NOTICE: Garcia on Hybrid legal forms among the Tzeltal of Mexico

The following has appeared on SSRN:

JOSE RUBÉN ORANTES GARCÍA, 'Hybrid Legal Forms Among the Tzeltal of Tenejapa, Chiapas, Mexico (Formas Jurídicas Híbridas Entre los Tseltales de Tenejapa, Chiapas, México: Reconfiguración Legal a Partir de Los Usos y Costumbres y eEl Derecho Positivo Mexicano)'



The abstract reads:

This paper analyzes the legal forms in the southeastern Indian state of Chiapas, Mexico, with particular reference to the Court of Indigenous Peace and Reconciliation (YFCI) of a Tzeltal town and its relationship to other legal levels since the early nineties. On this basis, the paper describes the analogy between YFCI hybrid legal levels and the towns in the municipality of Tenejapa. This will allow to study the separation (and the relationship) of these areas to settle community and intra-community crimes set in a legal logic that makes them less likely to decide on conflicts that can be resolved, as it is subordinated to the reproductive needs of the national legal system.

NOTICE: Italian Association of Comparative Law Conference (Venice, 9-11 June 2011)

The Italian Association of Comparative Law Conference will be held in Venice from 9-11 June 2011.

Note especially, the following session on 'legal pluralism and legal hybridity':

PRESIEDE: Salvo Andò

INTERVENTI DI:

• Marco Dani, 'Social Conflicts, Integration and the Nature of European Legal Pluralism'
• Andrea Pin, 'La gestione del pluralismo religioso in alcuni paesi europei: l’evoluzione dei modelli nazionali e il ruolo della comparazione'
• Vernon Palmer, 'Empire as Engine of the Mixed Legal Systems'
• Cristina Gazzetta, 'Il concetto di sovranità, tra unità e multiculturalità'
• Koen Lemmens, 'Comparative Law in Support of Legal Diversity? Some Lessons from the ECtHR’s Case-Law'
• Katalin Kelemen and Balázs Fakete, 'The classification of Eastern European legal systems: new approaches to the understanding of former Socialist legal systems'

Note also Ignazio Castellucci, 'The governance role of law in the socialist market economy: the case of insurance law'

For additional information, see the Comparative Law Blog or the Italian Association of Comparative Law Blog.

NOTICE: Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (McGill University Faculty of Law Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law)

The Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law (QRCPCL) intends to appoint a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with effect from August 2011. The position is funded by a Research Team Support Grant from the Fonds québécois de recherche sur la société et la culture (Quebec Fund for Research on Culture and Society). The team is led by Professor Lionel Smith, director of the QRCPCL, and composed of colleagues from McGill’s Faculty of Law and beyond. The position is for one year, with the possibility of renewal for a second year.

ABOUT THE QUEBEC RESEARCH CENTRE OF PRIVATE AND COMPARATIVE LAW

Based at McGill University in Montreal (Quebec, Canada) the QRCPCL is the only research centre in Canada devoted to research in fundamental private law. Quebec’s private law is civilian, but it evolves in a North American environment that is otherwise largely grounded in the common law. Quebec’s private law therefore provides a living model for the fruitful coexistence of two legal traditions, in which the ongoing interaction of the common law and the civil law is combined with the interaction of French and English in Quebec’s bilingual civil law.

The research agenda to which the position relates revolves around three axes:

1) McGill’s transsystemic approach to legal education, and its impact on our understanding of law;
2) the interactions between intellectual property law and private law, in Canada and beyond; and
3) trusts in Quebec civil law, and in civilian and mixed legal systems generally.

QUALIFICATIONS:

The applicant must hold a doctoral degree in law at the time of the appointment. The ideal candidate will have a solid track record of research in private and comparative law, and will propose an interesting research project that interacts with the goals of the QRCPCL and the research agenda mentioned above.

