SPD: A Report on The Method and Culture of Comparative Law Workshop

I'm just back from the Gent Workshop on 'The Method and Culture of Comparative Law', in honour of Mark van Hoecke.

It was a great success: the papers, the weather, the dinners, the weather. Our hosts were gentlemen. Our honoree extraordinarily gracious. And the participants were, well, generally well-behaved and civil. 

It was a privilege to be included.

- SPD

For information on the book, click here.

JOURNAL: Transnational Legal Theory

We are pleased to announce the publication of a new, special issue of Transnational Legal Theory

Symposium on William Twining’s Montesquieu Lecture, Globalisation and Legal Scholarship

Why Global Law is Transnational: Remarks on the Symposium around William Twining’s Montesquieu Lecture

Peer Zumbansen

Global Situation Sense

Phillip Paiement and Willem Witteveen

JOURNAL: The Theory and Practice of Legislation

We are very pleased to let you know that The Theory and Practice of Legislation, volume 1, issue 3, is now published.

Contents:

Introduction: Legislation, Legal Episteme and Empirical Knowledge

Péter Cserne

Breaking the Circle: Goal-legislation and the Need for Empirical Research

Pauline Westerman

The Whys and Woes of Experimental Legislation

Sofia Ranchordás

ARTICLES: Philosophy of Law

SSRN's Philosophy of Law eJournal, vol. 7 No. 52, has just been published.

Table of contents:

Facts, Reasons and Joint Action: Thoughts on the Social Ontology of Law

Richard Ekins, University of Oxford - Faculty of Law

Law's Evolution and Law as Custom

William A. Edmundson, Georgia State University College of Law

Split Definitive: How Party Polarization Turned the Supreme Court into a Partisan Court

Neal Devins, William & Mary Law School

Lawrence Baum, Ohio State University (OSU) - Department of Political Science

Litigation Investment and Legal Ethics: What Are the Real Issues?

Anthony J. Sebok, Yeshiva University - Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Imaginary Contradictions: A Reply to Professor Oleske

Douglas Laycock, University of Virginia School of Law

Massachusetts Statutes of Limitations: A User's Guide

Joseph W. Glannon, Suffolk University Law School

CALL FOR PAPERS: African Courts: Actors, Institutional Developments and Governance

There is a Call for Papers for the workshop “African Courts: Actors, Institutional Developments and Governance” at the LASDEL Niamey, Niger. Funded by the DFG and Point Sud on December 4th − 10th, 2014. Deadline for applications: May, 31st 2014  (see the call)

WORKSHOP PROGRAMME: The Method and Culture of Comparative Law

THE METHOD AND CULTURE OF COMPARATIVE LAW

A workshop on epistemology, globalisation and context

15-17 May 2014 - Ghent, Belgium

Participants include: Jacco Bomhoff, Roger Brownsword, Seán Patrick Donlan, Patrick Glenn, Matthew Grelette, Jaap Hage, Jaakko Husa, Susan Millns, David Nelken, Heikki Pihlajamäki, Geoffrey Samuel,Mathias Siems, Catherine Valcke, Rob Van Gestel, and Alain Wijffels.

Thursday, May 15^th

Epistemology session

14.00 Introduction by Maurice Adams (Tilburg)

14.15 What is Legal Epistemology?

Geoffrey Samuel (Canterbury, Kent)

14.45 Comparative Law as Method and the Method of Comparative Law

Jaap Hage (Maastricht)

15.15 Research-Designs of Comparative Law – Methodology or Heuristics?

Jaakko Husa (Rovaniemi, Lapland)

15.45 discussion

16.15 break

16.45 Three Functions of Function in Comparative Law

Catherine Valcke and Matthew Grellette (Toronto)

17.15 Against Method?

Patrick Glenn (McGill, Montreal)

17.45 discussion

CONFERENCE: Superdiversity - Theory, Method and Practice

Registration for delegates for the international conference on Superdiversity: Theory, Method and Practice is now open. Deadline for registration is 1 June 2014.  Register online here

The conference is organised by the Institute for Research into Superdiversity (IRiS) and will be held at the University of Birmingham on 23-25 June 2014. The conference will feature over 120 papers, including keynote speeches, academic and policy panels, workshops and posters on topics at the forefront of the superdiversity research agenda.

Keynote speakers include: Jan Blommaert (University of Tilburg), Peggy Levitt (Wellesley College), James Nazroo (University of Manchester), Jenny Phillimore (University of Birmingham), Gill Valentine (University of Sheffield), and Steven Vertovec (Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity).

