Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East

Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East

“Modernities” in the Making

Ed. by Ze’evi, Dror / Toledano, Ehud R.

'Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East:“Modernities” in the Making is an edited volume that seeks to deepen and broaden our understanding of various forms of change in Middle Eastern and North African societies during the Ottoman period. It offers an in-depth analysis of reforms and gradual change in the longue durée, challenging the current discourse on the relationship between society, culture, and law. The focus of the discussion shifts from an external to an internal perspective, as agency transitions from “the West” to local actors in the region. Highlighting the ongoing interaction between internal processes and external stimuli, and using primary sources in Arabic and Ottoman Turkish, the authors and editors bring out the variety of modernities that shaped south-eastern Mediterranean history.

The first part of the volume interrogates the urban elite household, the main social, political, and economic unit of networking in Ottoman societies. The second part addresses the complex relationship between law and culture, looking at how the legal system, conceptually and practically, undergirded the socio-cultural aspects of life in the Middle East.

Society, Law, and Culture in the Middle East consists of eleven chapters, written by well-established and younger scholars working in the field of Middle East and Islamic Studies. The editors, Dror Ze'evi and Ehud R. Toledano, are both leading historians, who have published extensively on Middle Eastern societies in the Ottoman and post-Ottoman periods.'

http://www.degruyter.com/view/product/458684

András Földi — Gábor Hamza HISTORY AND INSTITUTES OF ROMAN LAW

András Földi — Gábor Hamza

HISTORY AND INSTITUTES OF ROMAN LAW

The most important Hungarian textbook

of Roman law for hundred years

This textbook succeeds the manual of Roman law written by Róbert Brósz and Elemér Pólay, first published in 1974. The new work of András Földi and Gábor Hamza offers a more extensive treatment not only than that of the textbook which it succeeds, but also than the two-volume, 1941 manual of Kálmán Személyi. In its detailed treatment of the subsequent history of Roman law it can only be compared to the classical work of Tamás Vécsey, the last edition of which appeared in 1907.

The treatise, as suggested by its title, presents the history and the institutes (i.e. the classical material) of Roman law. The historical part, however, does not deal exclusively with governmental orga­nization and the legal sources of ancient Rome, but also traces in detail the continuous presence of Roman law in different contem­porary legal systems.

The structure of the textbook is as follows:

·      History and subsequent fate of Roman law

·      Procedural law, including an outline of criminal procedure

·      Law of persons and family law

·      Law of things (Law of property)

·      Law of obligations, with an appendix on criminal law

·      Law of succession

The textbook includes an extensive bibliography, as well as three detailed indexes comprising more than 3000 entries.

Orders are to be directed to the Publisher:

Oktatáskutató és Fejlesztő Intézet

1143 Budapest, Szobránc utca 6–8.

www.ofi.hu

Professorship of Law at the University of Münster

Call for Applications: Professorship of Law

The University of Münster invites applications for an open-ended appointment as professor of law in the Faculty of Law to commence as soon as possible. The Faculty of Law of the University of Münster is one of the leading law faculties in Germany. The appointment is part of an internationalization strategy that aims at preparing students for the challenges of an increasingly international legal profession and to attract a greater number of foreign students.

Applicants should be qualified primarily in a non-German speaking legal system and have an international focus on teaching and research. They must be able to give lectures in English. German language skills are not required. The successful applicant will be expected to undertake original research leading to influential international publications, contribute to the teaching of the faculty’s degree programs and take an active role in the administration of the faculty. The teaching load amounts to nine hours per week (approx. 126 hours per semester). The university will offer the successful applicant a competitive remuneration package (Although the offered position is a W2-professorship, the salary will be paid according to pay scale grade W3.) commensurate with the applicant’s qualification and experience and contributions to a retirement benefits scheme.

The University of Münster is an equal opportunity employer and is committed to increasing the proportion of female academics. Consequently, we actively encourage applications by women. Female candidates with equivalent qualifications and academic achievements will be preferentially considered within the framework of the legal possibilities. We also welcome applications from candidates with severe disabilities. Disabled candidates with equivalent qualifications will be preferentially considered.

