07 June 2013

FELLOWSHIPS: Kluge Fellowships at the Library of Congress:


ARTICLE: Waldron on Human Rights, Raz, and Rawls


REMINDER: Seminar on ‘Endangered Mixed Legal Systems'


A Seminar on ‘Endangered Mixed Legal Systems’ will be held in Glasgow on 10-11 June 2013.

The Seminar is sponsored by the Regius Chair Tercentenary Fund of the University of Glasgow School of Law and the British Association of Comparative Law.


The provisional programme is as follows:

10 June

9-9:30 Registration, Coffee, and Tea

Welcome and opening address – Emerita Professor Esin Örücü

10-12 Session 1 - Chair: Dr Séan Patrick Donlan

Scotland: Professor Sue Farran
Quebec: Professor Sophie Morin
Cyprus: Dr Achilles Emilianides

12-1:30 Lunch

1:30-3 Session 2 - Chair: Séan Patrick Donlan

St Lucia: Professor Jane Mathew Glenn
Jersey: Sir Philp Bailhache

3-3:30 Afternoon Tea

3:30-5 Roundtable Discussion

‘Risks and Resistance’ 
(based on the presentations)

7:30 Symposium Dinner

For invited guests and conference speakers
The Bothy Restaurant, 11 Ruthven Lane, Glasgow

11 June

9:30-11 Session 3 - Chair: Professor Sue Farran

Seychelles: Justice Matti Twomey
Guyana: Professor Christine Toppin-Allahar

11-11:30 Coffee and Tea

11:30-1 Session 4 - Chair: Professor Sue Farran

Mauritius: Professor Tony Angelo
Guernsey: Michael McAuley

1-2 Lunch

2-3:30 Roundtable Discussion and Closing Session

‘Models of Mixing: is there an ideal?’

3:30 Afternoon Coffee and Tea

For additional information, contact jennifer.crawford@glasgow.ac.uk.

06 June 2013

CALL FOR PAPERS: Teaching Crime History

   Call for Papers
Special issue of Law, Crime and History on:
Teaching Crime History

Crime history is an important area of study. For law and social science students, it opens up a new dimension for comparative studies and helps foster deeper, critical understandings of the present. For history students, it helps them connect historical contexts and developments to patterns of social behaviour and the delivery of justice. But crime history can also be challenging for those teaching and studying it. Sources which illuminate the contemporary study of crime may be unavailable for the past; the fact that the people and social issues involved are often deceased may de-motivate some students and dis-incline them from engagement; and, in an inter-disciplinary area, students may be new to the study of crime, law or history.

SOLON invites contributions for a special issue of Law, Crime and History to focus on Teaching Crime History. The issue will be published in Spring 2014. Papers should be 6-8000 words. They may examine any aspect of teaching, learning or assessment, including but not limited to:
  • Discussion of innovative strategies for teaching crime history (such as use of digital resources, trips to archives etc);
  • Reflection on pedagogical issues surrounding teaching crime history (such as how to engage law or criminology students in historical study? Or how to engage history students with legal or criminological study?);
  • Evaluation of pedagogical practice as implemented within a module or course (perhaps with a view to identifying best practice).

Law, Crime and History is the journal of SOLON. It has been published online since 2007 and is fully peer-reviewed.

Interested authors are invited, in the first instance, to contact Dr Henry Yeomans (h.p.yeomans@leeds.ac.uk ). Full papers must be submitted by 31st October 2013.

SEMINAR: Shari’a Law and Military Operations

NATO School LogoShari’a Law and Military Operations Seminar


Sponsored by INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF HIGHER STUDIES IN CRIMINAL SCIENCES (ISISC)
NATO SCHOOL OBERAMMERGAU
25 - 29 November 2013

The seminar will offer an introduction to Shari’a Law, specifically discussing crime and punishment in the Shari`a law of armed conflict, religiously motivated political violence, women’s and minorities’ rights and operational issues. This seminar is offered because of its immediate importance to NATO’s ongoing missions: the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan (ISAF), Kosovo Force (KFOR), support to the African Union mission in Somalia (NSM Somalia) and for the African Standby Force and NATO Training Mission–Afghanistan (NTM-A); and NATO’s numerous supporting relationships with Mediterranean Dialogue countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Mauretania, Morocco and Tunisia), Istanbul Cooperation Initiative countries (Bahrain, Kuwait, UAE, Qatar) and other countries such as Pakistan where Shari’a Law applies.

