ARTICLES ANNOUNCEMENT: Philosophy of Law eJournal

We suggest two interesting articles from Philosophy of law eJournal. Click here to view the full table of content of the current issue.

"Law Is Made of Stories: Erasing the False Dichotomy between Stories and Legal Rules" 
Legal Communication & Rhetoric: JALWD, Vol. 11, 2014

STEPHEN PASKEY, State University of New York (SUNY), Buffalo, SUNY Buffalo Law School
Email: sjpaskey@buffalo.edu

When lawyers think of legal analysis, they think chiefly of logic and reason. Stories are secondary. As Michael Smith explains, our legal system “is not founded on narrative reasoning” but on “a commitment to the rule of law.” The article suggests that this dichotomy between “rule-based reasoning” and “narrative reasoning” is false, and that narrative and stories are central to legal reasoning, including rule-based reasoning. In doing so, the article uses literary narrative theory to show that every governing legal rule has the structure of a “stock story”: the elements of the rule correspond to elements of a story. It follows that lawyers do not rely on stories simply because they are persuasive. They do so because a story is literally embedded in the structure of governing rules, and those rules can be satisfied only by telling a story. Thus, many analytical moves we label “rule-based reasoning” can be understood as a type of narrative reasoning, in which a client’s story is compared to and contrasted with the stock story embedded in the rule.

"The East African Court of Justice: Towards Effective Protection of Human Rights in the East African Community" 
Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law, Volume 17, 2013, p.173-195

ALLY POSSI, Centre for Human Rights, University of Pretoria
Email: allypossi@gmail.com

Human rights in Africa are under the microscope of regional and sub-regional mechanisms. The regional mechanism is under the auspices of the African Union (AU), in which human rights come under the scrutiny of the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. Sub-regional organizations, established as Regional Economic Communities (RECs), have recently developed their own jurisprudence in promoting and protecting human rights through their institutions. The Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the East African Community (EAC) and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) have emerged as front runners in realizing human rights in African sub-regional organizations. The EAC is an intergovernmental organization which aims at improving the living standards of its citizens through cooperation in economic, social and political aspects among its Partner States. The principles governing the operations of the EAC in meeting its objectives include the promotion and protection of human rights. The EAC has established the East African Court of Justice (EACJ), tasked with interpreting and ensuring the application of the EAC Treaty. This article pinpoints key challenges that the EACJ is currently encountering and tries to find possible solutions which can improve the functioning of the EACJ to effectively protect human rights in the Community.

CALL FOR PAPERS: 'Law in Transition' - Association of Young Legal Historians Annual Forum

The XXIst Annual Forum of Young Legal Historians, and 6th Berg Institute International Conference, with the theme "Law in Transition", will take place at Tel Aviv University March 1-3, 2015.

[The deadline for proposals is 1 November 2014. Apologies for the late posting. SPD]

The upcoming XXIst Annual Forum of the Association of Young Legal Historians aims at a comprehensive discussion of law in transition. A wide variety of transitions of historical significance can be explored: political, economic, social, cultural, and more. “Law”—legal symbols, discourses, players, institutions, theories, and texts—has played a significant role in historical transitions, and legal historians have been crucial in exploring its multiple and contradictory effects. The stakes are not just historical, but current: these studies encourage transitions in the way law itself is conceived, theorised, and researched.

We invite young legal historians to present papers dealing with any aspect of law in transition. (Proposals on other topics will also be considered.) Papers can explore specific events or periods in a particular region or state, or provide a comparative analysis of different periods or multiple locations. Papers can focus on local questions or deal with transnational legal justice. We welcome papers combining legal transitions with political, economic, social, and cultural ones. Methodological reflections are also welcome:  Have legal transitions been “top-down” or “bottom-up”? What have been the legal sources of transition? What are the relationships between legal and non-legal histories of transition? What conceptions of law, its forms of operation, its effects, and its significance inform the analysis of transition?