Queries about the post should be addressed to the head of the selection committee, Professor Petra Pohlmann (petra.pohlmann@uni-muenster.de). Applications should include a covering letter or statement explaining the motivation for the application as well as a full CV, a list of publications and a list of previously taught classes. They should be sent electronically until November 2nd, 2015 to dekan03@uni-muenster.de.

European Society for Comparative Legal History Fourth Biennial Conference

CALL FOR PAPERS

European Society for Comparative Legal History

Fourth Biennial Conference

Gdańsk (Poland) 28 June – 1 July 2016

COMPARATIVE LEGAL HISTORY:

Culture, Identity and Legal Instrumentalism

The Organising Committee of the 4th Biennial Conference and the Executive Council of the European Society for Comparative Legal History are pleased to call for papers for the upcoming conference to be held on 28 June – 1 July 2016 at the University of Gdańsk (Poland) on: “Culture, Identity and Legal Instrumentalism”. The main theme picks up threads of thought from the earlier ESCLH conferences in Valencia (2010), Amsterdam (2012) and Macerata (2014). The conference will focus on the issue of law as an instrument of transforming reality in the individual cultural circles and sub-circles of Europe and the world. Papers addressing this theme are welcome, to be submitted before 15 November 2015 as explained below.
The conference seeks to understand the instrumentality of law through two broad themes. Law may
be considered as an instrument either (1) through the prism of analysis of techniques (functional approach) or (2) of objectives (axiological approach).
Within the first approach, particularly welcome are those papers which address how legal
problems are identified and their solutions developed, whether autonomously or by transplantation and subsequent adaptation.
Within the second approach, we welcome papers exploring how law can transform reality,
especially as a tool of modernisation and/or as a means to shape and strengthen national identity or other goals defined through the prism of national interest.
Papers should be novel, properly researched and referenced. They should address the conference
theme, exploring doctrinal, theoretical, cultural or methodological aspects of comparative legal history. The organisers particularly welcome addressing multiple cultures. This includes where a similar legal system functions in two different cultural circles as a result of en masse transplantation of foreign legal solutions and where a given homogeneous cultural circle has been divided and various legal systems function in its
individual parts.
The conference organisers intend to publish a volume, drawing on the best papers presented at the
conference as developed in line for publication.

Dr Anna Klimaszewska
Dr Michał Gałędek
Katedra Historii Prawa
Wydział Prawa i Administracji
ul. Bażyńskiego 6, 80-952 Gdańsk
tel. +48 58 523 28 79, fax +48 58 523 29 41, email: anna.klimaszewska@prawo.ug.edu.pl; michal.galedek@prawo.ug.edu.pl

FEMMES, JUSTICE ET SOCIÉTÉS: CALL FOR PAPERS

JOURNÉE D’ÉTUDE

21-22 JANVIER 2016

Université de Nantes

Centre universitaire départemental de La Roche-sur-Yon

APPEL À COMMUNICATIONS

FEMMES, JUSTICE ET SOCIÉTÉS

            La recherche a largement investi le champ des études juridiques ou historiques sur la question du contrôle des femmes et la façon dont ce contrôle agit de façon différentielle au regard des normes de genre.

            Alors que les inégalités entre hommes et femmes font preuve d’une résistance certaine depuis des siècles, bon nombre d’initiatives animées par des femmes ont mêlé et mêlent actions politiques et économiques, résistance et solidarités en vue d’un accès plus juste au Droit.

            Au croisement du droit, de l’histoire, de l’anthropologie et de la sociologie, l’objectif de cette journée d’étude est de susciter des échanges entre disciplines, autour de la question de la femme, de ses droits et de son rapport à la société et ce, depuis des siècles.

