NOTICE: JURIS DIVERSITAS Constitution

The Executive Committee of Juris Diversitas has posted our Constitution on the Juris Diversitas Blog.

The Constitution reflects current practice. We intend, however, to introduce amendments at the 2012 Annual General Meeting on the basis of proposals by the membership.

We are especially keen to alter the existing election and appointment of officers to ensure that members have greater influence on the selection of the Committee.

To ensure that proposals can be considered in advance of the 2012 Annual General Meeting, they should be sent to Ignazio Castellucci (ignazio@castellucci.eu) before 1 May 2012.

NOTICE: 66th Session of the Société Internationale ‘Fernand de Visscher’ pour l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité (SIHDA) - On the Reception of Law

The following notice on 66th Session of the Société Internationale ‘Fernand de Visscher’ pour l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité (SIHDA) will take place from 18-21 September 2012 in Oxford. The theme, of special interest to our members, is the Reception of Law.

The notice reads:

First circular
Oxford
14 December 2011

Dear colleages,

I am very pleased to invite you to the 66th Session of the Société Internationale ‘Fernand de Visscher’ pour l’Histoire des Droits de l’Antiquité (SIHDA), which will take place from 18 to 21 September 2012 in Oxford. In accordance with the decision taken by the last General Assembly, the theme of the congress will be Reception of Law.

In this First Circular I shall provide you with general information regarding the congress. In the course of January you will receive a Second Circular with information on how to registration.

The congress will start in the afternoon of Tuesday 18 September and end on Friday 21 September with the General Assembly. A Banquet dinner is foreseen for that Friday night, and excursions are planned for Saturday 22 September.

The theme is ‘Reception of Law’. It is a wide theme, which covers, e.g., the reception of Assyrian law by the Mesopotamians, Greek law by Egyptians, Roman law by the Greeks in the 4th and 5th century, by the Gallic population in the 6th century, but also, as the name of our association implies (‘Histoire des droits de l’Antiquité’), the reception of Roman law after 1100, and I welcome particularly contributions concerning the reception of Roman law after 1100 in Europe, the ‘Civil Law’. Yet, as is the custom of our association, papers on other themes than the proposed are of course always welcome and appreciated, in one of the five accepted languages (French, English, German, Italian and Spanish).

Oxford as a city is well known and needs no further recommendation. Its colleges, of which those in the centre are centuries old, are a major tourist attraction, as is the Radcliffe Camera, the Sheldonian Theatre and the Ashmolean Museum. And of course it is always interesting to combine the congress with a visit or short stay at London. London itself has several airports, of which Heathrow and Gatwick have a regular and direct bus connection with Oxford. Likewise the train connection is very good with the Eurostar going straight from Paris to London-St Pancras through the Channel Tunnel; and a taxi or underground will take you from there to Paddington Station for a good train connection to Oxford.

The congress will be held in St Catherine’s College. It is a college, built in 1962 in splendid Sixties style after the design of Arne Jacobsen and it is excellently suited for a congress of the size of SIHDA. Actually, it is, of all the colleges in Oxford, the only one with sufficient conference accommodation for us; all its rooms have a private shower and toilet. You will receive with the Second Circular the possibility to book an arrangement for the congress in the college.

I hope I have provided you with enough information for the moment. If there are any questions, I am happy to answer these, but otherwise I would like to ask you to wait till the Second Circular when more information will be provided. All further communications will be done through email. If you happen to know of somebody who is or might be interested but has not received this circular, please let me have their email address and I shall take care that he or she is included in the address list and will receive this and further notifications. Likewise I would appreciate it greatly to know of changes in email addresses.

All that remains for me now is to wish you a good Christmas holidays and an auspicious New Year,

Best wishes,

Boudewijn Sirks
Regius Professor of Civil Law
University of Oxford

CALL FOR PAPERS: Law and Legal Cultures in Germany

The German Studies Association  (GSA) Network on Law and Legal Cultures is putting together an interdisciplinary series of panels for its Thirty-Sixth Annual Conference to be held from 4-7 October 2012, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The organisers are Sace Elder (Eastern Illinois) and Timothy Guinnane (Yale). The Call for Papers reads:

For the 2012 German Studies Association annual meeting in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, October 4-7, 2012, we will be convening a series of panels on the law in all aspects of society, culture, and the economy. We envisage a broad set of topics, from the development of specific legal practices and cultures in Germany to the function of law in wider cultural fields. From the philosophy of law to the legal cultures and literatures that extend from medieval to modern periods, these panels are intended to foster an extended conversation on the law across humanities and social science disciplines.

We encourage submissions from scholars on all aspects of the law (criminal, civil, international) in Germany and are especially interested in both methodological and temporal breadth. Topics might include

-the development of the Rechtsstaat
-legal cultures and the adjudication of criminal and civil law
-the development of business law and legal integration in the nineteenth century
-the culture of the courtroom and the legal profession
-popular perceptions of the law and legal norms
-the law and the regulation of violence
-sex and sexuality in law and legal culture
-property law and economic development
-liberal legal philosophy and the development of civil and criminal law
-law and authority in Germany’s twentieth-century dictatorships
-the emergence and enforcement of human rights law in national and international contexts
-law and immigration

We encourage submission of individual papers; while the GSA prefers complete panels, we hope to combine papers sent to us into complete panels and send them along to the GSA organizers. Complete panels are, of course, also welcome.