ARTICLE: Reid on A Louisiana Civilian in the Supreme Court

Charles J Reid, ‘A Louisiana Civilian in the Supreme Court: The SelectiveService Cases Revisited’  is on SSRN. The article is soon to be in Paola Maffei and Gian Maria Varanini, eds., Honos alit artes: Etudes pour le soixante-dixieme anniversaire de Mario Ascheri. University of Florence Press, February, 2014 (Forthcoming). The abstract reads:


Edward Douglass White, who served both as an Associate Justice and as Chief Justice of the United States during his long tenure on the Supreme Court (1894-1921) is notable for being the only civilly-trained Louisianan to serve on the Court. In the course of his judicial career, he relied on civilian sources in a number of his opinions. This Article explores one such example. The Selective Draft Law Cases of 1918 represents a consolidation of several lower-court challenges to the constitutionality of the conscription regime adopted by Congress at the time of America's entry into World War I. White's opinion is notable, among other reasons, for his use of Emmerich Vattel's (1714-1767) treatise Le droit des gens as a major source for his constitutional theorizing on the inherent powers of the state. After evaluating White's use of Vattel as a legal source, the final section of the Article situates White's use of Continental materials in the historical jurisprudence of that time. Law, in that school of thought, represented an admixture of human reason and historical experience. White, by looking to Continental sources, sought to expand the usual range of materials employed by historical jurisprudes and found a fit vehicle for this purpose in Vattel's theory of the state in a time of war. 

OPPORTUNITY: ABA-UNDP International Legal Resource Center (ILRC) - Belarus

This memorandum is to notify you that the ABA-UNDP International Legal Resource Center (ILRC) has received a request from UNDP/Belarus for an expert to provide a gender focused review of the draft Concept Paper (CP) on Improvement of the Court System in Belarus through the Development of the Specialization of Courts. This is primarily a home-based opportunity with one mission trip to Minsk. The expert will work for 13 working days between in June/July 2013.

With the project “Facilitating the improvement of the court system in Belarus through the development of the specialization of courts”, the Government of Belarus and the UN continue the joint efforts towards ensuring the rule of law and access to a fair trial for the population of Belarus. The ultimate goal of the project is to ensure that the population of Belarus, including marginalized and vulnerable groups, enjoys access to justice through an effective and professional court system supported by the specialization of courts and judges, which has been identified as an important prerequisite for effective and professional court system functioning. This will be achieved through support for the full-scale specialization of courts as prescribed in the constitution of the Republic of Belarus and further improvement of the legislation concerning the court system. Further to this goal, the project will contribute to the systematic and continuous professionalization of judges through their life-long education.

SEMINAR: Anglo-Scots Comparisons in the 21st Century


BOOKS: New Title from Hart Publishing

A Contextual Analysis
Victor Ferreres Comella

This book provides a critical introduction to the principles and institutions that make up the Spanish Constitution, which was enacted in 1978. It first explains the process of transition from Franco's dictatorship to democracy, in order to understand the historical circumstances under which the Constitution was framed. After offering a theory to justify the authority of the Constitution over ordinary laws, the book proceeds to explain the basic principles of the Spanish political regime, as well as the structure of its complex legal system. Later chapters focus on various institutions, such as the Crown, Parliament and the Government. A specific chapter is devoted to the territorial distribution of power between the State, the regions and local government. The last two chapters deal with the constitutional role of courts, and the protection of fundamental rights. The book includes some reflections on the challenges that lie ahead and the constitutional reforms that may need to be considered in the future.

Edited by Hugh C Hansen

This is the 17th Annual volume in the series collecting the presentations and discussion from the Annual Fordham IP Conference. The contributions, by leading world experts, analyse the most pressing issues in copyright, trademark and patent law as seen from the perspectives of the USA, the EU, Asia and WIPO. This volume, in common with its predecessors, makes a valuable and lasting contribution to the discourse in IP law, as well as trade and competition law. The contents, while always informative, are also critical and questioning of new developments and policy concerns.

Edited by Tom Daems, Dirk van Zyl Smit and Sonja Snacken

BOOK: Brysk on the Politics of the Globalization of Law


JURIS DIVERSITAS: Conference Tweets

A few Tweets from the Juris Diversitas Conference:




03 June 2013

SPD: Gumbo with Friends




02 June 2013

SPD: Leaving On A Jetplane

On the road again. I just can't wait to get on the road again ...

At Dublin Airport en route to Geneva and then to the JD Conference.

And I only just discovered the Diritti Comparati Blog. What else am I missing?