice of communal dormitories” are especially evident in the writings of penal science, government inquiries, as well as parliamentary works and debates that gave rise to the law of June 5, 1875. Historically built on a heteronormative discourse, the cell remains a legal and architectural pillar of contemporary penal prisons.
Esquisse d’une approche intersectionnelle de la loi du 15 mars 2004 sur le port de signes ou de tenues manifestant une appartenance religieuse dans les écoles, collèges et lycées publics (Marc Thérage)
DOI 10.4000/1407i
Abstract:
The law of 15 March 2004 on the wearing of signs or outfits demonstrating a religious affiliation in public primary and secondary schools is presented by the legislator as a simple application of the principle of secularism. The title of the law only mentions the principle of secularism while parliamentarians insist during debates on gender equality, affirming that this text has the main target – if not the only one – of prohibiting wearing a headscarf in public primary and secondary schools. Since 2004, gender and the supposed religion of racialised women thus appear curiously linked. Drawing on the intersectional approach of Kimberley Crenshaw, enlarged by postcolonial studies, this critique of the 2004 law – presented as « against Muslim headscarves » – and of the discourses surrounding it, makes it possible to underline the existence of a legal discrimination against women of color who live a specific discriminatory experience based on gender, skin colour and/or real or supposed religion, an imaginary split within nationals by distinguishing those who have parents or grandparents who immigrated to France from former colonised territories, age, social condition and/or place of residence as evidence of original social background … The apparent neutrality of the text of the 2004 law conceals a combination of discriminatory factors. This text, both racist and antifeminist, consecrates a white and male subjectivity, yet presented as non-racial, non-gendered and objective.
Discours écoféministes et droit de l'environnement : chassez le naturel ? (Romain Gosse)
DOI 10.4000/1407k
Abstract:
Ecofeminist thoughts have emerged during the seventies, aiming at highlighting the joint domination on feminine gender and nature. Yet, developping at the same time, modern environmental law does not seem to have been influenced by these ideas. Also, contrary to the anglophone legal academic field, the french doctrine has not adressed this crossing – though ecofeminism has been generating a renewed interest over the last few years. Thus, this contribution would propose a few trails of possible convergence between some ecofeminist discourses and some distinctive features or trends of environmental law, which also show potential criticisms against this area of law.
L’influence éparse de l’approche féministe sur la réforme du droit international des investissements (Sanae Boyayachen)
DOI 10.4000/1407l
Abstract:
Faced with feminist demands which are developing a new approach to law, a restructuring taking into account feminism takes on particular meaning in the reforms of various sectors and in particular the overhaul of international investment law. Our article will attempt to analyze the emerging foundations of a feminist perspective on international investment law aimed at reforming the framework of the legal system of international investments. In this regard, our contribution will analyze the reform of international investment law through the prism of the feminist approach and will explain its issues and its orientations in all the strata of a reforming turn via a legal culture propagated by a heterogeneity of apprehension of the gender approach.
Read the whole journal in open access here: DOI 10.4000/1407m.
The eighth biennial conference of the European Society for Comparative Legal History will commence in exactly one week at the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences of the University of Szeged. Dr. Norbert Varga and his team will host more than thirty panels, welcome two keynote speakers, and organize a PhD workshop for early career researchers
The full schedule as well as practical guidelines can be found on the organizer's website. The organisation has dedicated a special page to travel arrangements.
Abstract:
This study offers a comprehensive analysis of utilitas, a central concept in Roman law, and its pivotal role in shaping legal interpretation. Moving beyond its traditional view as a merely pragmatic tool, utilitas is shown to guide legal outcomes that not only address practical needs but also align with broader ethical values of righteousness and justice. It argues that a complete understanding of utilitas in legal reasoning – both in meaning and function – can only be achieved by synthesizing jurisprudential, philosophical, and rhetorical perspectives. Through this interdisciplinary lens the book demonstrates that decisions made utilitatis causa, exceptional in their departure from established legal rules, can only be fully understood through the lens of rhetorical theory of legal interpretation, offering a framework that transcends the limitations of literal interpretation. Contributing to ongoing scholarly discourse in Roman law, legal theory, and philosophy, this study provides fresh insights into a concept that remains central to contemporary discussions of legal interpretation and justice.