The deadline for submissions is January 20, 2011, and should be in the form of an abstract for proposed paper and/or entire panel (150-200 words). Papers in German or English are welcome.

Please submit abstracts and direct inquiries to the organizers at gsa.law.culture@gmail.com

CALL FOR PAPERS: Mixed Legal Systems, East and West

Our cousins in the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists have co-organised a Mediterranean conference to take place in Malta from 14-15 May 2012 on “Mixed Legal Systems, East and West: Newest Trends and Developments”.

The announcement reads:

The Protection Project at The Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), in cooperation with the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists, and the Tulane University Law School Eason Weinmann Center for Comparative Law, invite the submission of papers for an international conference on “Mixed Legal Systems, East and West: Newest Trends and Developments,” scheduled to take place in Malta, on the dates of May 14-15, 2012.

The conference aims to break new ground in the study of mixed jurisdictions, focusing on the intersections and interplay between Western and Eastern legal systems, including in particular the study of those countries where common and civil law interact and/or co-exist side-by-side with Islamic law; as well as an examination of the influence of religious law on statutory law. The conference will focus on such topics as “The Integration of Religious Law into the Fabric of Law,” “The Lingering Impact of Colonialism on Contemporary Legal Systems,” “Internal Patterns of Legal Mixing,” and similar. The conference organizers invite scholars especially from mixed jurisdiction countries to submit abstracts, so that experiences of civil-common law mixed jurisdictions may be compared with those legal systems where Islamic law is present.

We invite you to submit a 2-3 page abstract of your paper by email to the selection committee c/o Ms. Anna Koppel, Director of Research and Development, The Protection Project (akoppel1@jhu.edu) no later than January 15, 2012; authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by February 1, 2012, and invited to present their papers at the conference; all conference participation expenses will be covered by the organizers. Conference proceedings will be jointly published by The Protection Project, the World Society of Mixed Jurisdictions Jurists, and the Eason Weinmann Center for Comparative Law.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Juris Diversitas colloquium - Doing Justice: Official and Unofficial ‘Legalities’ in Practice

Doing Justice: Official and Unofficial ‘Legalities’ in Practice

Juris Diversitas is organising, with the Centre Jacques-Berque (Rabat, Morocco), a colloquium to be held in Rabat from 15-16 June 2012. As a follow-up to last year’s launch of the Mediterranean Hybridity Project, its theme will be the relation of the diverse and lived ‘legalities’, both official and unofficial, in the region.

The event will also serve as the 2012 Juris Diversitas Annual General Meeting. Proceedings will be in English and French.

The Mediterranean Hybridity Project

The extraordinary legal and normative hybridity of the Mediterranean region was produced in a complex history of conquest, colonisation, and social and legal diffusion across shifting and porous political boundaries.

The objective of the Mediterranean Hybridity Project is, through a collaborative international and interdisciplinary network of experts, to produce and publish a comparative or cross-cultural collection on these ‘legalities’. On the basis of a questionnaire agreed with the participants, the outcome will be more accurate, useful, and accessible account of Mediterranean hybridity. The presentations made at the colloquium will assist us in this Project.

A draft discussion of the Mediterranean Hybridity Project is available at http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1874095; a revised version will appear shortly in the Journal for Civil Law Studies.

Proposals and costs

While the primary focus of the colloquium is on the region, especially with respect to the Mediterranean Project, related proposals on ‘legalities’ beyond the Mediterranean are also welcome. Those interested in making a presentation should send a short (250 word) proposal to Baudouin Dupret (baudouin.dupret@cjb.ma) by 7 February 2012.

In general, transportation and accommodation costs are not paid by the organisers. There are, however, no conference fees for Juris Diversitas members and other invited speakers. The conference fee for other attendees will be €100. The Centre will support the costs of several invited speakers coming from Arab countries.

Spread the word!

NOTICE: Transnational Legal Theory

Volume 2, Issue 2 of Transnational Legal Theory has been published. A special issue on 'onflicts Law as Constitutional Form in the Postnational Constellation', it contains:

A New Type of Conflicts Law as Constitutional Form in the Postnational Constellation

Christian Joerges, Poul F Kjaer and Tommi Ralli

United They Diverge? From Conflicts of Law to Constitutional Theory

Agustín José Menéndez

Democratic Juridification Without Statisation: Law of Conflict of Laws Instead of a World State

Florian Rödl

The Opium of Democracy: A Comment on Florian Rödl’s Theory of Democratic Juridification without Statisation
Marc Amstutz

The Political Foundations of Conflicts Law
Poul F Kjaer

Global Governance and Conflict of Laws from a Foucauldian Perspective: The Power/Knowledge Nexus Revisited
Martin Herberg

The Limits of the ‘Conflicts Approach’: Law in Times of Political Turmoil
Michelle Everson

NOTICE: Lo Giudice on European Identity and Legitimacy

Our member, Alessio Lo Giudice (Catania) has recently published Istituire il postnazionale: Identità europea e legittimazione (Giappichelli, Torino, 2011):

The historical-conceptual presuppositions of the European Union (EU)’s institutional project excludes either a narrow local perspective or an illusory globalist scheme. To rediscover Europe’s cosmopolitan vocation, a process of political and institutional unification must be developed that overcomes the existing national paradigm. Indeed, the crisis of legitimating the resources of EU Member States opens a post-national horizon of a denationalized and autonomous Europe built around spheres of intense, but not totalizing, political, legal and social unity.

