CALL FOR PAPERS: 2011 Law and Development Institute Conference

Just received through the "Law and Development Review":

Call for Papers: 2011 Law and Development Institute Conference

The Law and Development Institute (LDI) is pleased to announce a call for paper proposals for the 2011 annual conference, entitled, "Law and Development at the Microlevel: From Microtrade to Current Issues in Law and Development". The conference will be co-hosted with Seattle University School of Law on December 10, 2011. The LDI calls for papers on any aspect of microtrade, which is a new system of international trade designed to alleviate populations of least-developed countries of extreme poverty (for a concept paper, click here), as well as for papers on other law and development issues that can be considered broadly at the "micro level", including but not limited to: microfinance, microinsurance, green growth and development, etc.

Paper proposals should be limited to a 500 word abstract, which must be received by July 15 at the latest. Accepted conference papers should be completed by November 15 for circulation among the participants in advance of the conference. All proposals must be sent by email to the Law and Development Institute, info@lawanddevelopment.net (with a cc to wtogeneva@hotmail.com). The paper proposals will be peer-reviewed by members of the editorial board of the The Law and Development Review. It is anticipated that paper selection will be completed by July 31, 2011. The selected authors will be invited to present their papers at the Conference. The conference venue is Seattle University School of Law, located in Seattle, United States. The invited speakers are expected to cover their own expenses to attend the conference.

Posted by Salvatore Mancuso

NOTICE: Donlan on Hybridity?

For those that missed it, the Third International Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists was a great success. There'll be more news on it here shortly.

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One interesting topic that came up in Israel, admittedly more often after hours than during sessions, was the use of 'hybridity' as distinct from 'mixity'. The former, for me, includes not only state laws, but non-state norms. Obviously, this is very close to the many schools of 'legal' or 'normative pluralism', but I think there are differences that I hope to explore more fully in the future. While I've already repeatedly used--arguably abused--this notion of 'hybridity' in several articles, I'd welcome any feedback (preferably directly by email) from members on its definition, its utility, etc, etc.

Forgive the shilling, but, for those interested, the following recent, relevant, and closely-related papers are available on my SSRN page:

• ‘Comparative law and hybrid legal traditions: an introduction’ and ‘Histories of hybridity: a problem, a primer, a plea, and a plan (of sorts)’ for E Cashin-Ritaine, SP Donlan, and M Sychold (eds), Comparative law and hybrid legal traditions (2010)

• ‘Remembering: legal hybridity and legal history’ (2011) 2 Comparative Law Review 1

• ‘The Mediterranean Hybridity Project: at the boundaries of law and culture’ to be published in the Journal of Civil Law Studies in mid 2011

These articles attempt to create a foundation, especially in my narrative of Western legal history, on which to build an analytical concept that can also be applied within comparative law. The ubiquity of hybridity in both the past and present is, or so I argue, of considerable imporatance to legal philosophy as well.

Finally, note that my paper in Israel was also on the Mediterranean Project and touched briefly on the use of 'hybridity' in Post-Colonial Studies. This is closely related to my understanding of the meaning of the concept. I hope to follow up on this relationship shortly, perhaps also linking my discussion to that on 'critical legal pluralism'. This would attempt to combine both objective and subjective perspectives at the level of the legal or normative order and individual respectively.

I'd welcome your thoughts.

NOTICE: New Law and Humanities on Law and Literature

(2011) 5:1 Law and Humanities has just been released:

To celebrate the 5th anniversary of Law and Humanities, Volume 5, Number 1 is a special issue on Law and Literature with papers arising from an international symposium titled ‘Law and Literature: Theory and Practice’. The Editorial by Paul Raffield and Gary Watt as well as the Introduction by Christian Biet and Lissa Lincoln are free to view.

For further information please see below for the table of contents, information about online access and details on how to subscribe.