On the author:
Joanna Kulawiak-Cyrankowska is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Roman Law at the University of Lodz, Poland, where she teaches Roman Law and Latin. She holds a doctorate in Law and a Master's degree in Classical Philology. Currently, Kulawiak-Cyrankowska is the principal investigator of the Polish National Science Centre-funded project „In a Distorting Mirror? Law as Presented in Roman Satire“. She is also a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bamberg, Germany, contributing to the ERC Consolidator Grant-funded project „Understanding Late Antique Top-Down Communication: A Study of Imperial Constitutions (AntCoCo)“.
Read more here.
Abstract:
This book is an account of the tension between the need for order and the desire for freedom during the tense years of the Weimar Republic. It explains how various groups interpreted Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution and utilized it to reinstate peace and tranquility. While Article 48 is usually associated with the so-called “Preußenschlag”—the taking over of the Prussian government by the order of Reich Chancelor Kurt von Papen—it had been introduced as a necessity during earlier “states of emergency”. This investigation delves into the relevant works by many of the leading constitutional scholars in Germany. This list includes Hugo Preuss, Carl Schmitt, Hans Kelsen, Gerhard Anschütz, Richard Thoma, Erwin Jacobi, Hans Nawiasky, and Richard Grau. This book is a clearly written and detailed account of the history surrounding this debate about the appropriate emergency measures to be taken under Article 48. The work is important for its historical interest, and also because the conflict between authority and freedom has continuing relevance. The book will be a valuable resource for researchers and academics working in the areas of Legal History, Legal Philosophy, Legal Theory, Constitutional History, and German Studies.
Table of contents:
1 Dictatorship, States of Exception, and Art. 48; 2 1918-1919: The Years of Struggle and Renewal; 31920-1922: The Years of Political and Economic Turmoil; 41923-1926: The Years of Despair and Hope; 5 1927-1929: The Years of Peace and Panic; 6 1930-1933: The Years of Debate and Debacle; 7 Art. 48: Concluding Comments
On the author:
Christopher Adair-Toteff is a philosopher and a social theorist whose research has been in social economics and in political liberalism. He is a Fellow at the Center for Social and Political Thought, University of South Florida, USA.
Educated as a lawyer and legal historian, Eric Ketelaar received his LLM (1967) and LLD (cum laude) degrees from Leiden University. His previous functions were Assistant Lecturer of Legal History at Leiden University, Secretary of the Archives Council, Director of the Dutch State School of Archivists, and Assistant to the General State Archivist. He was General State Archivist (National Archivist) of the Netherlands from 1989-1997. Eric Ketelaar was 1992-2002 part-time Professor of Archivistics in the Department of History of the University of Leiden. He wrote some 400 articles in Dutch, English, French and German (some of which were translated into other languages) and he wrote or co-authored several books.
The article examines a digitized criminal sentence book (1692-1698) of the Court of Friesland, assessing the effectiveness of digital tools such as Atlas.ti and QGIS in the analysis of large datasets. The sentence book serves as a test case in this analysis. The study identifies patterns in the number of defendants, their geographical origins, the nature of the crimes, the convictions and the punishments imposed, including banishment and the death penalty. Atlas.ti demonstrates clear advantages by allowing for the automated organization and quantification of data, although early modern texts still pose challenges due to spelling variation. Nonetheless, its potential becomes evident when standardized codes are applied. QGIS proved especially useful in visualizing the geographical origins of defendants, enabling analysis by gender and type of offense through layered maps. This case study underscores the enduring relevance of legal historical research, even in the age of digital tools.
