NOTICE: The Concept of 'Law' in Context: Comparative Law, Legal Philosophy, and the Social Sciences

Juris Diversitas has, with the Swiss Institute of Comparative law (SICL), organised a conference on The concept of 'law' in context: comparative law, legal philosophy, and the social sciences.

The conference will be held from 21-22 October 2011 at the SICL in Lausanne:

The coexistence of the laws of the state and other normative orders, in the Western past and the global present, is a challenge to both modern legal philosophy and comparative law. The continuing importance of non-state norms, trans-national and sub-national, undermines the state-centred focus of much contemporary jurisprudence. It also problematises the neat division of complex and dynamic legal traditions into discrete families of closed legal systems.

Werner Menski (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London) will present a keynote paper. Additional speakers include:

• Marc Amstutz (University of Fribourg)
• Gerhard Anders (University of Zürich and Edinburgh)
• Mauro Bussani (University of Trieste and the International Association of Legal Science)
• Seán Patrick Donlan (University of Limerick)
• Baudouin Dupret (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France)
• Julia Eckert (University of Berne)
• Andrew Halpin (Swansea University)
• Lukas Heckendorn Urscheler (Swiss Institute of Comparative Law)
• Alessio Lo Giudice (University of Catania)
• Salvatore Mancuso (University of Macao)
• Emmanuel Melissaris (London School of Economics)
• Alexander Morawa (University of Lucerne)
• David Nelken (University of Cardiff and Macerata)
• Mark Van Hoecke (University of Ghent)

A volume will subsequently be published consisting of articles based on the conference papers as well as a small number of additional papers related to the theme of the conference.

For addition information, please contact Lukas Heckendorn Urscheler at info@isdc.ch or +41 21 692 49 11. A registration form is available at http://www.isdc.ch/.

Finally, note that the Juris Diversitas project on Legal Philosophy in Context will also be discussed on Friday, 21 October 2011. For additional information on the project, please contact Seán Patrick Donlan at sean.donlan@ul.ie.

Juris Diversitas and the SICL previously cooperated on a conference in 2009 on 'Comparative law and hybrid legal traditions'. The collection produced after that event is available free online at http://www.e-collection.isdc.ch/ (it's volume 67).