CONTENTS

• Editorial
• Introduction: Law and Literature, Christian Biet and Lissa Lincoln

MAPPING THE QUESTION

 

Crossing the Borders

• Law & Literature (as an epistemological break in legal theory), Gilles Lhuilier
• Narrative and the Origins of Law, Allison Tait and Luke Norris
• Before the Temple of Justice: Reading Roman Law Reading, Leif Dahlberg

Theory and Post-Theories

• Law and (which?) Literature: New Directions in Post-Theory?, Klaus Stierstorfer
• Slot-thinking, or Categorisation, in Law and Literature, Sebastian McEvoy
• Piracy as Method: Nine Theses on Law and Literature, Laurent de Sutter

JUDICIAL FICTIONS & LITERARY FICTIONS

Middle Ages & Early Renaissance Period

• Legal Theory, Legal Practice and Drama (1200–1600), Marie Bouhaïk-Gironès, Simon Gabay, Jelle Koopmans and Katell Lavéant
• A Logic of Appropriation: Practical Relationships between Law and Literature in the Middle Ages, Joël Blanchard
• Law and Literature in the Humanist Period: Encyclopædic versus Specialised Thought, Bruno Méniel
• The Experience of Law and Art Literature in the Sixteenth Century: Benvenuto Cellini’s La Vita, Romain Descendre (translated by Jane Gillon)

Early Modern & Modern Period

• From Obsessive Metaphors to Juridical Myth: Some Proposals for a Metaphorical Reading of Early Modern Law and Literature, Romain Jobez
• Schools of Law, School of Drama, Dominique Goy-Blanquet
• A Possible Co-Constitution of Theatre, Literature and Law, through the Example of Seventeenth-Century England, Natacha Israël

THEORY & PRACTICE

Theory & Other Disciplines

• Freedom of the Theatre: A Matter of Law?, Stéphanie Loncle
• For Extending the Domain of Research between Law, Economics and Literature, Martial Poirson
• Creating an International Court: A Movie Project, Christian Delage

Literature & the Practice of Law

• The Future of Literary-Legal Jurisprudence: Mere Theory or Just Practice?, Jeanne Gaakeer
• Crime Stories: The Polish Secret Police File and the Conflation of the Legal and the Literary, Anna Krakus
• Law and Literature: A Conjunction Revisited, Barbara Villez

The Dream of Equity

• Equity: Assessing the Results of a Project, Daniela Carpi
• The To Be Of And: Reflections on the Bridge, Gary Watt
• The Oneiric Imagination and the Dream of Law, Paul Raffield

Law & Literature Present & Future

• Appearing, or ‘Face-to-Face’ Dialogue, Sandra Travers de Faultrier
• Judicial Spectacle Events as Reality and as Fiction, Guy Spielmann
• Justice Imagined: Albert Camus’ Politics of Subversion, Lissa Lincoln
• A-N-D, Richard H Weisberg

NOTICE: New Issue of the Comparative Law Review

I'm pleased to announce the latest issue of the (2011) 2:1 Comparative Law Review. The contents include, among other things, a number of articles on the 'construction of legal traditions':

• Seán Patrick Donlan - Remembering: Legal Hybridity and Legal History
• Laura Vagni - The Enforceability of Promises in Scotland and in The European Contract Law: A Comparative Analysis from an Italian Perspective
• Giovanni Marini - Foreword – Legal traditions. A critical appraisal
• Tomasz Giaro - Legal tradition of Eastern Europe. Its rise and demise
• Günter Frankenberg - Constructing Legal Traditions. Introductory Remarks on the Public/Private – Distinction as Tradition
• Lama Abu-Odeh - Crimes of Honor and the Construction of Gender in Arab Societies
• Jorge L Esquirol - The Latin American Tradition of Legal Failure   

NOTICE: JURIS DIVERSITAS and The Third International Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists (20-23 June 2011)

The Third International Congress of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists (WSMJJ) begins today at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (it lasts from 20-23 June 2011).

