SEMINAR: Authority in a Transnational Age

AUTHORITY IN A TRANSNATIONAL AGE

8-9 November 2013/A Modern Law Review Seminar

Hosted by the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London

Contemporary jurisprudence – and legal scholarship and legal education more generally – is currently under serious challenge from the emergence of arguably new legal phenomena at the non-state or transnational level. This challenge is both substantive and methodological. Substantively, legal scholars are being confronted with, and asked to explain, phenomena which cannot easily be explained by theories which put the sovereign state at the centre. Such phenomena include internet regulation and the new lex mercatoria. New jurisprudential problems are also raised by the growth of transnational communities, which bring with them a variety of different legal traditions and understandings. Methodologically, in this context, traditional conceptual analysis is arguably ever more in need of being informed by empirical analysis – for the old concepts, and their universalistic tendencies, are being criticised as inadequate.

CONFERENCE (Deadline Extended): The Dynamics of Legal Development - Family & Succession Law

There is still limited space available in the workshops of the three day conference on “The Dynamics of Legal Development - Family & Succession Law” hosted by the Max-Planck-Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (Hamburg) from 17-19 October 2013.

The registration deadline has been extended to October 1, 2013.

The dynamics of legal development will be traced through lectures on the national laws of selected Islamic countries and workshops, in which the main actors of legal development will be examined in detail. Additionally, the findings of the research conducted by the Max Planck Research Group "Changes in God’s Law ­– An Inner Islamic Comparison of Family and Succession Law" established at the Institute in April 2009 will be presented to the audience. The language of the conference is English.

Further information can be found at http://www.mpipriv.de/en/pub/research/research_groups/research_group_on_family_and_s.cfm.

BOOK: Human Rights under State-enforced Religious Family Laws in Israel, Egypt and India

Cambridge University Press (CUP) has published Yüksel Sezgin’s Human Rights under State-enforced Religious Family Laws in Israel, Egypt and India. In a nutshell, the book looks at impacts of state-enforced (pluri-legal) religious family laws on human/women’s rights in Israel, Egypt and India, and identifies resistance strategies successfully mobilized by rights activists in these jurisdictions:

About one-third of the world's population currently lives under pluri-legal systems where governments hold individuals subject to the purview of ethno-religious rather than national norms in respect to family law. How does the state-enforcement of these religious family laws impact fundamental rights and liberties? What resistance strategies do people employ in order to overcome the disabilities and limitations these religious laws impose upon their rights? Based on archival research, court observations and interviews with individuals from three countries, Yüksel Sezgin shows that governments have often intervened in order to impress a particular image of subjectivity upon a society, while people have constantly challenged the interpretive monopoly of courts and state-sanctioned religious institutions, re-negotiated their rights and duties under the law, and changed the system from within. He also identifies key lessons and best practices for the integration of universal human rights principles into religious legal systems.

The Table of Contents includes:

1. Introduction
2. Personal status, nation-building, and the postcolonial state
3. The impact of state-enforced personal status laws on human rights
4. A fragmented confessional system: state-enforced religious family laws and human rights in Israel
5. A unified confessional system: state-enforced religious family laws and human rights in Egypt
6. A unified semi-confessional system: state-enforced religious family laws and human rights in India
7. Conclusion: upholding human rights under religious legal systems.

Note that there is a discount code (SEZGIN13) if you order the book from CUP.

All royalties are donated to the UN Women’s Fund for Gender Equality.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Peer Production, Disruption and the Law

PEER PRODUCTION, DISRUPTION AND THE LAW

Editors: Steve Collins, Macquarie University and Angela Daly, Swinburne University of Technology

The disruption caused by new technologies and non-conventional methods of organisation have posed challenges for the law, confronting regulators with the need to balance justice with powerful interests. Experience from the “disruptions” of the late 20th century has shown that the response from incumbent industries can lead to a period of intense litigation and lobbying for laws that will maintain the status quo. For example, following its “Napster moment”, the music industry fought to maintain its grip on distribution channels through increased copyright enforcement and the longer copyright terms it managed to extract from the legislative process. The newspaper industry has similarly seen its historical revenue stream of classified ads disrupted by more efficient online listings, and responded to its own failure to capitalise on online advertising by launching legal campaigns against Google News in various European countries.