            Cet appel à communications propose d'explorer le processus de régulation sociale des normes de genre sous l’angle de la (re)production des différences et de l’altérité. Pour ce faire, plusieurs axes de réflexions sont proposés :

-          Les institutions judiciaires, politiques et religieuses face à la problématique du genre : analyser le fonctionnement de la justice s’impose pour mieux appréhender les obstacles que les femmes rencontrent depuis des siècles ;

-          Les femmes et leurs droits dans un contexte de pluralisme normatif : la justice étatique ne constitue souvent que le dernier recours pour les femmes, d’autres ordres normatifs tendant à s’imposer à elles en pratique depuis des siècles : quels ont-ils été ? Quels sont-ils ? Comment ont-ils cohabité avec le droit ? Quelles possibilités les femmes ont-elles eues pour jouer sur différents registres ?

-          Quels dispositifs sont mis en œuvre par les États, les associations et les organismes pour favoriser un meilleur accès à la justice ? Comment expliquer leur développement récent ? Quel est leur impact sur le rapport des femmes au droit ?

Contact : Ana Conde

                ana.conde@univ-nantes.fr

Juris Diversitas 2016 Annual Conference CALL FOR PAPERS

CALL FOR PAPERS

JURIS DIVERSITAS

ANNUAL CONFERENCE  

May 30 - June 1, 2016

Louisiana State University

Law Center, Baton Rouge, USA

Unity and/or Diversity

An International, Interdisciplinary Conference on Comparative Law

Theme: Comparative legal studies have long been perceived as an engine pulling legal traditions and systems towards convergence, harmonization, and unification. Today, legal pluralism pushes towards the recognition of human and social diversity. Does this mean that we have to choose between unity and diversity, Jus unum or juris diversitas?  To what extent do pluralistic societies embrace or reject harmonization and uniformity, or simply ignore them? Do we unify or add layers, increasing the complexity of legal orders? Does history reflect a move from diversity to unity or an ongoing conflict between the two? What makes unity successful or sustainable? This is an invitation to discuss, in an interdisciplinary way, the development of laws and social norms, in the dialectical tension between the ontological unity of human beings and mankind and the plurality of individual aspirations and social arrangements.

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 of three twenty-minute presentations will be used, we encourage more original session structures.

Proposals should be in English or in French. Proposals of circa 250 words (or 1000 words for panel proposals) should be submitted to Professor Salvatore Mancuso at JDLSU2016@gmail.comJDLSU2016@gmail.com by December 6, 2015, with a short biography listing major or relevant publications. Make this a single Word document with minimal formatting, so that proposal and biography can be copied easily into the conference program.

Registration fees: €200 or €125 for Juris Diversitas members paid up for 2016. Membership and fee payment information is available on the Juris Diversitas Blog (http://jurisdiversitas.blogspot.com/http://jurisdiversitas.blogspot.com/). Note that fees don’t cover travel, accommodation, or the conference dinner (€50).

The Changing Landscape of History: Digital Initiatives in New Orleans

NEW ORLEANS, LA – The French American Chamber of Commerce – Gulf Coast Chapter will host a forum about “The Changing Landscape of History: Digital Initiatives in New Orleans,” Thursday, Oct. 29, at 6 p.m. in the Stibbs Room of the Lavin Bernick Center at Tulane University. Vicki Mayer, Ph.D., will give an introduction to digital initiatives, followed by 

Vernon Valentine Palmer, Ph.D., who will present 

“Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana.”

“Just as social media is a large component of telling the contemporary stories of life in our city, digital initiatives such as curated digital exhibits and online portals are increasingly important tools in presenting and preserving the past,” Greg Lambousy, director of exhibits at the Louisiana State Museum, said. “Digitization of French and Spanish colonial documents, including the Code Noir, form a fundamental part of the city-wide historical campaign leading up to the tricentennial of the founding of New Orleans.”

This free event is open to the public and sponsored by the FACC-GC, Ogletree Deakins, Tulane University and Sodexo. Partners are The Friends of the Cabildo, Amistad Research Center and University of New Orleans Midlo Center and the Francophone Section of the Louisiana State Bar Association.