While this is not a Juris Diversitas event, the Congress marks the four-year anniversary of our Association, begun informally at the last WSMJJ Congress held in Edinburgh in 2007. Many of this year's speakers are our members or are on our Board. A meeting of Juris Diversitas members attending will also be held today at 3pm at the Law Faculty of Hebrew University.

Best wishes to all those who could not attend. Perhaps we'll see you at The Concept of 'law' in Context: Comparative Law, Legal Philosophy, and the Social Sciences Conference (21-22 October 2011 - Lausanne, Switzerland), our next event (co-organised with the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law).

CALL FOR PAPERS: Justice in Ottoman Society: Institutions, Actors and Practices

A workshop on Justice in Ottoman Society: Institutions, Actors and Practices is being held from 7-8 January 2012 at the Institut Français d’études Anatoliennes - Istanbul. 

The workshop has some similarities to our Mediterranean Project:

Justice in Ottoman society was made through a complex configuration, sustained by ​​ the interaction of different sources of legal references (Sharia, Kanun and custom) as well as different institutions or actors, giving rise to a multiplicity of different practices. If the plurality of legal references in the operative field of justice (i.e. in the Ottoman qadi courts) has long occupied the attention of researchers, the study of the multiplicity of actors and institutions operating in the field of justice has remained rather on the margins of the interest of legal historians.

Yet, in Ottoman society, people who were involved in a legal conflict had several alternative ways to resolve their dispute. Throughout the Empire there were of course qadi courts that would redress injustices and would also serve the individuals in conflict resolution. However, the qadi courts were not the only institution imposing fees or other penalties against wrongdoers. There was also the imperial assembly (divan), authorities from within the different religious communities or other experts that subjects could consult in case of conflict. Moreover, the military authorities such as governors and their assemblies (eyalet divanı) could also act in the sphere of justice as arbitrators or executive powers. What is more, the judicial or executive power of one (such as qadis) could be corrected, supplemented or balanced by the others (such as the office of vali, şeyhülislam, the Grand Vizier and muftis).

This workshop has been organized as a part of an ongoing seminar on the plurality of legal institutions and procedures in the Ottoman Society that has been held under the direction of Işık Tamdoğan at the Institut Français d’Etudes Anatoliennes in Istanbul since October 2011, under the title “La justice dans la société ottomane : institutions, acteurs et pratiques”.

(For more information, visit: http://www.ifea-istanbul.net/website_2/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=81)

The aim of the workshop is to contribute to a better understanding of the interaction of these various institutions and actors in the process of conflict resolution between individuals or in the larger context of making justice in general, as well as during/in the punishment process. It should also be underlined that in Ottoman society disputes and conflicts among individuals or groups could be resolved without resorting to any of the abovementioned institutions. This is particularly apparent on occasions when the society seeks to make justice of its own. Such judicial practices as amicable settlements or even direct revenge that were taking place outside of these legal institutions will be given a considerable place in our discussion in this workshop. Whether punitive or reconciliatory (as is the case in sulh) it is again the interaction between these different spheres of justice, (“informal” or more “official”) that will constitute the heart of our discussion.

These institutions and practices, which interacted in a complex and subtle manner are far from being uniform in space and time, throughout the Empire. It is for this reason that in this workshop we aim to approach their respective developments as well as their transformations over time (15th-19th centuries) and space (from Balkans to Arab provinces).

In order to approach this complex field of Ottoman justice, we propose to work around certain issues:

1. The strategies of individuals:
- Did individuals have any leeway in choosing the institution by which they could settle their disputes?
- According to which criteria (personal status or the nature of the conflict) people selected these institutions (Qadi court or the imperial divan)?

2. The interaction of different institutions:
- When a legal process was under way, how did these different institutions could intervene and take a role in this process?
- What kind of a division of labor took place between the various bodies and institutions - such as the qadi and the provincial governor?
- The interaction between the legal courts and governors’ divan or Imperial divan will be of particular interest for our workshop but also a particular attention will be paid to the legal opinions (fatwas) of the provincial muftis during the juridical debates.
- Is it possible to argue that there existed a clearly defined hierarchy between these different institutions or were they operating in their own ways depending on the nature of the conflict in question, the status of the individuals in conflict or random choice of the plaintiffs?