Though the law as it stands may not be well-equipped to deal with disruptive episodes, the technological innovations of the last twenty years have created an environment that generates disruption. The Internet, the Web and networked personal computers have converged into the ubiquitous post-PC media device, leaving twentieth century paradigms of production, consumption and distribution under considerable threat. The latest technology to be added to this group of disruptive innovations may be 3D-printing, which in recent times has become increasingly available and accessible to users in developed economies, whilst the manufacturing capacity of 3D-printers has dramatically grown. Although current offerings on the market are far from a Star Trek-like “replicator”, the spectre of disruption has once again arrived, with the prospect of 3D-printed guns inspiring a moral panic and raising questions of gun control, regulation, jurisdiction and effective control. In addition, 3D-printing raises a number of issues regarding intellectual property, going far beyond the copyright problems that file-sharing brought about due to its production of physical objects.

This special issue of the Journal of Peer Production calls for papers that deal with the intersection of peer production, disruptive technologies and the law. Potential topics include, but are not restricted to:

SPD: Democracy and Other Matters

For those interested in comparative constitutionalism and public law, my views on current Irish debates about the abolition of our Upper House (the Seanad) of our Parliament (the Oireachtas) are available here on The Irish Politics Forum. 


A referendum, one of two, on the subject takes place 4 October 2013. General information is available here from our independent Referendum Commission.

Those interested in witnessing some of the, sometimes ugly, online debate might check in here from time-to-time.

OPPORTUNITY: Cambridge Research Fellowship

Cambridge Emmanuel College invites applicants for three fixed-term three year Research Fellowships in any subject: all four Fellowships are for a three-year fixed term, and will commence on 1 October, 2014. Applicants must show promise of being able to pursue research at the highest international level, and should not have completed more than eight years of post-graduate study and research by October 1, 2014.

Pre-doctoral Research Fellows will be responsible for any University fee they incur up to the level of a UK post-graduate student; the College will contribute the difference if a higher fee is applicable. A limited amount of teaching in College is permitted, for which payment will be made at the usual rate.

Research Fellows will be given the option to live in College (although no married accommodation can be provided), and will be provided with lunch and dinner in Hall free of charge.

The application process for the Fellowships is published online via the Apply button below from 2 September, 2013, and applications must be received by 5 pm on 3 October, 2013.

Details here.

ARTICLES: Zumbansen on Human Rights, Transitional Justice and Hybridity in Transnational Governance

Two interesting articles by (the always interesting) Peer Zumbasen we can find in Osgoode Hall Law School, Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy (CLPE) Research Paper Series. The first is "Approximating Law and Development, Human Rights and Transitional Justice" written by Peer Zumbasen (New York University - Osgoode Hall Law School)  and Ruth Buchanan (Osgoode Hall Law School - York University). It is the introduction to the forthcoming edited collection "Law in Transition: Human Rights, Developments and Transitional Justice", edited by the authors and forthcoming with Hart Publishing (Oxford, 2013). The book brings together many of the leading experts of the increasingly pertinent intersection of development, rights and transitional justice studies. The Introduction traces the theoretical and practical challenges of this discursive interaction and argues that it is only through such dialogue that a better understanding of the institutional and normative issues arising in contemporary law & development and TJ contexts will be possible. The chapter provides an overview of the history of the law & development movement, which is then discussed together with the rise of human rights theory and critique, especially against the background of decolonization, the rise of so-called ‘Third World Approaches in International Law’ [TWAIL], the rise and ambivalent aftermath of the Washington Consensus as well as the proliferation of post-conflict and law reform initiatives around the world. Transitional Justice, as a relatively young ‘legal’ field, brings to the table a host of interdisciplinary challenges arising from the complexity of post-conflict, state building and law reform contexts. The present chapter as well as the ensuing contributions to the edited collection highlight the importance of bringing these important fields in closer dialogue with each other. 
The other article is "Law and Legal Pluralism: Hybridity in Transnational Governance". This paper takes the currently much belabored concepts of “global governance” and “global constitutionalism” as starting points to ask what they can teach us about the role and function of law today. Suggesting that we take a greater interest in how governance conflicts today must be addressed from a host of national, international, hard and soft “law” norms, disseminated and administered by actors on different levels and often with “non-state” law-making authority, the paper points to the need to see legal norms as part of an evolving regulatory landscape that can best be described as transnational. In light of the shifts and the interesting new forms of co-existence and cooperation between state and non-state actors in the production of transnational norms, it becomes more and more obvious that law, legal theory as well as the sociology of law are part of a more comprehensive and multidisciplinary engagement with the institutional and normative challenges arising in the global context.