For more information or to RSVP, email info@facc-gc.com.

Journal of Civil Law Studies: Volume 8 No. 1

VOLUME 8, NUMBER 1 (2015) IS OUT AND CAN BE READ ONLINE

ARTICLES

Golden Jubilee of the Center of Civil Law Studies: 

Celebrating the Development of Legal Science in Louisiana (Agustín Parise)

Drawing the Line of the Scope of the Duty of Care in American

Negligence and French Fault-Based Tort Liability (Karel Roynette)

CONFERENCE PAPERS

Les unions (il)légalement reconnues: approches internationales

(Il)legally Recognized Unions: International Approaches

La Roche-sur-Yon, December 6, 2013

China (Yuan Fang), France (Dominique Garreau), Italy (Enrica Bracchi & Carolina Simoncini), Spain (Ana Conde), and the United States (Olivier Moréteau)

ESSAYS

An Analysis in Empathy: Why Compassion Need Not Be Exiled from the

Province of Judging Same-Gender Marriage Cases (Kacie Gray)

CIVIL LAW in the WORLD

  

Chile (Carlos Felipe Amunátegui Perelló)

Poland (Ewa Bagińska)

Also in this issue:

NOTE, CIVIL LAW TRANSLATION, CIVIL LAW in LOUISIANA,

and BOOKS REVIEWS

Who Owns the World’s Land? 

A global baseline of formally recognized indigenous & community land rights

In recent years, there has been growing attention and effort towards securing the formal, legal recognition of land rights for Indigenous Peoples and local communities. Communities and Indigenous Peoples are estimated to hold as much as 65 percent of the world’s land area under customary systems, yet many governments formally recognize their rights to only a fraction of those lands. This gap—between what is held by communities and what is recognized by governments—is a major driver of conflict, disrupted investments, environmental degradation, climate change, and cultural extinction. While community land rights are garnering greater attention in national and international circles, the actual status and extent of legal recognition has not been well understood. This report seeks to contribute to this field as the first analysis to quantify the amount of land formally recognized by national governments as owned or controlled by Indigenous Peoples and local communities around the world. The study includes data from 64 countries comprising 82 percent of global land area. It builds on the ongoing work of the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) to track ownership and control of the world’s forests, and expands that research to identify lands that are owned and controlled by local communities across all terrestrial ecosystems in the countries studied, including such diverse lands as grasslands in China, taiga in northern Canada, and rainforests in Brazil.

THE RIGHTS AND RESOURCES INITIATIVE RRI is a global coalition of 13 Partners and over 150 international, regional, and community organizations advancing forest tenure, policy, and market reforms. RRI leverages the strategic collaboration and investment of its Partners and Collaborators around the world by working together on research, advocacy, and convening strategic actors to catalyze change on the ground. RRI is coordinated by the Rights and Resources Group, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit www.rightsandresources.org.

Western Legal Traditions by Martin Vranken

Western Legal Traditions

A Comparison of Civil Law and Common Law

By Martin Vranken

Federation Press – 2015 – 208 pages

The rule of law constitutes the hallmark of contemporary Western society. However, public perceptions and attitudes to the law can vary in space and time. This book explores legal solutions to selected problem scenarios in their broader historical, economic, political and societal context. The focus is on the legal traditions of civil law and common law.

The book is premised on the assumption - indeed, the conviction - that use of the comparative method both facilitates and promotes a deeper understanding of the society in which we live and the rules by which it is shaped. Major 'threads' that run through the book are the relationship between law and morality, the role of the state in regulating human interaction, as well as the relationship between the state and the individual.

As a practical matter, the text is divided into 3 Parts. A first Part provides various building blocks for a discussion of 'the law in action' in the second and main Part of the book. A final Part addresses the issue of regional globalisation and its impact on the traditional divide between civil law and common law. An Appendix contains the full text of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

Martin Vranken is a Reader in the Faculty of Law at the University of Melbourne.

http://www.taylorandfrancis.com/