CONFERENCE: Mediterranean Legal Hybridity

A symposium on ‘Mediterranean Legal Hybridity: Mixtures and Movements’ is to be held in Malta on Saturday, 12 June 2010. The event is hosted by the Department of Civil Law of the Faculty of Law and the Mediterranean Institute, both of the University of Malta. It is organised in conjunction with Juris Diversitas.

Studies of Mediterranean legal and normative diversity have been isolated, sporadic, and too often framed within narrow disciplinary constraints. The symposium addresses this lacuna by fostering an international and interdisciplinary network of experts—in law, history, and the social sciences—to investigate legal hybridity and diffusion in the region.

Those interested in making a presentation (twenty minutes long) should email Dr Seán Patrick Donlan (sean.donlan@ul.ie) by Monday, 29 March 2010 with a short (250 word) proposal. The conference fee is €100; transportation and accommodation are not included.

LAUNCH AND CALL FOR PAPERS: European Society for Comparative Legal History

For those interested in the legal mixtures and movements of the European past, the European Society for Comparative Legal History recently announced the creation of the Society, the launch of their blog, and an inaugural conference, 'Law and Historical Development from a Comparative Perspective', to be held at the University of Valencia (Spain) on 5-6 July 2010.

I confess that I'm biased, but check it out.

BOOK REVIEW: Cotterrell on legal pluralism

Check out Roger Cotterrell (Queen Mary University of London, School of Law)'s 'Does Legal Pluralism Need a Concept of Law?' available on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN). The abstract reads:

This paper, reviewing Emmanuel Melissaris' Ubiquitous Law, argues that the book's project – that of seeking a 'thin' concept of law to underpin legal pluralist theory, together with a highly flexible and open approach to institutional characteristics of law – is problematic from a sociolegal viewpoint. Melissaris seeks to preserve legal philosophy's concern with the question 'What is law?' while recognising that this question can receive only vague and open answers if legal pluralism is to be taken seriously in legal theory. His discussion is sophisticated and thoughtful, but he is wrong to imply that sociology of law depends ultimately on legal philosophy's conceptual inquiries. Sociolegal studies need rich and provocative, but only provisional, flexible and endlessly revisable specifications of 'the legal' as a guide for research practice. Legal philosophy's conceptual inquiries may help to shape these specifications, but are not prerequisites for the task.

NOTICE: Indigenous Nations & Peoples Law Abstracts

The Center for Indigenous Law, Governance & Citizenship at Syracuse University College of Law has released its Indigenous Nations & Peoples Law Abstracts. These include:

• 'The Meaning and Liberal Justifications of Israel's Law of Return' (Dan Ernst, Ewha Womans University)
• 'Legal Pluralism, Customary Law and Environmental Management: The Role of International Law for the South Pacific' (Erika J. Techera, Macquarie University - Macquarie Law School)
• 'One Step Forward, Two Giant Steps Back: How the ‘Existing Indian Family’ Exception (Re)Imposes Anglo American Legal Values on American Indian Tribes to the Detriment of Cultural Autonomy' (Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne, Mercer University School of Law) 
• 'The New Status of the Lands of Native Populations in Brazilian Constitutional Law and International Law' (Othon Moreno de Medeiros Alves, Tribunal de Contas do Estado do Rio Grande do Norte [S.Court of Auditors of the State of Rio Grande do Norte], Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte - Departamento de Direito Público [Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte - Department of Public Law])

These are each available through the Social Science Reserach Network (SSRN).

EMAIL SUBSCRIPTIONS NOW AVAILABLE

Juris Diversitas has now added an email subscription service. Assuming it's been properly installed, subscribers will receive new posts through their email accounts. Please notify us if you encounter difficulties.