The text of art. 5 par. 1 sub 1 of the Civil Code 1838 was confusing. Deviating from earlier drafts in 1822 it read that people, born from parents established in the colonies, were Dutch. Leaving aside that all read this as only applying to those who had moved their domicile to the Netherlands (the Civil Code did not apply in the colonies), and that this only regarded private law rights, granted by the Civil Code, it still suggested that not only Europeans but also the natives of the colonies born there, particularly in the East Indies, were entitled. That became a question in 1850 when the Nationality Bill was discussed in the Parliament. Where the Civil Code had defined nationality for the private law, the Bill aimed at defining nationality in public and international law. Did the possibility of private law nationality suffice to incorporate all natives in the new public law nationality? The minister was against and they stayed out. In the Act on Dutch nationality of 1892, meant to supplant the two co-existing definitions of nationality, originally those with the possibility of private law nationality ex the Civil Code had been included in the unified nationality. Yet, in the nick of time an amendment took the natives of the East Indies out. As a result the act should have been adapted to this change but it did not and now the natives of the East Indies became foreigners. In 1910 this was remedied by an act which declared they were Dutch subjects (and thus not foreigners). However, they had always been and remained subjects. The final question is: were the natives unjustly treated? Only if they had ever expressed the wish for this. But the entire discussion was held without them and moreover, they always wanted to be independent, not Dutch.
This article explores the dynamics of court practice with regard to mercantile pre-insolvency in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Belgium. In 1883, the Belgian legislature introduced the proceeding of concordat préventif, making it possible for insolvent entrepreneurs to remain outside the liquidation-oriented procedure of faillite. Instead, they could declare their financial problems and propose a scheme of payment to their creditors. In spite of this goal, however, the 1883 law, along with subsequent laws of 1885 and 1887, imposed high majority voting requirements. Accordingly, in the Antwerp commercial court, the shortcomings of the legislation were amended to ameliorate its procedural and judicial practice. The new practices of the court resulted in higher rates of acceptance of applications. However, these success ratios were not evenly distributed among the groups of debtors who applied. Perceptions shared by both creditors and judges may have advantaged merchants, brokers and entrepreneurs who belonged to the higher strata of the city’s business world.
René Magrittes ‘Les jours gigantesques’. Un féministe avant la lettre? (Candice Dalino)
DOI 10.5117/PROM2025.1.006.DALI
Abstract:
Can art provide a force to social reflection and shaping, that abstract laws and policy-making cannot reach? René Magritte (1898-1967), Belgian surrealist painter, touches upon the driving force towards a more equal society with his exploration of (gender-based) violence and sexuality. Les jours gigantesques (1928) depicts a scene of sexual abuse: a man with invisible face attempts to unwittingly overpower a naked woman. It forms a particularly dark, disturbing, and frightening image that causes a shock to the viewer. Magritte confronts the viewer with the societal position of (Belgian) women during the Interbellum: victim of not merely brutal shocking violence, but of a broader inequality that is deeply rooted in our society. This article explores how Magritte’s oeuvre is a carrier of an intrinsic force that directly causes an action (shock) in the viewers’ sphere and brings them to a higher consciousness. An analysis of Les jours gigantesques and related works unveils how René Magritte wields this shock to a higher consciousness towards the (surrealist) image of women as sexual, subordinate objects of lust. The artist’s intention to generate a greater social consciousness of (formal) equality between men and women, situated within the prevailing patriarchal zeitgeist in 1928, leads this article to see Magritte as ‘un féministe avant la lettre’.
Book reviews
Abstract:
This book highlights the ideological aspects influencing the modern shape of private law in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE), examining Poland as a representative example given the shared historical trajectory of the 20th century across this region. In the historico-legal literature currently in international circulation, there is a dearth of studies on the development of modern positive law in CEE countries. This volume therefore aims to bridge this gap and deliver a more profound reflection on the long-term social, economic, and political role of private law in this region.
On the editors:
Anna Machnikowska, Dr.iur. (2000), Dr.habil.iur. (2011), is Professor at the University of Gdańsk and Chair of the Department of Civil Procedure. She specialises in property law, justice systems, and political doctrine in the twentieth century. Michał Gałędek, Dr.iur. (2010), Dr.habil.iur. (2018), is Professor and Chair of the Department of Legal History at the University of Gdańsk, and Vice-President for Science at the Polish Society for Legal History. His most recent monograph is National Tradition or Western Pattern: Concepts of New Administrative System for the Congress Kingdom of Poland (1814–1815) (Brill, 2021). Rafał Mańko, Dr.iur. (2014), Dr. habil.iur. (2019), is Research Affiliate at the Central Eastern European University Democracy Institute. His main areas of research are legal survivals, the theory of adjudication, and Central European legal identity.
