NOTICE: Framing Multicultural issues in Terms of Human Rights

A one-day Seminar on ‘Framing multicultural issues in terms of human rights: solution or problem?’ will be held at the Utrecht University Law School on Monday 14 November 2011:

Building further on our special issue of the Utrecht Law Review of June 2010 called ‘Human rights law as a site of struggle over multicultural conflicts; Comparative and multidisciplinary perspectives’, we at Legal Theory in Utrecht felt the need to address the question which role human rights play in framing specific multicultural issues. Take for example the refusal to shake hands with the other sex. This ‘problem’ can easily be resolved, as often happens, in an informal and pragmatic manner. It can however also be framed in terms of ‘reasonable behaviour of an employee’, but just as well, it seems, in terms of a ‘horizontal working of human rights’: ‘freedom of speech/expression’ or ‘freedom of religion’ vs ‘non discrimination’ and ‘gender equality’.

We want to investigate whether it makes a difference (for whom, in what sense?) to frame an issue one way or the other, and what the role is that the (human rights) law itself plays. Do human rights, especially the ready availability of for example ‘freedom of religion’ these days, steer towards and thus influence certain solutions? If so, what are the consequences in terms of ‘backfire’ for the human rights system and for social relations (both on micro and macro level)? What are the gains, and for whom? And not the least interesting: what does a comparison between countries teach us? These questions partly need to be addressed empirically, like whether framing multicultural issues in terms of human rights is a recent phenomenon and whether shifts in the use of specific human rights can be discerned.

NOTICE AND CALL FOR PAPERS: ELSA Malta Law Review

ELSA MALTA, the Maltese chapter of the European Law Students' Association (ELSA) have recently launched the ELSA Malta Law Review, a new annual law review supported by the Chamber of Advocates (the Bar Association of Malta):

The aims of the Law Review are to provide students with exposure and to publish their research; to provide opportunities for students and young practitioners to enhance their academic writing and editing skills; to provide greater accessibility to legal scholarship for practitioners, academic and students; to publish research by academia.

Submissions are now being accepted for the second edition. The contents of the first issue include:

CALL FOR PAPERS: Seventh Annual Comparative Law Works in Progress Workshop (USA)

A Call For Papers for a Workshop on Works in Progress on comparative law has been issued. It is described as:

Kim Lane Scheppele (Princeton University, Program in Law and Public Affairs), Jacqueline Ross (University of Illinois College of Law), and James Whitman (Yale Law School) are calling for paper submissions for the Seventh Annual Comparative Law Works in Progress Workshop which will take place at the Princeton University on February 10-12, 2012. This workshop has been established jointly by Princeton University, the University of Illinois College of Law and Yale Law School and will be co-sponsored by the American Society of Comparative Law.

CONFERENCE DETAILS: The participants will consist of the respective authors, one commentator on each paper, faculty members of the host institution, particularly those with expertise in comparative law and research, and others interested in attending. The overall group will be kept small enough to sit around a large table and to allow serious discussion (20 people maximum). The papers will not be presented at the workshop. They will be distributed two weeks in advance and every participant must have read them before attending the meeting. The commentator will present a 10 to 15 minute introduction and critique, leaving at least one hour for discussion. There are no plans to publish the papers. Instead, it is up to the authors to seek publication if, and wherever, they wish.
 

CALL FOR PAPERS: Junior Faculty Interdisciplinary Scholarship Workshop

The Indiana University School of Law - Indianapolis will host an exciting new Junior Faculty Interdisciplinary Scholarship Workshop from 22-23 March 2012:

The workshop will explore “Objectivity in the Law” and is open to non-tenured academics whose research is interdisciplinary in nature. The normative value of objectivity runs through the purpose for most law, though social practices influence how laws are implemented. Submitted papers should focus on a chosen area of law and examine that law’s objective purpose and the relationship between its purpose and its actual implementation.

NOTICE: Lerner and Rabello on Israeli (Re-) Codification

The Summer 2011 edition of the American Journal of Comparative Law (AJCL) recently published Pablo Lerner and Alfredo Mordechai Rabello, 'The (Re) Codification of Israeli Private Law: Support for, and Criticism of, the Israeli Draft Civil Law Code'.