In this context and with the necessity to create conditions for the establishment and legitimacy of a social link between strangers, the question of the institutional identity of the EU has great relevance for scholarship in legal philosophy. ‘Solidarity between strangers’ actually develops within the construction of a web of rules, projects and principles meant to fill reciprocal existential deficits; it develops, in fact, within the construction of a shared identity.

In this book, institutional questions about the construction of a European identity are discussed. But the conditions of the theoretical-semantic visualisation and of the pragmatic possibility of such an identity are also dealt with in order to avoid the reduction of the European ideal to rhetorical illusions or vain emotional compensations.

In addition, I want to draw your attention to the University of Catania's Teoria e Critica della Regolazione Sociale. The journal's programme is discussed in English and Italian here. Each issue begins with a central text, often in English, and responses are solicited. This year's central text is Margaret Gilbert's 'Foundations and consequences of collective moral responsibility'. The last issue and earlier issues are available online.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Privatization and Social Responsibility

CALL FOR PAPERS

PRIVATIZATION AND SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

February 17th and 18th, 2012

Emory University School of Law, Atlanta, Georgia

This workshop explores from a cross-cultural perspective how privatization impacts contemporary feminist and social justice approaches to public responsibility. Feminisms have long problematized divisions between the private and the political, partly in reaction to the unprecedented privatization of state responsibilities and public welfare over the past 30 years. Recent critical legal scholarship on vulnerability, state negligence, and resilience can complicate and deepen our understanding of the problems generated by privatization in the 21st century.

We invite papers that explore the effects of diverse forms of privatization from national and cross-national perspectives. Privatization can take the form of outsourcing public activities to private corporations, denationalizing state industries, or deregulating policy. It is evident when social service systems shift from defined benefits programs such as pensions to defined contribution plans such as IRAs. A common denominator is the shifting of social responsibility from public governmental institutions to individual families and privatized entities, such as charities and corporations. There is also a shift in what and who are regarded as the proper objects of state regulation and intervention; subsidizing private property interests or military intervention while withdrawing from broader public obligations such as education and healthcare.

CALL FOR PAPERS: 18th Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture

CALL FOR PAPERS

18th Annual Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture

May 10-12, 2012

University of California, Los Angeles

Presented by The Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture Graduate Student Association (CLIC-GSA) at the University of California, Los Angeles and The Language, Interaction, and Social Organization Graduate Student Association (LISO-GSA) at the University of California, Santa Barbara

Plenary Speakers

• Penelope Eckert, Anthropology and Linguistics, Stanford University
• William Hanks, Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
• Jenny Mandelbaum, Communication, Rutgers University
• Cheryl Mattingly, Anthropology and Occupational Science and Therapy, University of Southern California

Submissions should address topics at the intersection of language, interaction, and culture. Approaches include, but are not limited to, conversation analysis, discourse analysis, ethnography of communication, ethnomethodology, interactional sociolinguistics, language ideologies, and language socialization.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Kent Critical Law Society Conference

The first annual conference of the Kent Critical Law Society will take place on the 10-11 March 2012.
 
Aimed at all those who have an interest in critical perspectives on current legal issues, the conference is entitled ‘Equality- Are We There Yet?’

Submissions by 1 February 2012. Please direct all enquiries to: conference@kentcls.org

The website notes:

Our aim for this conference is to provide an open space for intellectual discussion, debate and criticism of the law and legal systems from a variety of different professional and academic perspectives.

NOTICE: National Science Foundation Law & Social Sciences Program

National Science Foundation Law & Social Sciences Program

New Funding Solicitation and Dear Colleague Letter

The Law & Social Sciences (LSS) Program at the National Science Foundation is pleased to announce the release of a new funding solicitation (see http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504727) and an associated Dear Colleague Letter (see http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/nsf12022/nsf12022.jsp)

CALL FOR PAPERS: Fifth Annual International Junior Faculty Forum

Stanford Law School and Harvard Law School have established an International junior Faculty Forum. The purpose is stimulate the exchange of ideas and research, among younger scholars in the academy, from all parts of the world. We live today in a global community– in particular, a global legal community – and we would like to foster legal scholarship on a transnational basis. Scholars in different countries are often divided by barriers of time and space and also by barriers of different legal traditions and cultures. We hope that the Forum will be a step in the direction of surmounting these barriers. The papers at the 2011 forum were on a very wide range of subjects, from street law in Mexico City, to social justice in intellectual property law, to young people’s perceptions about war crimes trials in Bosnia, and the art and law of macroeconomics. The authors of these papers came from many countries, as did the senior scholars who chose the papers and commented on them. A wide range of views, techniques, and methodologies were represented.

The sponsors, Harvard and Stanford Law Schools, are pleased to announce plans for the fifth international forum. It will be held in fall, 2012, either in October or November (the exact date has not yet been fixed). It will take place at Stanford Law School, in Stanford, California.