Read more here: DOI 10.1163/9789004730021.
Pour la première fois depuis plus de deux siècles, le Corpus Juris Civilis – fondement du droit occidental – bénéficie d’une traduction française intégrale entièrement renouvelée.
Grace à Dominique Gaurier, maître de conférences,
et éminent spécialiste de droit romain et de culture juridique antique, cette
édition représente bien plus qu’une simple mise à jour :
➡️ Elle restitue avec
rigueur philologique et exigence doctrinale la pensée juridique romaine dans un
français contemporain, accessible sans être appauvri.
➡️ Elle propose un
appareil critique actualisé, ancré dans l’état le plus récent de la recherche
sur les sources, les contextes historiques et l’interprétation juridique.
➡️ Elle s’adresse aussi
bien aux juristes, historiens, enseignants et chercheurs, qu’aux étudiants et
lecteurs cultivés soucieux de comprendre les racines de notre droit.
Cette traduction permet enfin de lire Justinien –
et les jurisconsultes qui le précèdent – sans filtre littéraire obsolète, sans
archaïsmes, sans effets de style surannés.
Elle rétablit l’intelligence du texte originel, sa
rigueur interne, et son actualité dans la formation de la pensée juridique
moderne.
Une
œuvre de référence. Une entreprise intellectuelle majeure.
Colloque junior, CHSP, Sciences Po Paris, 27-28 November 2025
Abstracts submission deadline: 10 August 2025
Contact: [email protected]
Co-funded by Sciences Po School of Research and the Centre for History and Economics in Paris.
Organising committee: Clarisse ANCEAU (École de Droit SciencesPo); Lorenzo BONOMELLI (CHSP/SSM Naples); Amina HASSANI (École de Droit SciencesPo/Geneva); Conor MULLER (Oxford/CHSP); Giovanni ROGGIA (CHSP/Univ. Roma Tre).
Scientific committee : Daniela Luigia CAGLIOTI (Univ. Federico II Napoli); Jean D’ASPREMONT (École de droit Sciences Po/Manchester); Renaud MORIEUX (Cambridge); Horatia MUIR WATT (École de droit Sciences Po); Paul André ROSENTAL (CHSP); David TODD (CHSP-CHEP); Dina WAKED (École de droit/École de la recherche Sciences Po).
Duration: 1.5 days (one afternoon and one full day)
Participants: 9–12 PhD candidates and early career scholars
Proposal
We invite submissions for a conference exploring the role of invisible actors in the making and the transformation of international law from the mid-eighteenth to the twentieth century.
By invisible actors, we refer to individuals, groups and non-human agents (Latour, 2005) that have remained absent from dominant research frameworks within historical and international legal scholarship and who do not appear – or appear only tangentially – in the sources traditionally used by historians of international law such as treaties, state papers, and legal literature. The aim is to contribute to the writing of new histories and genealogies of international law by shifting the focus toward those whose roles have been marginalised or neglected in existing narratives. Participants are invited to explore the role of actors and stakeholders at all levels, from individuals, transnational movements, and interest groups to corporations and non-governmental bodies.
By making international law, we mean a broad understanding that goes beyond the formal adoption of legal norms. It encompasses practices, and interpretations, but also moments when international law is invoked, applied and thereby continuously (re)produced.
We seek contributions examining how these actors established and challenged norms, customs, and institutions. Submissions should adopt a historical perspective, situating these transformations within their broader historical context. They are expected to examine the causes and consequences of these changes, their interactions with wider historical phenomena, and the continuities and ruptures they reveal in relation to earlier and later developments.
By combining and encouraging dialogue, connections, and comparisons between historical and other social scientific approaches, we aim to historicise the making of international law. Submissions from specialists and non-specialists in law and legal history alike are equally welcome.