Somehow I missed this. I spotted it on the Associazione Italiana di Diritto Comparato (AIDC, the Italian Association of Comparative Law) blog.

The abstract reads:

The drafting of the Israeli Civil Law Code is perhaps the most ambitious legal project—certainly in the area of civil law—undertaken by Israel since the establishment of the state. This Article highlights various aspects of the Draft Israeli Civil Code, demonstrating the manner in which a mixed legal culture undergoes the process of codification and paying particular attention to the relationship between codification and judicial discretion.

The success of the Israeli Civil Law Code depends on a broader understanding of the phenomenon of codification and the acceptance that codification is not an outdated form of law-making but rather a vital and flexible instrument that can be used to achieve a more adaptable and organized private law. Should it be approved as law, the Civil Code will afford a solid basis for a consistent development of Israeli Civil Law. With all its defects and flaws, it reveals the vitality of Israeli legal thinking, a vitality necessary to avoid stagnation and to keep a legal tradition relevant to changes in society.

Note, too, the AJCL's pre-print articles at http://comparativelaw.metapress.com/content/121176/?Content+Status=Accepted.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Third Biennial Literature and Law Conference (29-30 March 2012)

The Third Biennial Literature and Law Conference will take place at John Jay College of Criminal Justice (CUNY), New York, New York (on the newly expanded campus near Lincoln Center in Manhattan) from 29-30 March 29-30, 2012:

Conference Organizer and Contact Person

Conference Theme: The Idea of Justice

Overview: This conference aims to bring scholars of literature and law into an interdisciplinary setting to share the fruits of their research and scholarship. Generally this conference consists of approximately 12 paper panels and roundtables, two talks by prominent speakers, and a post-conference reception. The conference fee will be $75, which will be payable by credit card through a link on the conference website (details below).

Call For Papers and Panels

We invite proposals for papers and panels that address topics that relate the humanities & arts (especially literary texts (broadly conceived)), to this year’s conference theme, the “idea of justice.” Of particular interest are papers and panels that in addition engage aspects of Professor Sen’s book, The Idea of Justice, or that attempt to integrate the theory with the practice of justice, and/or that engage and compare differing notions and perspectives of justice.

Panel proposals should contain the names and affiliations of the speakers, the titles of their papers, a clearly identified contact person, and an overall title for the panel. Panel proposals should be received by November 25th 2011. Given the 75-minute length for the panels at this conference, the panels should include no more than three presenters plus a commentator or moderator.

NOTICE: Morigiwa, Stolleis, and Halperin on the Interpretation of Law in the Age of Enlightenment

I’ve just become aware of the release (by Springer) of a very interesting text by Yasutomo Morigiwa, Michael Stolleis, and Jean-Louis Halperin (eds), Interpretation of Law in the Age of Enlightenment: From the Rule of the King to the Rule of Law (2011):

This book examines the actual practice of the interpretation of law in the Age of Enlightenment versus the ideology of the Age and explains the reason for and difference between the two. The ideology of the Age of Enlightenment was that law, i.e., the will of the sovereign, can be explicitly and appropriately stated, thus making interpretation redundant. However, the reality was that in the 18th century, there was no one leading source of national law that would be the object of interpretation. Instead, there was a plurality of sources of law: the Roman Law, local customary law, and the royal ordinance. Yet, in deciding a case in a court of law, the law must speak with one voice, making interpretation to unify the norms inevitable. This book discusses the process involved and the role played by justification in terms of reason - the hallmark of Enlightenment.