The successful candidate will pursue his or her own research project on a topic relating to one of the QRCPCL’s axes of research. He or she will also assist in the activities of the QRCPCL, principally through involvement in the organization of a conference on transsystemic and comparative legal thought, to be held in the second quarter of 2012. He or she may also be invited to speak at the conference, and to take a role in the editing of a volume of papers presented at or arising from the conference.

APPLICATION PROCEDURE:

The review of applications will begin on 31 March 2011 and continue until the position is filled. The preferred starting date is August 2011. The position will pay C$40,000, and an office and computer will be provided. Applications are to be submitted electronically to crdpcq.law@mcgill.ca. Applicants should submit a covering letter, a curriculum vitae, a research proposal (maximum four pages), a transcript of postgraduate studies, and one or more writing samples (from peer-reviewed publications if possible). Applicants should also name three referees, who may subsequently be invited by the QRCPCL to send letters of reference.

For additional information, see www.mcgill.ca/crdpcq/employment/fellowship/

NOTICE: Colonies and Post-colonies of law (Princeton, 18 March 2011)

A one-day conference on ‘Colonies and Postcolonies of law’ will be held at Princeton University on 18 March 2011.

Presenters include:

• Patrick Peel, The American Justice of the Peace, Legal Populism and Social Intermediation: 1645 to 1860

• Paul Swanepoel, Judicial Choice during the Mau Mau Rebellion in Kenya, 1952-1960
• Anna Leah Fidelis T. Castañeda, Civilizing the Filipino Public: Colonialism and the American Constitutional Tradition in the Philippine Islands, 1900-1935

• Joseph Younger, “Monstrous and Illegal Proceedings:” Law, Violence and the Local Politics of Cross-Border Property in Alegrete, Brazil (1852-1864)
• Catherine Evans, One flew east, one flew west: Medical jurisprudence and British readings of the Indian criminal mind, 1850-1900
• Poornima Padipati, Time Zones: Anthropology, Tribes and Contractual Space in Colonial India
• Julia Stephens, Defining a Lex Loci for British India: Sovereignty, Evangelicalism, and the Origins of Personal Law
• Nada Moumtaz, What of the “interest of the waqf?” French mandate legislation and articulations of the Lebanese public good
• Sarah Ghabrial, Le ‘Fiqh francisé’?: Law reform and the Modern Muslim Family in Algeria, 1890-1918
• Omar Cheta, What Did Commerce Mean in Late Ottoman Egypt?
• Doreen Lustig, Abolition of Slavery in the League of Nations: The Case of Firestone in Liberia
• Michael Fakhri, The 1937 International Sugar Agreement: Neo-Colonial Cuba And Economic Aspects Of the League Of Nations

The conference’s plenary speech will be by Lauren Benton on ‘Justice by Despots: Patterns of Imperial Legal Politics’

The conference has been organized by Nurfadzilah Yahaya (nyahaya@princeton.edu) and Rohit De (rohitde@princeton.edu). Questions should be addressed to coloniesoflaw@gmail.com.

ACCOMMODATION REMINDER: World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists Congress

The Third International Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists will be held 20-23 June 2011 at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel.

PLEASE NOTE THAT ACCOMMODATION MUST BE ARRANGED IMMEDIATELY!

As the conference website notes:

All participants are responsible for making their own arrangements for accommodation. Hotels in Jerusalem are quite expensive in June. The Hotel Reservation Form provides details of four hotels that have a number of rooms reserved for conference participants at a special conference rate. These must be booked by 28 February and can be booked only via Kenes Tours on the form provided. Information on other hotels and bed and breakfast accommodation can be found on the internet.



The theme is 'Methodology and Innovation in Mixed Legal Systems':

Mixed legal systems, both the classical ‘mixed jurisdictions’ combining common law and civilian law and more exotic hybrids, are increasingly important touchstones for comparative law. The Third Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists focuses on legal methodology and innovation in mixed systems in the twenty-first century: Investigating past experiences, exploring present practices, and predicting future possibilities

For additional information, including the (very diverse) provisional programme, see the conference website.

