WORKSHOP: 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.

Additional information is available here. The programme is available here. 

All papers presented on 15-16 May will be published, together with some other papers, in M Adams and D Heirbaut (eds), The Method and Culture of Comparative Law: Essays in Honour of Mark Van Hoecke (Hart Publishing).

BOOK (with Discount): Bradley, Travers and Whelan (eds), Of Courts and Constitutions: Liber Amicorum in Honour of Nial Fennelly

Hart has published Kieran Bradley, Noel Travers and Anthony Whelan (eds), Of Courts and Constitutions: Liber Amicorum in Honour of Nial Fennelly:

The overall theme of the book is the relationship between European Union law and national law, and the role of courts in defining that relationship. The book consists of four main parts - the structure and functioning of the European Court of Justice, material issues of European Union law, aspects of Irish law and transversal issues of national and European law. The contributors are all past and present members of the European bench, members or former members of the Irish judiciary or Bar and/or experts in European Union law, many of whom have worked with Mr Justice Fennelly during his long and distinguished career at the Bar and on the bench.

Note, as always, our reader discount.

ARTICLE/BOOK: Dubber and Hörnle on Mens Rea and Comparative Criminal Law

‘Mens Rea: A Comparative Approach’, an excerpt from Markus D Dubber and Tatjana Hörnle, Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach (OUP 2014) is on SSRN.

CALL FOR PAPERS: IIJSL/RISJ Special Issue - Marginalised Bodies (Re)imagining the Law

When the law regulates, it also marginalises. Indigenous people, the GLBTI community, women, children, the homeless and others are all victimised by the force of this regulation. For many people belonging to these communities, the law has left them with a sense of abandonment – the law does not recognise the realities that they live out on a day to day basis. In so doing, sites of contest are opened up in which marginalised bodies attempt to challenge law makers and law enforcers. Semiotics allows us useful methods for exploring these interactions. For instance, the signs of both groups (literal and metaphorical), the language employed by groups (how they complement and contrast each other in differing legal and social realities) and acts deterrence and defiance are all possible areas of inquiry. This issue draws attention to the many different ways marginalised groups attempt to redress or ‘(re)imagine’ the law. This special issue for the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law invites high quality contributions from scholars of all disciplines that undertake rhetorical, hermeneutic, sociolinguistic, discourse, aesthetic or semiotic analyses of the law and marginalised and/or disadvantaged groups. Of particular interest are papers discussing indigenous rights, homeless rights, rights of women and children rights, GLBTI rights, refugee and asylum seeker rights and the intersections between law and philosophy, visual arts, music, poetry and literature. Submissions to be made in English only.

JOURNAL/SYMPOSIUM: The German Law Journal (New) and Privacy and Power - A Transatlantic Dialogue in the Shadow of the NSA

The editors of the German Law Journal have written the following:

This is the third issue in volume fifteen. After kicking-off 2014 with two special issues [Plea Bargains in Germany and OMT Decision of the BVerfG], we return in this issue to our regular “coverage of developments in German, European and International Jurisprudence.” For the most part this rich selection of articles and commentary came to us as unsolicited submissions that were selected for publication after the Editorial Board’s rigorous review.

It is a challenging, invigorating and illuminating slate of contributions.

BOOK: Coyle on Modern Jurisprudence

Hart Publishing has just published Sean Coyle's Modern Jurisprudence: A Philosophical Guide:


This book provides a concise and accessible guide to modern jurisprudence, offering an examination of the major theories and systematic discussion of themes such as legality and justice. It gives readers a better understanding of the rival viewpoints by exploring the historical developments which give modern thinking its distinctive shape, and placing law in its political context. A key feature of the book is that readers are not simply presented with opposing theories, but are guided through the rival standpoints on the basis of a coherent line of reflection from which an overall sense of the subject can be gained. Chapters on Hart, Fuller, Rawls, Dworkin and Finnis take the reader systematically through the terrain of modern legal philosophy, tracing the issues back to fundamental questions of philosophy, and indicating lines of criticism that build to a fresh and original perspective on the subject.