3. Legal practices outside the institutions:
-How were the conflicts resolved outside of these institutions?
- What kind of legitimacy had these “practices” vis-à-vis the legal and executive institutions (such as the qadi and governors)?

While we have funds in place to pay the costs of some participants, these are limited and priority will be given to those who cannot find funding elsewhere. Participants are strongly advised to seek funding from their own universities or research bodies. Working languages of the workshop will be French, Turkish and English. Potential participants are invited to send their proposals by July 30th 2011, to isik@netcourrier.com.  Individual paper submissions should include the full details of the presenter and an abstract of 200 words (for a thirty-minute presentation).

NOTICE: The Concept of 'law' in Context: Comparative Law, Legal Philosophy, and the Social Sciences Conference (21-22 October 2011 - Lausanne, Switzerland)

Juris Diversitas has, with the Swiss Institute of Comparative law (SICL), organised a conference on The concept of 'law' in context: comparative law, legal philosophy, and the social sciences to be held from 21-22 October 2011 at the Institute in Lausanne, Switzerland.

In addition to the 'interventions' of Werner Menski (SOAS) and William Twining (UCL and Miami), many others will participate:

Marc Amstutz (Fribourg), Gerhard Anders (Edinburgh), Mauro Bussani (Trento), Seán Patrick Donlan (Limerick), Baudouin Dupret (CNRS) Julia Ekert (Berne), Lukas Heckendorn Urscheler, (SICL), Alessio Lo Giudice (Catania), Emmanuel Melissaris (LSE), Alexander Morawa (Lucerne), David Nelken (Cardiff and Macerata), and Mark van Hoeke (Catholic University Brussels).

The conference themes are explained as:

 

The coexistence of the laws of the state and other normative orders, in the Western past and the global present, is a challenge to both modern legal philosophy and comparative law. The continuing importance of non-state norms, trans-national and sub-national, undermines the state-centred focus of much contemporary jurisprudence. It also problematises the neat division of complex and dynamic legal traditions into discrete families of closed legal systems.

Our project on Legal Philosophy in Context will also be discussed and a volume will be published based on papers delivered at the conference.

In addition, the collection from Juris Diversitas' previous conference with the SICL in 2009—Comparative law and hybrid legal traditions—is now available for free online at http://www.e-collection.isdc.ch/ (it's volume 67).

NOTICE: New Issue of Opinio Juris in Comparatione

The new issue of Opinio Juris in Comparatione is available online.

NOTICE: Newest Issue of PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review

The newest issue of PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, including a symposium on Bureaucracy, is accessible online.

Journal of Civil Law Studies: Volume 4 Issue 1 (May 2011) is Online

The Center of Civil Law Studies at the LSU Law Center announces the publication of Volume 4 Issue 1 of the Journal of Civil Law Studies (JCLS). All volumes are freely accessible online, at http://www.law.lsu.edu/jcls.

Articles:

• Is the Pre-20th Century American Legal System a Common Law System? An Exercise in Legal Taxonomy, Jacques Vanderlinden


• Juridical Personality and Intimacy, Michael McAuley


• Transition without Transformation: Legal Reform in the Democratization and Development Processes, Ermal Frasheri


• Interspousal Claims at the Crossroads of Tort Law and Family Law: The Delicate Balance between Family and Individual, Biagio Andó


• Legal Protection of Minority Shareholders of Listed Corporations in Brazil: Brief History, Legal Structure and Empirical Evidence, Bruno Meyerhof Salama & Viviane Muller Prado


• The Slaves and Slavery of Marie Claire Chabert: Familial Black Slaveholding in Antebellum Louisiana, Mitra Sharafi

Book Review:
N. Whitty & R. Zimmermann, Rights of Personality in Scots Law, Olivier Moréteau