Scope and objectives
In the last decades, the study of international law has transcended state-centric approaches and legal formalism, incorporating a variety of new actors, spaces, and topics (Fassbender and Peters 2012; Becker Lorca 2015; Herzog 2018). This conference expands on these approaches by bringing into view invisible actors and their contributions to the making of international law.
Therefore, we will focus on the epoch between the middle of the eighteenth century and the end of the twentieth, a period characterised by growing interconnectedness and radical political and economic change. The event will examine how actors operating at different scales and spaces – from the local to the global – interacted to shape norms, practices, and customs into law (Benton 2001; Dezalay 2025; Hespanha 2025). As such, papers might explore the formal and informal ordering of exchanges, movements, and relationships into overarching systems of rule, negotiation, and coercion across and between legal jurisdictions (Benton and Ford 2016; Morieux and Mulich 2024).
Themes and topics
The historical development of international law will be investigated through the contributions of individuals, groups, and non-human agents, including – but not limited to – organisations, such as NGOs, trade unions, professional associations, corporations, as well as communities, economic and financial actors, and minorities, but also elements of nature and (im)material objects.
We will explore the regulatory frameworks that have emerged to manage connections and flows across and within borders. How and why did actors participate in regulating – or not regulating – these exchanges? And how did their practices impact regional and global orders?
We welcome contributions addressing the following thematic areas:
We also encourage submissions on subjects not directly included in these thematic areas, but which engage with the general topic and questions of the conference.
Methodological framework
Presenters should contribute to the conference’s interdisciplinary approach, drawing from and sharing their expertise in diverse fields such as history, law, international relations, and political science. Participants may employ a variety of methodologies, including case studies, comparative and connected analyses, and theoretical reflections. The convenors will be particularly keen to host papers presenting unexplored bodies of primary sources, or that investigate traditional sources of international legal history from new angles. Contributions that connect different scales of analysis, including the local and regional as well as the national, imperial, and global, are especially welcome. Panels will be formed thematically but will include speakers from a mixture of disciplines, and participants should be prepared to discuss their particular methodology, sources, and approach to their topic in relation to those developed and deployed by other speakers.
Submission guidelines
This conference is specifically designed to provide a platform for PhD candidates and early career scholars to share their research, receive feedback, and engage in meaningful dialogue with peers and senior academics.
Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be submitted by 10th August. Please include a title, your name, institutional affiliation, contact information, and a short bio. Submissions should be sent to [email protected].
Selected participants will be notified by 20th September and will be asked to send a short paper (no more than 2,500 words, excluding bibliographical references) by 7th November. All papers will be pre-circulated internally among the participants to encourage discussion.
Each participant will have 15 minutes to present their paper. Each panel, consisting of three or four participants each addressing a related issue or time period, will allow substantial time for debate with two discussants (established scholars in the fields of history and law) and the audience.
The conference will be held in English.
Selected participants will be invited to seek funding from their own institutions to cover travel and accommodation expenses. Depending on the funding available, the organisers may be able to partially contribute to the expenses of participants who have no other sources of support. There will be no registration or participation fees for the conference.
A publication collecting the contributions to the conference is envisaged.
Works cited
Becker Lorca, Arnulf. 2015. Mestizo International Law: A Global Intellectual History 1842–1933. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Benton, Lauren. 2001. Law and Colonial Cultures: Legal Regimes in World History, 1400–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Benton, Lauren, and Lisa Ford. 2016. Rage for Order: The British Empire and the Origins of International Law, 1800–1850. Cambridge-London: Harvard University Press.
Dezalay, Sara. 2025. Lawyering Imperial Encounters: Negotiating Africa’s Relationship with the World Economy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fassbender, Bardo, and Anne Peters. eds. 2012. The Oxford Handbook of the History of International Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Herzog, Tamar. 2018. A Short History of European Law: The Last Two and a Half Millennia. Harvard: Harvard University Press.
Hespanha, António Manuel. 2025. Filhos da Terra. Mestizos Identities at the Margins of Portuguese Imperial Expansion. Leiden: Brill.
Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Morieux, Renaud, and Jeppe Mulich. eds. 2024. ‘Ordering the Oceans, Ordering the World’. Past & Present 265, supplement 17 (special issue).
(source: International Law Reporter)
Abstract:
This symposium is funded by a Junior Fellowship grant from the University of Bayreuth Centre of International Excellence “Alexander von Humboldt” [https://www.humboldt-centre.uni-bayreuth.de/en/index.html]. It will bring together scholars working on legal history or any aspects related to the teaching of legal disciplines in a historical context, contributing to the intellectual history of this field. While the conference focuses on identifying the intellectual contexts in which legal history developed, it also considers social aspects, as ideas do not exist independently of people.
Program:
1. The Use of History in the Theory and Practice of Law: Codification, Concepts, and Origins
2. Theology, Medicine, History, and Legal Studies: Early Modern Knowledge Paradigms
3. Actors of Exchange: Influential Legal Historians and the Legacy of Their Concepts
4. The History of Teaching Legal History: Temporality and Spatiality in Academia
Keynote Speakers:
- Heikki Pihlajamäki, University of Helsinki: How legal histories are written: codification, modernization and taxonomy of law
- Sören Koch, University of Bergen: Changing perspectives on the sources of and reasons for legal historical research – A Scandinavian case study
More information here.
(source: Legal History Blog)
Das europäische Privatrecht hat sich in den letzten 100 Jahren vom Liberalen zum Sozialen Privatrecht entwickelt. Die Grundlagen hierfür wurden im deutsch-französisch-italienischen Diskurs der Zwischenkriegszeit gelegt. Weitere maßgebliche Impulse erfolgten im Faschismus und im Zuge der Europäischen Integration der drei Staaten nach 1945. Die Genese des heutigen Sozialen Privatrechts ist erstmals umfassend analysiert und im Rahmen trilateraler Konferenzen in der Villa Vigoni diskutiert worden. Dieser zweite von drei daraus hervorgehenden Bänden beschäftigt sich mit der Bedeutung der juristischen "Achse Berlin–Rom" ("Asse Roma–Berlino") für diese Entwicklung.
Read more here.
Depuis la Restauration, les procès politiques abondent. Certains sont affichés comme politiques par les pouvoirs en place, d'autres sont jugés ordinaires, mais dits politiques par les accusés. Pierre Allorant revient sur plusieurs cas retentissants, du procès de Béranger au procès du Petit-Clamart. Plusieurs procès impliquant des personnalités qui occupent une place de premier plan dans notre vie publique défraient actuellement la chronique. L’attention est donc attirée, comme souvent, sur la question des rapports entre la justice et la politique, tels qu’ils se concentrent dans le prétoire ; une question qui est importante sous tous les régimes et qui est essentielle en démocratie. L'histoire des procès politiques remonte à l'Antiquité, où celui de l'orateur grec Démosthène ou de Cicéron poursuivant le haut-fonctionnaire corrompu Verrès ont défrayé la chronique. Plus près de nous, parmi la profusion de cas proposés par l’Histoire, on pourra citer le procès de Galilée, celui des Templiers, celui de Jeanne d'Arc ou de Louis XVI, et au 20e siècle, les procès staliniens de Moscou et jusqu'à la répression qui a frappé en 2023 Jimmy Lai et les militants d'opposition à Hong Kong.