In order to be considered for the 2012 International Junior Faculty Forum, authors must meet the following criteria:

- Citizen of a country other than the United States
- Home academic institution is outside of the United States
- Have held a faculty position or the equivalent, including positions comparable to junior faculty positions in research institutions, for less than seven years as of 2012; and
- Last degree earned less than ten years before 2012

CALL FOR PAPERS: Justice Studies Association Conference

The Justice Studies Association seeks presentations for its 14th Annual Conference, May 30-June 1, 2012, Loyola University Chicago (Lake Shore Campus, Rogers Park). The Conference theme is “Justice and Work.” Possible topics for presentation include:

—How the distribution of and compensation for work affects the quality of life and development of persons, families, communities, and societies

—The just distribution of work in the family and school

—Immigration and work and societal responses to "illegal" work

—Gender, race, class, sexual orientation, and political ideology in the workplace

—Cooperation, mutual aid, collaboration, and shared decision-making in work situations and their salutary effect on personal and collective well-being

—Historical and contemporary struggles over collective bargaining and unions (e. g. the Pullman Strike of 1894 and recent corporate and governmental incursions into unions in the United States)

—Having a "Calling in Life" or "Life's Work" as opposed to a career
—Philosophies of work and employment especially those that promote freedom from work
—Labor in prison settings such as correctional institutions and internment camps
—Separation of work from healthful living in contemporary society
—Utopian visions of work in literature, film, and communal living arrangements

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Sensing the Law

Sensing the Law

The Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture, and Humanities (CILCH) is calling for contributi

ons to an interdisciplinary edited collection on law and the senses. The book will emerge from a collaborative process that includes a workshop meeting of all authors in February 2013.

Sensing the Law addresses the numerous interfaces between law and the senses. While law is often presented as disembodied and abstract, the senses refer to the embodied, messy, and fleeting qualities of human life. The collection asks not only how law makes sense of the senses, but also how law is made sense of through vocabularies of sensory perception. The senses are mobilized in relationship to legal institutions in a variety of ways: as metaphors, embodied realities, sources of evidence and institutional rationalities. Yet, the senses seem to exceed and confound law in a number of ways.

NOTICE: Husa and Smits on Comparative Functionalism

The following 'Dialogue on Comparative Functionalism' between (member) Jaakko Husa and Jan Smits may be of interest:

The use of the functional method when comparing legal systems remains debated, even to such an extent that some authors have discarded functionalism as a fruitful method. The two authors of this paper ask what we can still expect from functionalism. While Husa presents an argument in favor of rule-of-thumb functionalism, Smits claims that functionalism has a bright future if it is reshaped. The authors present their arguments by way of a dialogue that was written for the ‘Legal debates’-section of the Maastricht Journal of European and Comparative Law.

Members would do well to look at the authors' other publications on SSRN.

CORRECTION: Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approaches to Global Legal History

Note that the deadline for Call for Papers for papers for contributions on the Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approaches to Global Legal History, to be held at the 39th Rechtshistorikertag (Conference of Legal Historians) in Lucerne (2-6 September 2012) and the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt am Main (the week of 20 August 2012), is 15 December 2011 (rather than 1 December 2011 as the original notice stated).

CALL FOR PAPERS: International Association of Legal Methodology Conference on 'Transparency: a principle of governance'

Twelfth Conference of the International Association of Legal Methodology

Douzième Congrès de l’Association Internationale de Méthodologie Juridique

Transparency: a principle of governance

La transparence, principe de gouvernance

Thursday 1st – Friday 2nd November 2012

Jeudi 1er – Vendredi 2 Novembre 2012

Loyola University New Orleans College of Law

CALL FOR PAPERS

APPEL À CONTRIBUTIONS

Transparency, a principle of governance

Transparency is dealt with as a principle of governance, whether governance takes on a unilateral or a contractual mode. With regard to the unilateral form of governance, transparency of course impacts the act of governance itself, whether it is a legislative act, a regulation, or a judicial act. Where governance proceeds contractually, transparency remains a governing principle of the award procedure of public contracts. Lastly, the contractual mode of governance may consist in the carving out of a sphere reserved for the contractual autonomy of private actors. However, in this case, state self-restraint does not amount to absolute state abstention. In reality, the state regulates the exercise of contractual freedom. Thus, within this private contractual sphere, transparency remains a requirement as well.

La transparence, principe de gouvernance

La transparence est appréhendée comme un principe directeur de la gouvernance que celle-ci emprunte un mode unilatéral ou un mode contractuel. S’agissant de la forme unilatérale de la gouvernance, la transparence empreint évidemment l’acte de gouvernance lui-même que celui-ci soit acte législatif, acte réglementaire ou acte juridictionnel. Lorsque la gouvernance préfère la forme contractuelle, la transparence n’en demeure pas moins une règle de la contractualisation de l’action publique. Enfin, le mode contractuel de la gouvernance peut consister en l’aménagement d’une sphère réservée à l’autonomie contractuelle des acteurs privés. Mais alors que l’Etat dans cette hypothèse choisit une position de retrait, il ne se fige pas pour autant dans l’abstention. En réalité, il encadre l’exercice de la liberté contractuelle. À ce titre, l’exigence de transparence trouve une autre occasion de se déployer.

Paper proposals should be sent by 20 December 2011 to the two following email addresses:

Professor Dominique Custos : dcustos@loyno.edu
Professor Jean-Yves Chérot : j-y.cherot@univ-cezanne.fr

The topic box of your email should read 'AIMJ-IALM Congres 2012-2012 Congress'. The list of selected papers will be communicated on 15 February 2012.