The table of contents includes:

Editors’ Preface; Morigiwa Yasutomo, Michael Stolleis, Jean-Louis Halpérin.- Foreword from the Herstec Project; Sato Shoichi.- About the Contributors.- I. Introduction.- Judicial Interpretation in Transition from the Ancien Régime to Constitutionalism; Michael Stolleis.- II. The case of France.- Legal Interpretation in France under the Reign of Louis XVI through the Gazette des Tribunaux; Jean-Louis Halpérin.- Legal Interpretation through the Case Law Book of the Parlement de Flandre; Serge Dauchy.- II. The case of Germany.- The Object of Interpretation: Legislation and Competing Normative Sources of Law in Europe during the 16th to 18th Centuries; Heinz Mohnhaupt.- The Concept and Means of Legal Interpretation in the 18th Century; Jan Schröder.- Necessity: Pandectists between Norm and Reality (1780-1870); Hans-Peter Haferkamp.- IV. The Nature of Legal Interpretation.- Interpretation by Another Name; Morigiwa Yasutomo.- What is Interpretation of the Law for the French Judge? Michel Troper.- The Craft of Interpretation ; Bradley Wendel.- Concluding Remarks.- Legal Interpretation in 18th Century Europe: Doctrinal Debates versus Political Change ; Jean-Louis Halpérin.- Index.

REMINDER: The Concept of 'Law' in Context Conference

REMINDER REMINDER REMINDER

 

Our conference on 'The concept of "law" in context: comparative law, legal philosophy, and the social sciences' will be held from 21-22 October 2011 at the Swiss Institute of Comparative law (SICL) in Lausanne:

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.

Speakers include plenary speaker Werner Menski (SOAS, University of London) and Marc Amstutz (University of Fribourg), Gerhard Anders (University of Zürich and Edinburgh), Mauro Bussani (University of Trieste and the International Association of Legal Science), Seán Patrick Donlan (University of Limerick), Baudouin Dupret (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, France), Julia Eckert (University of Berne), Andrew Halpin (Swansea University), Lukas Heckendorn Urscheler (Swiss Institute of Comparative Law), Alessio Lo Giudice (University of Catania), Salvatore Mancuso (University of Macao), Emmanuel Melissaris (London School of Economics), Alexander Morawa (University of Lucerne), David Nelken (University of Cardiff and Macerata), and Mark van Hoecke (University of Ghent)

For addition information, please contact Lukas Heckendorn Urscheler at info@isdc.ch or +41 21 692 49 11. A registration form is available at http://www.isdc.ch/.


Finally, note that our project on Legal Philosophy in Context will also be discussed on Friday, 21 October 2011. For additional information, please contact Seán Patrick Donlan at sean.donlan@ul.ie.

Additional information will be provided shortly about a meeting of our members.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Second EUROPEAN SOCIETY FOR COMPARATIVE LEGAL HISTORY Conference (Amsterdam 9-10 July 2012

The Second European Society for Comparative Legal History Conference will be held in Amsterdam from 9-10 July 2012. The theme is:

COMPARATIVE LEGAL HISTORY

Definitions and Challenges

Call for papers

Comparative Legal History is a relatively young discipline. It focuses explicitly on the comparison of legal ideas and legal institutions in divergent legal traditions. The European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH) was founded in 2009 in order to promote such comparison. Its Inaugural Conference (Valencia, 5-6 July 2010) showed that it is not always easy to find material which is suitable for serious comparison and to establish the criteria which have to be met in order to come to grips with this material.

The Second ESCLH Conference, which will take place on 9-10 July 2012 at Amsterdam and will be hosted by the VU University, aims at addressing this fundamental problem. Under the heading “Definitions and Challenges” it will try to delineate the landmarks which fruitful legal historical comparison requires and to trace the specific problems that a comparative-historical approach of the various branches of law may encounter. The keynote address will be delivered by David Ibbetson, Regius Professor of Civil Law at the University of Cambridge.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Second issue of Scientia Juris (Metz Law School Journal)

Legal Maxims in the 21st Century – Law in Books or Law in Action?

“Hence, in all civilized nations, we always witness the formation, alongside the temple of enacted laws under the legislator’s supervision, of a repository of maxims, decisions, and doctrinal writings which is daily refined by the practitioners and their clashing debates in court, which steadily grows as all acquired knowledge is added to it, and which has always been regarded as the true supplement of legislation”.

- Translation of J.-E.-M. Portalis in Alain Levasseur, ‘Code Napoleon or Code Portalis?’ (1968) 43 Tulane Law Review 762, 769-70.

This famous quotation of Portalis expresses in a brilliant phrase that statutes are not the only sources of law and that alongside them are maxims or adages, as well as judge-made law and doctrine.