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Language of Law: Classical Perspectives

I just received the following:

The Language of Law: Classical Perspectives

Special Workshop at the XXV. World Congress of Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy (Frankfurt am Main, 15–20 August 2011)

While in recent scholarship there are some signs that 20th-century boundaries between disciplines as Legal Theory, Classics, Legal History and Linguistics become penetrable, interdisciplinary discourse among exponents of these fields is at best sporadic. The aim of the workshop is to bring together scholars working on linguistic aspects of (ancient and contemporary) law from different backgrounds and to facilitate the exchange of ideas through the discussion of their research papers.

The rationale for exploring classical perspectives on the language of law is that encounters of this kind have proven to be mutually enriching: contemporary insights may help to make sense of ancient theories and indeed practices, while the analysis of ancient sources continues to provide useful frameworks for contemporary legal thought.

Papers for the workshop would be both theoretically informed and based on a thorough reading of relevant sources from Classical Antiquity. Possible topics include but are not limited to: legal interpretation, judicial rhetoric, the semiotics of law, law as literature, philosophical approaches (ancient or contemporary) to law. Papers addressing theoretical or methodological questions as well as ‘case studies’ focusing on a single text may be considered. The pre-circulation of the papers is hoped to contribute to a discussion-led style of workshop.

Abstracts for consideration should be sent by e-mail to

Miklós Könczöl (miklos.konczol@dur.ac.uk)
Durham University, Department of Classics and Ancient History
Pázmány Péter Catholic University, Department of Legal Philosophy

The deadlines are: 31 March, 2011 for abstracts and 31 May, 2011 for full papers.

Participants have to be registered for the conference. For further details see the conference website: http://www.ivr2011.org

Intercultural Awareness in Legal language

CALL FOR PAPERS
10th International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law
‘Intercultural Awareness in Legal Language’

Conference Venue: Public Law Department – School of Law of
Fluminense Federal University – UFF (Niterói/Rio de Janeiro – Brazil)
Dates: 11-13 November 2011
Hosted by Evandro Carvalho (Brazil)

The 2011 roundtable will focus on the contribution of legal semiotics to discuss the different ways of thinking the "legal" in a world's cultural diversity.
Aware of the III World Forum of the Alliance of Civilizations, held in Brazil in May 2010, that had the intention to rethink how to deal with tensions between cultures and promote trust and understanding between heterogeneous communities, the 10th Roundtable intend to put together scholars of legal semiotics to discuss the influences of cultural and linguistic diversity on the construction of meaning in national law and international law.

It is hoped that the papers will reflect the interdisciplinary nature of legal semiotics research as well as the challenges of working in the field. In this context, proposals from a wide variety of semiotic perspectives are invited. These might include but are not limited to papers on:
• The contribution of legal semiotics across cultures
• The problem of multilingualism
• Semiotics and comparative law
• Legal semiotics and the processes of normative integration
• Semiotics of international relations
• Semiotics and competition of languages in international relations
• Language, power and diplomacy
• Translating legal concepts across cultures: the case of contract terminology or case of land law terminology.
• The misuse of language in the judicial process, in legal adjudication
• The use of metaphors in legal language
Young researchers working in related areas are particularly encouraged to participate. In the interest of a cohesive round table, prospective participants are requested to adhere to the theme as outlined in the call for papers.

Proposals in either English, Spanish, French or Portuguese (max 300 words) should be sent only by e-mail by 15 May 2011 to irsl2011@gmail.com, evandro.carvalho@gmail.com and to Anne Wagner (valwagnerfr@yahoo.com).
Selected papers will be published in a special annual issue in English and/or French of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (http://www.springer.com/). The length of the paper should not normally exceed 7000 words, including references, footnotes, and appendices, if any. Please follow the style sheet for the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (Visit the website at http://www.springer.com/law/journal/11196)

NOTICE: Workshop on Louisiana Legal History

A workshop on “Louisiana: The Legal History of Europe in a Single US State” will take place in Edinburgh on 20-21 May, 2011. The notice on the Edinburgh Legal History Blog reads: \

