WORKSHOP: The Method and Culture of Comparative Law

THE METHOD AND CULTURE OF COMPARATIVE LAW

A workshop on epistemology, globalisation and context

15-17 May 2014 - Ghent, Belgium

Participants include: Jacco Bomhoff, Roger Brownsword, Seán Patrick Donlan, Patrick Glenn, Matthew Grelette, Jaap Hage, Jaakko Husa, Susan Millns, David Nelken, Heikki Pihlajamäki, Geoffrey Samuel,Mathias Siems, Catherine Valcke, Rob Van Gestel, and Alain Wijffels.

Additional information is available here. The programme is available here. 

All papers presented on 15-16 May will be published, together with some other papers, in M Adams and D Heirbaut (eds), The Method and Culture of Comparative Law: Essays in Honour of Mark Van Hoecke (Hart Publishing).

BOOK (with Discount): Bradley, Travers and Whelan (eds), Of Courts and Constitutions: Liber Amicorum in Honour of Nial Fennelly

Hart has published Kieran Bradley, Noel Travers and Anthony Whelan (eds), Of Courts and Constitutions: Liber Amicorum in Honour of Nial Fennelly:

The overall theme of the book is the relationship between European Union law and national law, and the role of courts in defining that relationship. The book consists of four main parts - the structure and functioning of the European Court of Justice, material issues of European Union law, aspects of Irish law and transversal issues of national and European law. The contributors are all past and present members of the European bench, members or former members of the Irish judiciary or Bar and/or experts in European Union law, many of whom have worked with Mr Justice Fennelly during his long and distinguished career at the Bar and on the bench.

Note, as always, our reader discount.

ARTICLE/BOOK: Dubber and Hörnle on Mens Rea and Comparative Criminal Law

‘Mens Rea: A Comparative Approach’, an excerpt from Markus D Dubber and Tatjana Hörnle, Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach (OUP 2014) is on SSRN.

CALL FOR PAPERS: IIJSL/RISJ Special Issue - Marginalised Bodies (Re)imagining the Law

When the law regulates, it also marginalises. Indigenous people, the GLBTI community, women, children, the homeless and others are all victimised by the force of this regulation. For many people belonging to these communities, the law has left them with a sense of abandonment – the law does not recognise the realities that they live out on a day to day basis. In so doing, sites of contest are opened up in which marginalised bodies attempt to challenge law makers and law enforcers. Semiotics allows us useful methods for exploring these interactions. For instance, the signs of both groups (literal and metaphorical), the language employed by groups (how they complement and contrast each other in differing legal and social realities) and acts deterrence and defiance are all possible areas of inquiry. This issue draws attention to the many different ways marginalised groups attempt to redress or ‘(re)imagine’ the law. This special issue for the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law invites high quality contributions from scholars of all disciplines that undertake rhetorical, hermeneutic, sociolinguistic, discourse, aesthetic or semiotic analyses of the law and marginalised and/or disadvantaged groups. Of particular interest are papers discussing indigenous rights, homeless rights, rights of women and children rights, GLBTI rights, refugee and asylum seeker rights and the intersections between law and philosophy, visual arts, music, poetry and literature. Submissions to be made in English only.

JOURNAL/SYMPOSIUM: The German Law Journal (New) and Privacy and Power - A Transatlantic Dialogue in the Shadow of the NSA

The editors of the German Law Journal have written the following:

This is the third issue in volume fifteen. After kicking-off 2014 with two special issues [Plea Bargains in Germany and OMT Decision of the BVerfG], we return in this issue to our regular “coverage of developments in German, European and International Jurisprudence.” For the most part this rich selection of articles and commentary came to us as unsolicited submissions that were selected for publication after the Editorial Board’s rigorous review.

It is a challenging, invigorating and illuminating slate of contributions.

BOOK: Coyle on Modern Jurisprudence

Hart Publishing has just published Sean Coyle's Modern Jurisprudence: A Philosophical Guide:


This book provides a concise and accessible guide to modern jurisprudence, offering an examination of the major theories and systematic discussion of themes such as legality and justice. It gives readers a better understanding of the rival viewpoints by exploring the historical developments which give modern thinking its distinctive shape, and placing law in its political context. A key feature of the book is that readers are not simply presented with opposing theories, but are guided through the rival standpoints on the basis of a coherent line of reflection from which an overall sense of the subject can be gained. Chapters on Hart, Fuller, Rawls, Dworkin and Finnis take the reader systematically through the terrain of modern legal philosophy, tracing the issues back to fundamental questions of philosophy, and indicating lines of criticism that build to a fresh and original perspective on the subject.

Like other Hart titles, our readers receive a 20% discount on the book. See here for details.