NOTICE: Janke and Licari on Contra Non Valentem Agere Non Currit Praescriptio

Benjamin West Janke (Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC) and Juris Diversitas member François-Xavier Licari (University of Metz - Faculty of Law) have published 'Des rives de la Seine à celles du Mississipi: le fabuleux destin de la maxime contra non valentem agere non currit praescriptio' ('From the Banks of the Seine to Those of Mississipi: The Fabulous Destiny of the Maxim "Contra Non Valentem Agere Non Currit Praescriptio"') will be published in the (2011) 63 Revue Internationale de Droit Comparé 809; it is already available (in French) on SSRN through the link above.

The abstract reads:

La relation entre la France et la Louisiane ne se limite pas au droit légiféré. Elle se manifeste aussi en ce qui concerne un important principe non écrit du droit de la prescription: "contra non valentem agere non currit praescriptio". En ce domaine, la parenté juridique est étroite. En Louisiane, "contra non valentem" est le fruit de la doctrine et de la jurisprudence françaises. Nous mettrons aussi en lumière la similarité notable entre le destin de la maxime en France et en Louisiane. Dans ces deux pays, les tribunaux l’ont déclarée morte, mais malgré l’hostilité à laquelle elle a été confrontée, elle est devenue une pièce majeure de l’institution de la prescription. En dernier lieu, nous briserons le mythe bien enraciné selon lequel contra non valentem ne s’applique pas en droit louisianais de la prescription acquisitive, révélant ainsi une autre convergence de taille entre la France et la Louisiane.

The relationship between Louisiana and France is not limited to written law. It also exists in one important extra-codal principle of prescription law: "contra non valentem agere non currit praescriptio". In this regard, the juridical parenthood is tight. We will show that "contra non valentem" in Louisiana is the fruit of French doctrine and jurisprudence. Furthermore, we will bring to light the noticeable similarity of the maxim’s fate in France and Louisiana. Courts in both jurisdictions proclaimed it as dead, but despite the antagonism it faced, contra non valentem evolved as a major component of prescription’s institution. Finally, we will dispel a deep-rooted myth that contra non valentem does not apply to the domain of acquisitive prescription and reveal another strong convergence between Louisiana and France.

Note that this article is the French version of Janke and Licari, 'Contra Non Valentem in France and Louisiana: Revealing the Parenthood, Breaking a Myth' (2010) 71 Louisiana Law Review 503.

NOTICE: Les Grandes Etapes de la Pensee Anthropologique sur le Droit Conference

LES GRANDES ETAPES DE LA PENSEE

ANTHROPOLOGIQUE SUR LE DROI

Première rencontre d’anthropologie du droit de l’Ecole de droit de Sciences Po

13 JANVIER 2012

Salle Georges Lavau

CEVIPOF - 98 rue de l’Université 75007

L’idée de ce colloque est de mettre en lumière la portée anthropologique de l’œuvre de certains auteurs et d’en déterminer l’apport pour l’intelligence du droit. La recherche est ainsi faite que la collecte de données ethnographiques n’existe jamais pour elle-même et que partout et toujours elle est déterminée par des représentations qui constituent déjà une mise en ordre du réel. C’est dans la mesure où la dynamique de l’intelligence de la part juridique de l’humain passe par la projection de conceptions préalables que certains auteurs et certaines pensées jouent un rôle cognitif concret dans la production des connaissances. Ces premières rencontres seront consacrées à un certain nombre d’auteurs et de thèmes considérés pour leur rôle déterminant dans la vie de la pensée.

NOTICE: L’Independence des Avocats Conference

JOURNEE D’ÉTUDE DE L’ÉCOLE DE DROIT DE SCIENCES PO

AVEC LA COLLABORATION DU CONSEIL NATIONAL DES BARREAUX

L’INDEPENDANCE DES AVOCATS

HISTOIRES, SENS ET TENDANCES

UNE COMPARAISON ENTRE LA FRANCE ET LES ÉTATS-UNIS

30 NOVEMBRE 2011

Salle Georges Lavau

CEVIPOF - 98 rue de l’Université 75007

(9H00-17H00)

Depuis le fameux discours d’Henri-François d’Aguesseau en 1693, l’indépendance de l’avocat est de tous les débats sur la profession, peut-être parce qu’elle en est la raison d’être et le facteur distinctif en regard des autres professions juridiques. Quelles en sont les sources ? Quelles en sont les conditions ? Quelle en est l’étendue ? Récemment, David Wilkins a insisté sur le fait que plus elle adhère au marché des services juridiques et moins la profession est indépendante. Peut-on considérer que c’est lorsqu’elle accompagne, souvent de façon décisive, l’économie marchande que la profession d’avocat se fragilise et qu’elle s’expose au risque souverain de cesser de ne pas dépendre de quelque pouvoir que ce soit, ce qui l’amènerait à terme à cesser d’être à même de servir le droit ?

NOTICE: Assier-Andrieu on advocates and anthropology

 One of our members, Louis Assier-Andrieu (Research Director at CNRS (Centre for European Studies at Sciences Po) and professor in the School of Law, Sciences Po), has just published two interesting books:

• Les Avocats. Identité, culture et devenir, Paris, Lextenso Editions, 2011 (189p.)
• L'autorité du passé. Essai anthropologique sur la Common Law, Paris, Dalloz, coll. Les sens du droit, 2011, 271p.

 

 

NOTICE: Congress on 'Constitutionism, Globalization, and the European legal tradition' (University of Enna 'Kore' - 1 December 2011)

A Congress on 'Constitutionism, Globalization, and the European legal tradition' will be held 1 December 2011 at the Università degli Studi di Enna 'Kore' in conjunction with the Ph.D. in Comparative Politics and Law of the Euro-Mediterranean Region programme.