The registration fee (full fee £200, concession fee £150) covers delegate pack, lunches (23, 24 and 25 June). Conference dinner (£35) on 23 June is not included in the conference fee and should be booked via the online shop separately. Travel and accommodation are not covered by the registration fee. Delegates will need to make their own arrangements. For further information, please visit the conference webpage

ARTICLE: Indigenous Land Claims in Europe

The article "Indigenous Land Claims in Europe"   by Ghislain Otis and Aurelie Laurent in Indigenous Nations & Peoples Law eJournal is now available on SSRN.

This study examines the potential impact of recent developments in international human rights law relating to indigenous land claims on the protection of property under the European Convention on Human Rights. In a departure from colonial law the authors show how the doctrine of ancestral indigenous land title has recently been incorporated into international human rights law. This development, however, has yet to occur within the regime of the European Convention. The authors argue that the new decolonized approach to property can and should be adopted by the European Court of Human rights in its interpretation of Article 1 of Protocol No. 1 of the European Convention.

ARTICLE: We are not Born Alone and We Do Not Die Alone - Protecting Intergenerational Solidarity and Refraining Cain-ism Through Forced Heirship

 The article 'We Are Not Born Alone and We Do Not Die Alone: Protecting Intergenerational Solidarity and Refraining Cain-ism Through Forced Heirship' by Albert Lamarca Marques is now available on SSRN. 

Abstract:

English Abstract: In the current academic debate on family and succession law, the abolition or reform of forced heirship is often advocated. It is argued that this institution does not respond to the expectations and needs of today’s society. In the realm of freedom embodied by testate succession by will, the mandatory share is framed as a contradictory restriction on the individual right to decide freely. This paper contributes to the debate on the legal and social basis of forced heirship by offering a moderate defence of the institution. I argue that forced heirship actually protects individual choice while also respecting intergenerational ties. Moreover, the institution restrains competition and opportunistic behavior among siblings. It reflects the reality that we are alone in neither birth nor death and it reins in the Cain-like tendencies that threaten to tear apart families.

Spanish Abstract: En el debate académico reciente sobre el Derecho de Familia y Sucesiones es un lugar común plantear la reforma o la abolición de la legítima. Se argumenta que esta institución no responde a las expectativas y necesidades de la sociedad actual. En un reino de libertad, como es el de la sucesión testada, la legítima supone una restricción contradictoria con el derecho de las personas a decidir libremente sobre una parte de su patrimonio. Este trabajo intenta contribuir al debate sobre los fundamentos jurídicos y sociales de la institución de la legítima, así como sobre su mantenimiento, con la discusión de algunos de los argumentos en su contra, ofreciendo una moderada defensa de la misma, sobre la base de considerar que todavía existen buenas razones para abogar en su favor. La legítima protege la libertad individual respetando a la vez los vínculos intergeneracionales, y previene las conductas oportunistas y la competencia entre hermanos, Este instituto refleja el hecho que no estamos solos al nacer ni tampoco cuando morimos, y puede ser útil para mitigar el cainismo que tanto amenaza la convivencia familiar.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Spatial Justice and Diaspora: Law, Chaos and Postcoloniality Critical Legal Conference

 

A call for papers has been issued:

Spatial Justice and Diaspora: Law, Chaos and

Postcoloniality Critical Legal Conference, University of Sussex,
Brighton UK     4th-6th September 2014

DEADLINE JUNE 30TH 2014

This stream will engage with critical theories of spatiality in relation to issues of postcoloniality, globalisation, diaspora, and migration. It will interrogate scales of legality across multiple jurisdictions and consider the development of an aesthetics of resistance in diasporic communities. In an increasingly interconnected, globalised world, there is a growing demand for

a recognition of  processes of adaptation and resistance in the form  of legal pluralism as a historical contingency. This demand varies in  its articulation, from decolonial refraction to the empirical  negotiation of diasporic laws and the call for a redefinition of the  nation-state as the irrevocable centre . This stream will ask critical questions about the constantly  metamorphosing definition of the limit of the border in the face of  disorientating diaspora, the migration of law ,  and complex relations  of belonging. It invites papers that address the need to theorise  tempo-spatiality in law and consider how this embryonic chaos may be  filtered through transjurisdictional practice in all its many forms  and guises.

We are looking for papers from a wide variety of disciplines on (but  not limited to) the following themes:

 - diaspora communities and law

 - postcolonial identity and resistance

- legal pluralism

- globalisation and concepts of belonging

 - critical migration law

 Please send abstracts (max 250 words) to:

 Emma Patchett, epatc_01@uni-muenster.de

Sarah Keenan, sk128@soas.ac.uk

 See http://www.sussex.ac.uk/law/newsandevents/clc/streams for further

information