Pour évoquer l'histoire des procès politiques en France depuis deux siècles, Jean-Noël Jeanneney s'entretient avec l'historien Pierre Allorant, spécialiste d'histoire politique, co-directeur d'un ouvrage collectif sur ce thème. Ensemble, ils reviennent sur l’équilibre incertain qui peut s’établir entre l'autorité judiciaire et le pouvoir politique, tels que les définissait Montesquieu. Et évoquent les conséquences de ces procès, qui ont régulièrement pesé sur les régimes successifs et sur les libertés, qu’elles soient assurées ou entravées. Au cours de cet échange, il est d'abord question de surmonter un obstacle central : la difficulté d’une définition de ce qui est politique et de ce qui ne l’est pas, la frontière se montrant souvent incertaine et fluctuante. Les accusateurs et les accusés, chacun dans leur rôle, diffèrent d’ordinaire sur ce point, ce qui concerne directement la légitimité du verdict et, après coup, sa portée historique. Au cours de deux siècles d'histoire de France, Jean-Noël Jeanneney et Pierre Allorant reviennent sur divers cas retentissants qui ont marqué d’autant plus l’opinion et la mémoire qu’ils sont survenus dans des temps troublés dont ils ont reflété les incertitudes. Et analysent aussi la violence venue s’inviter au tribunal.
Archives in the broadcast:
- Les Actualités Mondiales sur le procès de Riom, diffusées le 22 janvier 1942 ; suivie de l'archive Gaumont pour Les Actualités françaises, années 1950.
- Extrait d'un entretien d'Alain Bosquet avec Jacques Isorni sur les procès politiques, dans "Paradoxes" sur France culture le 22 septembre 1970.
- Lectures d'extraits de Souvenirs et solitude de Jean Zay (écrits en 1940 et 1942), avec les interprètes Pierre Baux et Benoît Giros, diffusés dans "Le Feuilleton" sur France culture, le 25 mars 2013.
- Chanson "Le marquis de Carabas" de Béranger (se moque des émigrés de retour d'exil), novembre 1816, air du roi Dagobert, interprétée par Jacques Provins, diffusée dans "Paul Louis Courier : curieux homme, curieuse mort" de Jean Rabaut sur France culture, le 18 mai 1972.
- Entretien avec Henri Martin par Antoine Spire (2e partie), dans "A voix nue : grands entretiens d'hier et d'aujourd'hui" sur France culture, le 17 septembre 1996
À partir de l’histoire des polémiques intellectuelles qui ont marqué l’émergence et l’évolution du concept de Constitution économique, l’ouvrage vise à saisir sous un jour nouveau les controverses décisives qui entourent, aujourd’hui encore, l’organisation juridique de l’économie. La thèse dont est issu cet ouvrage a reçu le prix Jean Carbonnier 2024 de l'Institut des études et de la recherche sur le droit et la justice.
Read more here.
Abstract:
The New Kingdom of Granada tells the history of the making and unmaking of empire in the diverse and decentralized Indigenous landscapes of the Northern Andes. Santiago Muñoz-Arbeláez examines the intricate and disputed processes that reshaped the peoples and landscapes of present-day Colombia into a kingdom within the global Spanish monarchy. Drawing on correspondence, visitation reports, judicial records, maps, textiles, and accounting and legal documents created by Europeans and Indigenous peoples, Muñoz-Arbeláez outlines the painstaking century-long effort between 1530 and 1630 to consolidate the kingdom. A diverse group of people that included Indigenous interpreters, scribes, and intellectuals spearheaded these projects, which eventually expanded colonial control outward from its base in the highland Andean plateaus down to the lowland river valleys. Meanwhile, autonomous Indigenous political projects constantly threatened imperial rule, as rebels often encircled the kingdom and seized the corridors that linked it to Spain. By foregrounding the kingdom’s difficult establishment and tenuous hold on power, Muñoz-Arbeláez challenges traditional understandings of imperial politics and the myriad ways Indigenous peoples participated in, disputed, and negotiated the establishment of colonial rule.
On the author:
Santiago Muñoz-Arbeláez is Assistant Professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin.
Table of contents:
A Note on Terminology ix
Introduction. A Kingdom in the Mountains 1
Part I. Producing Indios 21
1. Labyrinths of Conquest 25
2. A Kingdom of Paper 47
3. The Fabric of Kingdom 77
Part II. Indigenous Freedom 107
4. Devouring the Empire 113
5. A Mestizo Cacique 143
6. An Indigenous Intellectual in King Philip’s Court 161
Part III. New Imperial Designs 191
7. Landscapes of Property 197
8. Imperial Alchemy 223
Epilogue 245
Acknowledgments 253
Notes 255
Bibliography 281Index 307
Abstract:
L’Esquisse d’une phénoménologie du droit reste un ouvrage peu connu de la pensée d’Alexandre Kojève dont l’originalité sur des questions de théorie du droit, de philosophie et de théorie politique continue d’alimenter les débats contemporains.