Scholars from Brazil, Italy, Malta, and Spain will take part. Sessions will take place on:

* The hope of globalization, development, and abrupt awakenings
* Open legal systems, the theory of fundamental rights and the European legal tradition
* The constitutional dimension of the European process
* The economic crisis and the crisis of European constitutionality

The Italian text reads:

COSTITUZIONALISMO, GLOBALIZZAZIONE E TRADIZIONE GIURIDICA EUROPEA

NOTICE: Uzelac and van Rhee on The Landscape of the Legal Professions in Europe and the USA

Intersentia has published another volume in the Ius Commune Europaeum series. A Uzelac and CH van Rhee (eds), The Landscape of the Legal Professions in Europe and the USA: Continuity and Change

deals with recent developments in the legal profession in Europe and in the United States of America from a comparative and historical perspective. Apart from discussing the legal profession in general, specific attention is paid to the Latin Notary, the Advocates, the Rechtspfleger, the State Attorney, court experts, and mediators and arbitrators. Topics addressed include the decline of Big Law in the U.S., the classification of court experts as legal professionals in Italy, the demise of anticompetitive measures in the modern legal services market, as well as the question whether mediators should be classified as ‘new’ legal professionals given the fact that mediation services are currently being offered by many of the ‘old’ legal service providers. The volume concludes with a contribution on the collaboration of various legal professions in providing for the needs of legal practice.

The table of contents includes:

NOTICE: Transnational Legal Theory

The latest edition of Transnational Legal Theory has just been published.

Articles include:

• Susan Marks, 'Law and the Production of Superfluity'
• John McKay, 'Power Dynamics, Social Complexity and the Rule of Law in Development Aid: Why a (Social) Scientific View of Law should Turn our Focus to Power'
• Filippo Fontanelli, 'Santi Romano and L’ordinamento giuridico: The Relevance of a Forgotten Masterpiece for Contemporary International, Transnational and Global Legal Relations'

NOTICE: Oxford Law and Religion Conference

Oxford Law and Religion Conference

New Frontiers of Protection of Freedom of Religion or Belief Under International Law -

30 Years after the 1981 Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief

24 November - Balliol College, Oxford LR 23

10am– 5:30pm

Speakers Include:

• Heiner Bielefeldt (UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of or Belief)
• Malcolm Evans (University of Bristol)
• Christopher McCrudden (University of Oxford and Queen’s University Belfast)
• Nazila Ghanea (University of Oxford)
• Michael Wiener (Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights)
• Ronan McCrea (University College London)

Registration: £25

Students and unwaged: Free

Registration enquiries: peter.petkoff@balliol.ox.ac.uk

The Conference is organised by the Oxford Society for Law and Religion, Focus on Freedom of Religion or Belief, School of Law University of Bristol, Law and Religion Research Group Brunel Law School, Religion, Law and International Relations Programme Regent’s Park College, Oxford, Centre for the Study of Religion and Public Life, Kellogg College, Oxford

NOTICE: The New Frontiers of Comparative Law

I'm pleased to note the following conference, which includes several of our members:

University of Macau

Macau Association of Comparative Law

International Conference

11 November 2011

THE NEW FRONTIERS OF COMPARATIVE LAW

***

9.30 – 9.50 Welcome Speeches

• Prof. Liu Gaolong, Interim Dean, Faculty of Law of the University of Macau
• Prof. Paulo Canelas de Castro, Associate Professor of European Union Law, University of Macau, Jean Monnet Chair
• Prof. Salvatore Mancuso, Associate Professor of Comparative Law, University of Macau; President of the Macau Association of Comparative Law

9.50 Photo group taking

10.00 – 11.15 1st Session: Comparative Law: methodologies and development
Chair: Prof. Salvatore Mancuso, Professor of Comparative Law, University of Macau; President of the Macau Association of Comparative Law

• Prof. Mauro Bussani, Professor of Comparative Law, University of Trieste, Italy: Comparative Law Beyond the Trap of Western Positivism
• Prof. Rostam J. Neuwirth, Associate Professor of Law, University of Macau: Law and the Mind: A New Role for Comparative Law?
• Prof. Sean Donlan, Professor of Comparative Law and Legal History, University Limerick, Ireland: The Ubiquity of Hybridity: Norms and Laws, Past and Present, and Around the Globe

Discussion/Q&A

CALL FOR PAPERS: Law in Translation

Call for Papers

Law in Translation

Special Issue of The Translator (Volume 20, Number 2, 2014)

Guest-edited by Dr Simone Glanert, Kent Law School, Canterbury, UK

The Translator, a peer-reviewed journal enjoying an international reputation in the field of translation studies, invites contributions for a special issue on Law in Translation to be published as Volume 20, Number 2, 2014.

In an era marked by processes of economic and political integration that are arguably unprecedented in their range and impact, the translation of law, whether understood in its literal or metaphorical sense, has assumed a significance that can hardly be overstated. The following situations are typical. As the expression of a strong postcolonial commitment, various African states have decided to draft their legislation in more than one official language with a view to conferring equal authority to colonial and traditional languages. Elsewhere, an influential group of European lawyers is seeking to develop a civil code for the European Union that stands to be translated in 23 languages. Meanwhile, former political and military leaders are being prosecuted for genocide before the International Criminal Court, a body consisting of judges from many different legal backgrounds and operating according to a complex multilingual procedure. Controversially, the US Supreme Court has relied upon foreign law in order to assess the constitutionality of a Texas statute criminalizing certain forms of sexual behaviour.