About the Author: 

 Canada Research Chair in Transnational Economic Governance and Legal Theory
 

York University - Osgoode Hall Law School

 

 4700 Keele Street
 Toronto, Ontario M3J 1P3
 Canada
 416-736-5535 (Phone)
 416-736-5736 (Fax)

 HOME PAGE: http://www.osgoode.yorku.ca/faculty/peerzumbansen.html
 email addre

OPPORTUNITY: Newberry Library Fellowships in the Humanities 2014-15

Newberry Library Fellowships in the Humanities 2014-15

If you study the humanities, the Newberry has something for you!

Newberry fellowships provide assistance to researchers who wish to use our collection. We promise you intriguing and often rare materials; a lively, interdisciplinary community of researchers; individual consultations on your research with staff curators, librarians, and other scholars; and an array of both scholarly and public programs.

Applicants may apply for both long- and short- term fellowships within one academic year.

We begin accepting applications September 1, 2013.

For more information, visit our website: www.newberry.org/fellowships

CALL FOR PAPERS: Hong Kong University Legal Scholarship Workshop

The Hong Kong University offers forum for  current doctoral candidates in law to present work in a focused workshop. 

The one-day workshop will host a total of not more than 4 presenters. Each presenter will be allocated an exclusive 90-minute session for presentation, substantive Q&A and stylistic feedback. Each presenter can expect an earnest discussion on both substance and style from the workshop participants. The workshop participants will primarily include research postgraduate students from the University of Hong Kong led by the hosting faculty member, and invited faculty members whose expertise coincide with the presented paper.

The workshop will include papers from all areas of law, with no restrictions on jurisdiction and methodology. There is no strict limitation on paper length, though papers whose format and length are meant for either an one-hour workshop discussion or an one-hour job talk presentation are preferred.

Presenters and participants must commit to attend the entire Workshop, including reading the presented papers of all presenters prior to the session.

The Workshop is open to current postgraduate students enrolled in a doctoral program in law (e.g., PhD or JSD, but excluding JD) in any law school around the world. Recently graduated doctoral candidates who have not obtained a tenure-track academic position may also apply, but priority will be given to current students.

There is no conference registration fee for presenters. In addition, the University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law will provide each presenter with travel reimbursement of up to HK$6000 (approx USD 750) for return economy airfare from either the presenter's academic institution or home country, and accommodation reimbursement of up to HK$2000 (approx USD 250) for two night stay in Hong Kong.

To apply, send a paper or abstract, together with a CV and a cover letter stating the intended format/purpose of the paper to Jianlin Chen (jianlin@hku.hk) by October 1, 2013. Decisions will be made and communicated to applicants no later than October 15, 2013. The finalized paper to be presented is due by November 23, 2013 for distribution a week before the workshop.

OPPORTUNITY: Queen's University Canada Research Chair in Law

Queen's University Faculty of Law seeks to recruit a Canada Research Chair in Law (Tier 2).

Applicants should be Assistant or Associate Professors or possess the necessary qualifications. Absent exceptional circumstances, the candidate will be expected to have a Doctorate in law or a cognate discipline, with the candidate having completed his or her highest degree no more than ten years prior to nomination for the Chair.

The successful candidate will be expected to establish a highly productive scholarly agenda including the development of research relationships with researchers across Canada and internationally, to provide effective teaching and mentoring of J.D. and graduate students.

Tier 2 nominees need to meet the specific requirements for Tier 2 appointment:

-          excellent emerging world-class researchers who have demonstrated particular research creativity;

-          demonstrated potential to achieve international recognition in their fields in the next five to ten years;

-          an original, innovative research program of high quality;

-          potential to attract excellent trainees, students and future researchers.

Each completed application must include:

-          a curriculum vitae;

-          copies of all university transcripts;

-          copies of sample publications;

-          a statement outlining how the candidate meets the requirements for a CRC Tier 2 appointment;

-          a statement outlining experience with teaching and supervision at the J.D. and graduate level, including all available course outlines and evaluations;

-          letters from three referees sent directly by the referee to the address below.

Electronic applications and letters of reference are strongly preferred, ideally in PDF.

Applicants should submit their file by September 30, 2013. The Committee may still consider applications after this date.

The Faculty will work with the successful candidate to submit a CRC nomination to the CRC Secretariat by April 2014. The successful candidate may assume a tenure track or tenured faculty position at Queen's as early as July 1, 2014; however, the CRC competition is subject to final review and approval by the CRC Secretariat.

Electronic applications and letters of reference should be sent to Dean Bill Flanagan at: w.flanagan@queensu.ca

Hard copies should be addressed to Dean Bill Flanagan, Queen's University Faculty of Law, Macdonald Hall, Kingston, Ontario Canada K7L 3N6

For more information on Canada Research Chairs, see: http://www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/program-programme/nomination-mise_en_candidature-eng.aspx