More information here: DOI 10.48611/isbn.978-2-406-17867-5.
Ius Commune Workshop on Comparative Legal History
Ius Commune in the Making: Meaning in Law
27 November 2025
The 29th Ius
Commune Conference will take place in Amsterdam (27-28 November 2025), and a
Workshop will be devoted to “Meaning in Law.”
The workshops
on “Comparative Legal History – Ius Commune in the Making” aim to reveal and
understand the nature and effects of various legal formants in the development
of law. Indeed, forces of legal formants are too often lost or hidden beneath a
superficies of commonalities. History is a living laboratory. In the past, we
explored the role of legal actors (2014), legal sources (2016), force of local
laws (2017), methods and dynamics of law (2018), networks (2019), paradigmatic
shifts (2020), great debates in the history of law (2021), the concept of
innovation in law (2023), and manifestations of nature in law (2024).
This upcoming
workshop is dedicated to the different conceptions of “meaning” in law. What is
understood by meaning? On a working level, it may be taken up as “interpretation”
of rules or juridical acts, or as “qualification” of facts. There it provides
for a wide realm of comparative historical research. It does cover in essence everything,
concerning individual and societal intention and action - and whatever over
time is part of the legal domain. Legal methodology is just around the corner,
and so is political philosophy - to any individual person, or to institutions
such as legislators, judges, and professors. To get to the meaning of a
legislative, judicial, or jurisprudential norm: why are some schools of
thought, such as textualism, originalism, contextualism, or sociological
jurisprudence, preferred over others?
Maxims or principles
enlighten the cobbled roads towards meaning in law. In claris cessat interpretatio - if words are clear, interpretation
stops; even so: though the Praetor’s edict could be perfectly clear, still its
interpretation should not be neglected, Ulpian makes clear (D 25.4.1.11).
Matters not dealt with in law, may be derived by analogy - Julian (D 1.3.12) -
if such makes sense in the light of what has been prescribed. At the same time,
concepts may have a range of consecutive (legal history) and parallel
(comparative law) meanings in the legal domain - even in the same society or
jurisdiction. Contracts have been similarly understood based on texts or
contexts; understanding contracts gave birth to similar maxims, which
methodological toolboxes show, albeit with large differences, both of the civil
law and the common law traditions. The meaning of a rule or a fact is, however,
not only determined by the method of logical and/or empirical reasoning - but
also by (tradition of) explicit consensus, customs, and religion. Is there a
hierarchy? In any way - all modes of finding and justification of meaning are
interrelated, react and overlap, and ultimately may contribute. Traditional
customs, specifically proven, meeting rational standards and natural, canonical
aequitas might not only be accepted,
but might even trump mandatory statutes; natural aequitas similarly might give birth to an actio utilis where traditional and consensual law did not. What is
meaning in law? Certainty too often seems to be in contemporary law the prime
virtue. It is not. There is hierarchy here. In the quest for a good life, veritas and fides have more important seats at the table - always headed by the
bright sun of justice.
Senior researchers and PhD candidates are invited to submit an abstract
of a paper related to the above-mentioned theme. Abstracts (max. 400 words)
should be sent to Agustín Parise ([email protected]) no later
than 1 August 2025. Shortly after that, the authors will be informed
whether their papers are selected for a presentation during the Workshop. All
contributions should be in English. Co-authored papers will be also considered.
The organizing committee will give preference to early-career researchers when
facing submissions of similar quality.
Researchers from within and outside the Ius Commune Research School will
be eligible to present abstracts. Please
also forward this call to colleagues who might be interested.
Should you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact a member of the organizing committee,
Harry Dondorp ([email protected])
Wouter Druwé ([email protected])
Michael Milo ([email protected])
Pim Oosterhuis ([email protected])
Agustín Parise ([email protected])