NOTICE: New Law and Humanities

The Winter 2011 issue of Law and Humanities is now available online.

The articles include:

• Christian Biet, Law, Literature, Theatre: The Fiction of Common Judgment
• Mark Fortier, Education, Aesop, Roger L’Estrange, and Equity
• Melanie L Williams, Conceptions of Moral Luck, Culpability, and The Reader
• Martin A Kayman, The Bill of Rights: ‘Icons’ of Liberty and Law in the Early Twenty-First Century
• Helge Dedek, The Splendour of Form: Scholastic Jurisprudence and ‘Irrational Formality’
• Catrin Fflur Huws, What is the Significance of the Mortgage in Love’s Labour’s Lost?

NOTICE: Tucker Lecture (Louisiana State University)

The Center for Civil Law Studies of the LSU Paul M Hebert Law Center presents the 36th John H Tucker, Jr. Lecture in Civil Law:

"The Quest to Implant Civil Law Method and Restrain Judicial Lawmaking:

Tracing the Origins of Judicial Methodology in Louisiana"

Dr Vernon V Palmer

Thursday, November 17, 2011 at 5:30 pm

Louisiana State University Paul M Hebert Law Center

McKernan Auditorium

Reception to follow in the Tucker Room

RSVP by 10 November 2011 to ccls@law.lsu.edu or 225-578-7831

CALL FOR PAPERS: Entanglements in Legal History: Conceptual Approaches to Global Legal History

I've been asked to post the following, exciting Call for Papers related to (what I call) the historical 'diffusion' of laws:

Entanglements in Legal History:

Conceptual Approaches to Global Legal History

Conference of Legal Historian, Lucerne – 2-6 September 2012

Conference MPI, Frankfurt -

Global History, World History, Imperial History, Atlantic or Pacific History: the variety of transnational historiography is growing ever larger. Hitherto, legal historians have rarely participated in these discourses. On a favourable interpretation, one could argue that legal historians have always thought, researched and worked transnationally – yet this might have different reasons.

It is certain that, in legal history, the exchange and overlapping of different normative spheres beyond territorially-constrained statehood has been the norm: the tiered territorial and legal spheres of influence of antique empires, stratified societies with their regulations tied to civil status, the coexistence of secular normativity and clerical normativity intersecting the secular realm, and finally the complex processes of the period of the ‘Reception’ belong to the classic objects of legal historical research. It has also become clear that the encounter of two hitherto co-existing normative orders, through the intensified exchange and communication since the 16th and particularly during the 19th century in two waves of globalisation, has attracted the interest of legal history.

NOTICE: Dupret on Adjudication in action and Practices of truth

Our member Baudouin Dupret (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (France) and Centre Jacques-Berque (Morocco)) has just released two books.

The first, published by Ashgate, is Adjudication in action: an ethnomethodology of law, morality and justice:

Adjudication in Action describes the moral dimension of judicial activities and the judicial approach to questions of morality, observing the contextualized deployment of various practices and the activities of diverse people who, in different capacities, find themselves involved with institutional judicial space. Exploring the manner in which the enactment of the law is morally accomplished, and how practical, legal cognition mediates and modulates the treatment of cases dealing with sexual morality, this book offers a rich, praxeological study that engages with 'living' law as it unfolds in action.

Inspired by Wittgenstein's later thought and engaging with recent developments in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, Adjudication in Action challenges approaches that reduce the law to mere provisions of a legal code, presenting instead an understanding of law as a resource that stands in need of contextualization. Through the close description of people's orientation to and reification of legal categories within the framework of institutional settings, this book constitutes the first comprehensive study of law in context and in action.

The second, published by the John Benjamins Publishing Company, is Practices of truth: an ethnomethodological inquiry into Arab contexts:

The claim of this book is that truth is a matter of language games and practical achievements: it is a “member phenomenon”. To document this statement, it proceeds to the investigation of instances of truth-related practices in various Arab contexts. Bearing on the constitution of actions and events, on what is factual or objective, on predictability, consequentiality, intentionality, causality, and on the many ways people orient to them, such a varied set of questions appears thoroughly moral. The praxeological respecification this book undertakes leads to important considerations regarding the question of morality in ordinary reasoning, and the categories and categorizations on which that morality is based: moral values are publicly available; morality has a modal logic; moral values and conventions have an open texture; objectivity is a practical achievement carried out by members of society; the moral order is an omnipresent, constitutive characteristic of social practice.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Mid-Winter Meeting of the Canadian Law and Society Association

A Call for Papers has been issued for the Mid-Winter Meeting of the Canadian Law and Society Association:

The Canadian Law and Society Association’s (CLSA’s) Mid-Winter meeting will take place at the University of Ottawa on January 27th and 28th, 2012 and will be co-hosted by the Justice Studies and Research Laboratory at the University of Ottawa. The mid-winter meeting provides an opportunity for members to get together to discuss professional and intellectual issues in a small, informal context. All presentations will be held on Friday, January 27th, 2012 and the Board meeting will be on Saturday, January 28th, 2012. (Board members are asked to attend since this is the main Board meeting of the year.)