The programme is not finalised but currently appears as follows: George Dargo, “Louisiana in the Early American Republic”; John W. Cairns, “Planning and Printing a Code/Digest?”; John Lovett and Markus Puder, “Possession, Prescription and Uncertain Land Titles in Louisiana: 1808-1825”; Asya Ostroukh, “The Significance of Quebec Sources for Understanding the Origin and Nature of Louisiana’s Civil Law Codification”; Vernon V. Palmer, "Slavery and Louisiana Civil Law 1825-1870"; Agustín Parise, “Influence of the Louisiana Civil Code of 1825 in Latin-American Codification Movements: The References to Louisiana Provisions in the Argentine Civil Code of 1871.”

More information will be available in due course about, place, cost and so on.

This Louisianian recommends it.

NOTICE: Jackson on critical legal pluralism and the Begum case

Amy Jackson’s ‘A critical legal pluralist analysis of the Begum Case’, Osgoode CLPE Research Paper No. 46/2010, is available on SSRN here:

This paper considers the advantages of a critical legal pluralist analysis of the English case R (on the application of Begum) v. Headteacher and Governors of Denbigh High School [2007] 1 AC 100. The case concerns whether a state school’s decision to exclude a pupil (Shabina Begum) for wearing an Islamic veil (a jilbab, which is a long coat-like garment which covers the whole body except the hands and face) infringed her right to manifest her religion and her right to an education protected under Articles 9 and 2 (of the First Protocol) of the European Convention of Human Rights 1950. The various court decisions of the case determine that both Articles 9 and 2 cannot be relied upon for claims related to the accommodation of religious dress in state schools. Compared with doctrinal legal scholarship and traditional legal pluralist analyses of the case, both criticised for essentialising normative orders and communities, a critical legal pluralist analysis provides the advantage of focusing on the subjective beliefs of a legal subject. Undertaking a critical legal pluralist approach as a legal methodology, rather than more traditional legal analyses, exposes and defeats various assumptions which surround the practice of veiling.

NOTICE: Pimentel on Indigenous Justice

David Pimentel (Florida Coastal School of Law)’s ‘Legal pluralism and the rule of law: can indigenous justice survive?’, to be published in the (2010) 32 Harvard International Review 32, is available on SSRN here.

The description reads:

If non-Western, indigenous legal systems are to maintain their relevance and vitality, if they are even to have a place in the new global community, they will need to resist the pressures to simply import or impose Western law and instead adapt to minimum international norms on their own terms. Accordingly, those agencies and individuals engaged in promoting the rule of law, economic development, or respect for human rights should resist the impulse to simply impose the Western laws and legal institutions — as the U.S. Congress did to the Native American communities post-Crow Dog. Instead, reform-minded agencies and individuals should seek opportunities to engage and influence customary law and customary institutions, to encourage human rights recognition within such systems. Solutions can and must come from customary systems’ embracing human rights norms, not from initiatives to displace or ignore customary systems in favor of Western ones. With appropriate influence, including that of limited judicial enforcement of constitutional guarantees under the legal pluralism regime, customary courts and customary law can become guardians not only of traditional culture, but also of human rights and rule of law principles. And they will be all the more effective in this latter enterprise because the systems are home-grown, culturally appropriate, and embraced by the communities they serve.

The mistaken reaction to Ex parte Crow Dog, when fear and misunderstanding of cultural difference led to an imposition of federal jurisdiction over tribal communities, is a sobering case in point. Indigenous and other non-Western systems deserve more respect and deference than that, but the reform and development winds are blowing against them, particularly on what have become non-negotiable issues of human rights and rule of law. Customary law institutions will have to bend and adapt if they are to survive; but they are already equipped to do that, and Western reformers should acknowledge and appreciate that. Legal pluralism continues to offer great promise, both for the preservation of cultural values and institutions, and ultimately for the establishment of the rule of law, but only if the indigenous legal systems can be engaged in a spirit of mutual respect.