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT: What Makes Law - An Introduction to the Philosophy of Law

This book offers an advanced introduction to central questions in legal philosophy. What factors determine the content of the law in force? What makes a normative system a legal system? How does law beyond the state differ from domestic law? What kind of moral force does law have? These are all questions about the nature of law. The most important existing views are introduced, but the aim is not to survey the existing literature. Rather, this book introduces the subject by stepping back from the fray to sketch the big picture, to show just what is at stake in these old debates. Legal philosophy has become somewhat arid and inward looking. In part this is because the disagreement between the main camps on the important questions is apparently intractable. The main aim of the book is to suggest both a diagnosis and a proper practical response to this situation of intractable disagreement about questions that do matter.
Click here to read more about this book.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop

Columbia Law School, the University of Southern California Center for Law, History & Culture, UCLA School of Law, and Georgetown University Law School invite submissions for the eleventh meeting of the Law & Humanities Junior Scholar Workshop to be held at Columbia Law School in New York City on June 8 & 9, 2015.
Submissions (in Word, no pdf files) will be accepted until January 5, 2015, and should be sent by e-mail to: Center for the Study of Law and Culture, culture@law.columbia.edu . Please be sure to include your name, institutional affiliation (if any), telephone and e-mail contact information.

For more information contact Cindy Gao, 212.854.0167 or culture@law.columbia.edu, and to see past winners go to: http://www.law.columbia.edu/center_program/law_culture/lh_workshop.

CALL FOR REVIEWERS: The Law Teacher: International Journal of Legal Education

The Law Teacher: International Journal of Legal Education is looking forward for reviewers. Please visit this link for further information.

CALL FOR PAPERS AND POSTERS: Post-graduate Symposium on Occupation, Transitional Justice and Gender

The Transitional Justice Institute of the University of Ulster is organizing a Symposium on Occupation, Transitional justice and gender on May, 8th 2015, and is looking forward for papers on this field.
The deadline for paper and poster proposals is on December, 31^st 2014.
Please click here for further information.

DEADLINE EXTENDED: The Fourth Worldwide Congress of The World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists

The Fourth Worldwide Congress

of The World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists

McGill University Faculty of Law, 

Montreal, Canada June 24-26, 2015

PROPOSAL DEADLINE EXTENDED: 15 November 2014

“The Scholar, Teacher, Judge, and Jurist in a Mixed Jurisdiction”

«Le chercheur, le professeur, le juge et le juriste dans une juridiction mixte» 

The World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists is pleased to announce a Fourth Worldwide Congress to be held at McGill University’s Faculty of Law (Montreal, Canada) from an opening evening reception and lecture on 24 June through 26 June 2015. The theme of the Congress will be “The Scholar, Teacher, Judge and Jurist in a Mixed Jurisdiction.”

La World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists est heureuse d’annoncer son Quatrième Congrès International, qui se tiendra à la Faculté de droit de l’Université McGill (Montréal, Canada). Le Congrès débutera avec une réception suivie d’une conférence le 24 Juin en soirée et se poursuivra jusqu’au 26 juin 2015. Le thème de ce congrès sera « Le chercheur, le professeur, le juge et le juriste dans une juridiction mixte ».

JURIS DIVERSITAS: Synergies, Partnerships, etc, etc

Juris Diversitas has some big news ahead about our publications, our 2015 conference, etc, etc. 

But we've also been thinking about how we might work with others on common themes and goals in the future.

If you're interested in establishing individual or institutional links with us, please contact Christa Rautenbach, our Outreach Officer, at christa.rautenbach@nwu.ac.za.

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: Commission on Legal Pluralism Conference 14-16 December 2015

Call for panel and roundtable proposals

Mumbai Conference 2015

Location: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Bombay

Dates: 14-16 December 2015

In the last decades legal pluralism as a field of research and study has matured across different disciplines and inter-disciplinary areas including law and legal studies, anthropology, sociology, political science, geography, history, and development studies. The concept of legal pluralism has also gained credence in ‘area studies’ domains such as Southeast Asian, Latin American and African studies. Debates on policies, legal and constitutional changes, and development pathways also engage with the notion of legal pluralism in diverse ways, as do social movements and struggles of various kinds.

Taking stock of these developments, the international Commission on Legal Pluralism is organizing its next biennial conference in South Asia.

WORKSHOP: 'The History and Theory of Treaty-Making with Indigenous Peoples'

The History and Theory of Treaty-Making with Indigenous Peoples

22 October 2014 - 3:00-6:30pm 

Room 313, Law Building, School of Law, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS

Hosted by the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context (CLSGC).

Theme

The issue of indigenous peoples and treaties is one of the most interesting and intriguing questions of international law. The 2007 United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples mentions in several places of its Preamble and in Article 37 rights granted by ‘treaties, agreements and other constructive arrangements between States and indigenous peoples are, in some situations, matters of international concern, interest, responsibility and character.’

The workshop will analyse the legacy of these historical treaties with indigenous peoples. It will also assess whether these instruments can play a role in fostering the rights of indigenous peoples within States at a present time.

Link here for additional information.

[Apologies for the late posting.]