REMINDER: Mediterranean Hybridity Project (Catania - 25 October 2010)

An interdisciplinary roundtable on the legal and normative hybridity of the Mediterranean region will be held in Catania on Monday, 25 October 2010. Organised with Juris Diversitas and hosted at the University of Catania, the event is part of the Mediterranean Hybridity Project launched in Malta in June 2010.

The Project is creating a collaborative interdisciplinary network of experts to study both (i) the state laws that are the domain of lawyers and (ii) the wider normative orders typically studied by social scientists. It marries conceptual and empirical models from the legal and social sciences, especially earlier analyses of ‘mixed legal systems’ and legal/normative pluralism.

Our intention is to create multidisciplinary jurisdictional reports, resulting in a published collection, and a database on the laws and non-state norms of the region. The roundtable will allow the project leaders to select the participants involved over the course of the project, to finalise the questions to be posed, and to consider our options for collaboration and funding.

Note, too, that while the language of the coming roundtable will be English, our intention is to allow the use of either English or French for the final reports. 

For those attending the roundtable, it’ll take place in the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Catania (via Vittorio Emanuele II, 49). Our simplified and flexible schedule is as follows:

1000 Coffee

1030 Project Overview

11-1230 Discussion

1230-1 Working Break

1-130 Discussion

130-3 Lunch

3-4 Discussion and conclusion

4 Possible walking tour of Catania

8 Dinner

Note that the Hotel Novecento is very near the meeting site and has offered a conference rate at:

€80 Double room (single use) with buffet breakfast

€90 Double room with buffet breakfast

€110 Triple room with buffet breakfast

The hotel’s at via Monsignor Ventimiglia, 37. Its phone number is 0039-095310488 and the email address is infobooking@hotelnovecentocatania.it.

Feel free, of course, to inform others of our work. We're especially interested in attracting additional individuals with training in the social sciences as well as participants from the Balkans, North Africa, and the Levant. Individuals or institutions interested in participating or sponsoring our work should also contact us.

Anyone interested in attending should contact Dr Seán Patrick Donlan (sean.donlan@ul.ie) or Dr Biagio Andò (bando@lex.unict.it). While the organisers are not able to fund expenses, there is no cost to attend.

NOTICE: The Stellenbosch Papers in the Tulane European & Civil Law Forum

The Tulane European & Civil Law Forum has published articles generated from a colloquium on 'Mixed Jurisdictions as Models?' The colloquium was held in May 2009 and sponsored by the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists and the International Association of Legal Science. The introduction by Vernon Palmer, President of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists reads:

Readers of past issues of the Forum are aware of the growing interest in comparative law circles for the mixed jurisdictions and other mixed systems of the world. These pluralist legal orders often internalize common law, civil law, and various personal and religious laws reflecting the diversity of its people and the complexity of its past. It has been asserted that mixed legal systems are the most prevalent type of legal system in the world today. In many respects they may be considered the wave of the future, given the trends toward globalization and international harmonization of laws. On the conviction that Tulane and the Forum should help promote an understanding of these systems, of which Louisiana and South Africa are examples, the Forum is pleased to present the collected papers of the international Colloquium that took place at the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa on May 14-15, 2009.

This Colloquium was jointly sponsored by the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists and the International Association of Legal Science and its stated theme was "Mixed Jurisdictions as Models? Perspectives from Southern Africa and Beyond". Our generous hosts were Professors Jacques du Plessis, Marius de Waal, and Dean Gerhard Lubbe of the Stellenbosch Faculty of Law, who provided gracious hospitality, excellent arrangements and an ideal venue for discussion of this subject. This conference led to an exceptional exchange of ideas about the challenges faced by mixed legal systems in Africa and beyond. It brought together thirty four scholars from twelve countries. The papers now presented look at mixed systems from angles and viewpoints that tend to illuminate their particular experience. They discuss such themes as the divergent and convergent trends of mixed systems in Southern Africa, the effect that the compartmentalization of personal laws has on everyday life, the challenges confronted in harmonizing business laws into effective instruments (bridging languages and the formal/informal sector of the economy), and the need to harmonize conflicting procedural laws in the courts and the arbitral tribunals. Another subject is the significance of European Union harmonization projects, notably the Draft Common Frame of Reference, on systems outside Europe, with particular reference to Africa. Further topics are the impact and role of national constitutions in reshaping these mixed systems, for example in the quest to integrate customary law and English common law into a single Common Law or in restructuring state liability in South Africa.

The essays close with the personal reflections of a distinguished comparatist, based on a lifetime of experience with African law, concerning the encounter between traditional law and modem law in the mixed systems of French-speaking Africa.

The Editor extends warm thanks to our hosts in Stellenbosch, to the sponsoring organizations, and to the individual authors for their cooperation in making this issue a success.

The articles include:

• Charles Manga Fombad, 'Mixed Systems in Southern Africa: Divergences and Convergences'
• Chuma Himonga, 'State and Individual Perspectives of a Mixed Legal System in Southern African Contexts with Special Reference to Personal Law'
• ES Nwauche, 'The Constitutional Challenge of the Integration and Interaction of Customary and the Received English Common Law in Nigeria and Ghana'
• Christa Roodt, 'Conflicts of Procedure Between Courts and Arbitral Tribunals in Africa: An Argument for Harmonization'
• Claire Moore Dickerson, 'OHADA on the Ground: Harmonizing Business Laws in Three Dimensions'
• Martha Simo Tumnde, 'Harmonization of Business Law in Cameroon: Issues, Challenges and Prospects'
• Francois Du Bois, 'State Liability in South Africa: A Constitutional Remix'
• Hector L MacQueen, 'The Common Frame of Reference in Europe'
• Xavier Blanc-Jouvan, 'The Encounter Between Traditional Law and Modern Law in French-Speaking Africa: A Personal Reflection'

NOTICE: Hatzimihail on Bartolus and the Conflict of Laws

The Legal History Blog just posted the following on one of our own:

'Bartolus and the Conflict of Laws' is a recent article by Nikitas Hatzimihail, University of Cyprus - Department of Law; Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB). It was published in the Revue Hellenique de Droit International (2007). The abstract ends in mid-sentence, unfortunately, but I am posting as is. For more, please download the article:

The treatment of issues pertaining to the personal and territorial reach of local statutes by Italian jurist Bartolus of Sassoferrato (1314-1357) has been widely regarded as foundational to the conflict of laws. This article presents a detailed examination of the Bartolan text and places it in historical and political context. It also establishes a working text and improves on previous English translations.

The article approaches Bartolan thought from two angles. It considers the principal notions in modern doctrinal literature regarding Bartolan and medieval conflict of laws (was Bartolus a unilateralist? did he think in terms of territoriality or personality, form/substance, party autonomy or decisional harmony?). Bartolan doctrine is also examined in terms of structure, systematicity. The legal and political environment of his time: the role of the ius commune and the quest for...

NOTICE: William Twining and the Irish Jurisprudence Society

Professor William Twining will speak at the annual public lecture of the Irish Jurisprudence Society to be held at Dublin's Griffith College (the Griffith Conference Centre, Griffith College Campus, South Circular Road, Dublin 8) on Thursday, 14 October 2010.

The title of his lecture is 'Globalisation and Legal Scholarship'.

Registration is at 6:30pm; the formal address begins at 7pm.

Those wishing to attend should contact Maria Oleynik at law@gcd.ie or 00-353-1-4163372.