RE: The Future of Law and Society (3-4 November 2011)

The Fiftieth Anniversary Conference of Berkeley's Center for the Study of Law and Society looks very exciting:

THE FUTURE OF LAW AND SOCIETY

Bancroft Hotel

November 3-4, 2011

The response to the announcement of the Center for the Study of Law and Society's 50th Anniversary Conference on the Future of Law and Society has been enthusiastic. To accommodate the growing numbers, the Conference sessions have been relocated to Booth Auditorium at Berkeley Law, just up the block from the Bancroft Hotel.

For those of you who have not yet registered, you are invited and encouraged to register (free) at the Conference. Online registration has been closed because Thursday dinner and Friday lunch have reached room capacity (at the Bancroft Hotel). But there is plenty of room at all the conference panels in Booth on Thursday and Friday, and you are welcome to partake of the continental breakfast on Friday and attend the Closing Reception on Friday. We hope to see you there.

REMINDER: The Concept of 'Law' in Context

REMINDER REMINDER REMINDER

'The concept of "law" in context: comparative law, legal philosophy, and the social sciences' Conference will be held this weekend (21-22 October 2011) at the Swiss Institute of Comparative law (SICL).

NOTICE: Brown and Donlan on The Laws and Other Legalities of Ireland, 1689–1850

One or two of you might be interested in a book I've just edited, with Michael Brown (Aberdeen), and published, with Ashgate. The Laws and Other Legalities of Ireland, 1689–1850:

is the first to concentrate attention on the actual relationship that existed between the Irish population and the state under which they lived from the War of the Two Kings (1689–1691) and the Great Famine (1845–1849). Particular attention is paid to an understanding of the legal character of the state and the reach of the rule of law, addressing such themes as how law was made and put into effect; how ordinary people experienced the law and social regulations; and how Catholics related to the legal institutions of the Protestant confessional state. These themes will help to situate the study of Irish society into the mainstream of English and European social history.

Other members should feel free to post similar information. Contact me and I'll add you as a blogger.

The contents of The Laws and Other Legalities of Ireland, 1689–1850 include:

NOTICE: Framing Multicultural issues in Terms of Human Rights

A one-day Seminar on ‘Framing multicultural issues in terms of human rights: solution or problem?’ will be held at the Utrecht University Law School on Monday 14 November 2011:

Building further on our special issue of the Utrecht Law Review of June 2010 called ‘Human rights law as a site of struggle over multicultural conflicts; Comparative and multidisciplinary perspectives’, we at Legal Theory in Utrecht felt the need to address the question which role human rights play in framing specific multicultural issues. Take for example the refusal to shake hands with the other sex. This ‘problem’ can easily be resolved, as often happens, in an informal and pragmatic manner. It can however also be framed in terms of ‘reasonable behaviour of an employee’, but just as well, it seems, in terms of a ‘horizontal working of human rights’: ‘freedom of speech/expression’ or ‘freedom of religion’ vs ‘non discrimination’ and ‘gender equality’.

We want to investigate whether it makes a difference (for whom, in what sense?) to frame an issue one way or the other, and what the role is that the (human rights) law itself plays. Do human rights, especially the ready availability of for example ‘freedom of religion’ these days, steer towards and thus influence certain solutions? If so, what are the consequences in terms of ‘backfire’ for the human rights system and for social relations (both on micro and macro level)? What are the gains, and for whom? And not the least interesting: what does a comparison between countries teach us? These questions partly need to be addressed empirically, like whether framing multicultural issues in terms of human rights is a recent phenomenon and whether shifts in the use of specific human rights can be discerned.

NOTICE AND CALL FOR PAPERS: ELSA Malta Law Review

ELSA MALTA, the Maltese chapter of the European Law Students' Association (ELSA) have recently launched the ELSA Malta Law Review, a new annual law review supported by the Chamber of Advocates (the Bar Association of Malta):

The aims of the Law Review are to provide students with exposure and to publish their research; to provide opportunities for students and young practitioners to enhance their academic writing and editing skills; to provide greater accessibility to legal scholarship for practitioners, academic and students; to publish research by academia.

Submissions are now being accepted for the second edition. The contents of the first issue include:

CALL FOR PAPERS: Seventh Annual Comparative Law Works in Progress Workshop (USA)

A Call For Papers for a Workshop on Works in Progress on comparative law has been issued. It is described as:

Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton University, Program in Law and Public Affairs), Jacqueline Ross (University of Illinois College of Law), and James Whitman (Yale Law School) are calling for paper submissions for the Seventh Annual Comparative Law Works in Progress Workshop which will take place at the Princeton University on February 10-12, 2012. This workshop has been established jointly by Princeton University, the University of Illinois College of Law and Yale Law School and will be co-sponsored by the American Society of Comparative Law.

CONFERENCE DETAILS: The participants will consist of the respective authors, one commentator on each paper, faculty members of the host institution, particularly those with expertise in comparative law and research, and others interested in attending. The overall group will be kept small enough to sit around a large table and to allow serious discussion (20 people maximum). The papers will not be presented at the workshop. They will be distributed two weeks in advance and every participant must have read them before attending the meeting. The commentator will present a 10 to 15 minute introduction and critique, leaving at least one hour for discussion. There are no plans to publish the papers. Instead, it is up to the authors to seek publication if, and wherever, they wish.