CALL FOR PAPERS
JURIS DIVERSITAS
6th GENERAL CONFERENCE
15- 17 April 2019
Potchefstroom, South Africa
 |
| Faculty of Law |
In partnership with
Faculty
of Law, North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa
Law, Roots & Space
The Theme:
A couple of lawyers’ old friends: ‘Sources’ and
‘Jurisdictions’. In their parlance, these notions are often associated to
modern, ‘positive’ law.
The idea of ‘legal formants’ has been introduced to
complete the picture, flexibilising it, making it more accurate, nuanced,
realistic; an idea associated to comparative, socio-legal, anthropologic
studies.
With ‘Roots’ and ‘space’ geographers, historians,
political scientists get involved. These are certainly less frequent notions in
legal circles: we may still wish to make friends with them, to enrich our
perception of legal phenomena.
‘Roots’ is
often associated to history of law and related discourses – if legal formants
may complete a picture, legal roots do complete the movie, so to speak.
‘Space’: an
open notion, perhaps a non-notion in modern legal discourse, generic enough to
include every spatial dimension of legal phenomena: dissemination of movie theatres
and other forms of diffusion of the various show-biz products could be the
appropriate metaphor here, including space law and virtual property.
A legal discourse that goes beyond the checkboards, or
the series of juxtaposed swimming pools – Tetris-style – containing water from
their respective individual sources, produced by modern, Westphalian
conceptions of the law. It goes, instead, to normative forces producing their
effects without a precise geographic boundary: like radio stations, magnetic or
gravitational fields. Or like intricate sets of rivers, lakes, canals, ponds,
infiltrated wetlands, oceans, weather, all contributing to a locally
diversified but still unitary eco-system and bio-sphere of water, landscape,
vegetation, fauna.
A discourse on normative forces and the fuzziness of
their historic and geographic reach.
Submissions:
Panel proposals and interdisciplinary presentations
are strongly encouraged, as is the participation of doctoral students and
scholars from outside of the discipline of law. While parallel sessions
featuring three presentations of twenty-minute each will be the pattern, we
welcome creative arrangements.
Panel Proposals of circa 1000 words and
a short biography (in English or in French) should be submitted electronically by 30 September 2018. You
will be informed of the outcome by the end of October 2018. Click here https://goo.gl/forms/JnRqHQOHFnTuBz5w2
to submit panel proposal.
Individual Proposals of circa 500 words and a short
biography (in English or in French) should be submitted electronically by 30 November 2018. You will be informed of the outcome by the
end of December 2018. Click here https://goo.gl/forms/Wutow8SR4CqTDDhh2
to submit individual proposal.
Registration Fees:
General:
€ 200 or € 125 for Juris Diversitas members
paid up for 2018.
Special rate for young scholars under the age of thirty coming the
first time: € 150 or € 75 for Juris Diversitas members
paid up for 2018.
Note that fees do not cover travel, accommodation,
or the conference dinner (€ 30).
Scholars
from Africa:
ZAR 1,800 or ZAR 1,500 for Juris Diversitas members paid up for
2018.
Note that fees do not cover travel, accommodation,
or the conference dinner (ZAR 300).
Additional
Information:
Information regarding accommodation options, travel,
other conferences in South Africa, payment methods, etc. will be provided after
participants have been notified of the outcome of their proposals.
About Potchefstroom and the North-West
University:
The town Potchefstroom or
Potch (as most people call it) is a University town of about 128,253 people,
about 120km or 75miles to the south-west of Johannesburg. The greater Potch
(including all the suburbs) consists of 676,004 people. 70% of the population's
first language is Afrikaans but almost everyone speaks English as a second
language.
It is the oldest town in
the old Transvaal Province and has a rich history dating back to 1838. The town
was established in 1838 by a group of Voortrekkers led by Andries Hendrik
Potgieter. The name was derived from POT (gieter), the Voortrekker leader, CHEF
(the leader, referring to Potgieter), and STROOM (the Mooi River). Another
version is that the POT comes from pieces of pots left behind by nomadic
peoples which were later found by the first residents of Potch.
Until 1960 it was the
capital of the old South African Republic of which the first president,
Marthinus Wessel Pretorious, was sworn in at Potchefstroom.
Potchefstroom was the
first town north of the Vaal River. The town was originally built on the position
of the present "Oude Dorp". After the flood in 1840, it was decided
that Potchefstroom would be developed one hour horse-ride south from "Oude
Dorp" next to the Mooiriver.
The first Government
Gazette was printed and published in Potchefstroom. The Dutch Reformed Church
in the Transvaal (at that time) was founded in Potchefstroom in 1842 and since
1905 the town has been the theological seminary of the Gereformeerde Kerk.
People like Totius who
translated the Bible from Dutch to Afrikaans, also worked here and made their
irreplaceable contribution to the Afrikaans language and culture.
This city on the banks
of the Mooiriver, with its 24 declared national monuments, has a rich history.
A noteworthy fact is that the first shots of the First War of Independence were
fired in Potchefstroom in 1880 and that the town also played a prominent role
during the guerilla phase of the Anglo Boer War (1899 -1902).
Potchefstroom boasts
many "firsts". It includes the following:
·
the "Vierkleur" was designed and
hoisted here for the first time;
·
the first constitution of the "South
African Republic" was drafted here;
·
the first coat of arms of the Republic was
designed here;
·
the first church building in Transvaal was
erected here;
·
Potchefstroom was the first town in the Transvaal
to obtain municipal management; and
·
the first "Staats Courant"
(Government Gazette) was printed here and the first public press in Transvaal
was established here.
The North-West
University (Potchefstroom Campus) dominates the town which also boasts a
permanent military base. Potch has for many years produced top sportsmen and
women. Potch is also known as the "Home of Sport in the North West
Province" with many provincial federations based locally. The town has
already become "home-away-from-home" to many international athletes
participating in many different sport codes.
Potch is popular for
many reasons including being a university town with much to offer. It has very
few industries and thus clean air and also a low crime rate. It has a good
climate (especially during the cold northern hemisphere winters when it is our
summer) and at 1400m altitude it offers a good balance between Altitude and
Quality training.
The NWU officially came
into being on 1 January 2004 as part of the South African government’s plan to
transform higher education. In our case, this saw a historically white
university and a historically black university merging to create a new
university where South Africans from all walks of life have come together. The
Potch campus' history dates back from 1869. For more information on the
historical development of the Potch campus, see http://www.nwu.ac.za/content/history-potchefstroom-campus-potchefstroom-campus-nwu.
In 2018, almost 70 000
students are registered at the NWU, making it the second largest university in
the country. Almost 3000 students are enrolled at the Faculty of Law.
[Information derived
from http://www.potchefstroom.co.za/about_potch/about_potch_history.html; http://www.nwu.ac.za/information-about-potchefstroom-hpi; https://census2011.adrianfrith.com/place/676004; and https://www.southafricanmi.com/education-statistics.html]
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