Like other Hart titles, our readers receive a 20% discount on the book. See here for details.

CONFERENCE: De-juridification: Appearance and Disappearance of Law at a Time of Crisis

The Annual Conference of the IVR International Association of Legal and Social Philosophy, UK Branch
The London School of Economics and Political Science
25-26 October 2014

on

De-juridification: Appearance and Disappearance of Law at a Time of Crisis

It was not too long ago that many legal philosophers and sociologists were expressing deep concerns about juridification, i.e. law’s expansion as a mode of governance and its distorting effects on social relations. 

Now, however, under conditions of globalisation and in the midst of a global crisis, there are several indications that the trend of juridification is being reversed, that law is subsiding and giving way to other modes of governance. With governments offloading many of their central tasks to civil society, with international economic agencies exercising normative authority, with people seemingly recognising each other more as economic actors than as legal subjects, and with the interpretation of indeterminate laws being carried out not by courts but by actual power-holders, to mention only very few examples, it seems appropriate to ask questions regarding a process of de-juridification which seems to be afoot. 

ARTICLE: Prof. Katia Fach Gòmez onWhy Does Legal English Sound Like Gibberish To Many Spanish Law Students?

We are pleased to inform you about the new article of Prof. Katia Fach Gòmez from University of Saragoza

Abstract:

Legal English is unfortunately still a rare bird in law faculties in public universities in Spain. However, a command of legal English — the generic term used in this article to refer to both a specific legal subject taught in English and an instrumental “English for Specific Purposes” (ESP) subject in the legal sphere — is one of the assets that the voracious labor market demands of even recent graduates. This article is a personal reflection on the multiple dysfunctional factors in Spain that, together, prevent this gap from closing as quickly and completely as would be desirable. My article also shows that other, more auspicious developments in the legal English teaching and learning field are starting to take root in Spain and that there are also reasons for believing that Spanish lawyers can be relied on to take the lead in the long overdue “degibberization” of legal English.

WORKSHOP: Comparative Business and Financial Law at UC Davis School of Law in Davis, California.

The Younger Comparativists Committee (YCC) of the American Society of Comparative Law (ASCL) is pleased to invite submissions for a workshop on comparative business and financial law to be held on November 7-8, 2014 at UC Davis School of Law in Davis, California. 

Up to thirty papers will be chosen from those submitted for presentation at the
workshop pursuant to this Call for Papers. The workshop audience will include invited young scholars, faculty from UC Davis School of Law and Graduate School of Management, faculty from other institutions, and invited guests. Submissions will be accepted from scholars who have held a full-time academic appointment for no more than ten years as of June 30, 2014. 

Submission Instructions 

To submit an entry, scholars should email an attachment in Microsoft Word or PDF containing an abstract of no more than 1000 words before July 1, 2014, to the following address: afraafsharipour@ucdavis.edu. Please title the email “YCC Business Law Workshop – [Name].” Abstracts should reflect original research 

that will not yet have been published, though may have been accepted for publication, by the time of the workshop. Abstracts should include a cover page with the author’s name, title of the paper, institutional affiliation, contact information, as well as the author’s certification that she/he qualifies as a younger scholar. Scholars may make only one submission. Both individual and co-authored submissions will be accepted. For co-authored submissions, at least one author must qualify as eligible younger comparativists. 

Notification 

Invitees will be selected via a blind review by a workshop selection committee.  Authors of the submissions selected for the workshop will be notified no later  than August 15, 2014. There is no cost to register for the workshop but participants are responsible for securing their own funding for travel, lodging and other incidental expenses. A limited number of travel stipends may be awarded to scholars from ASCL member schools who demonstrate financial need. If you would like to be considered for a travel stipend, please make that request in your submission. 

Final papers for the workshop will be due no later than October 17, 2014. 

Acknowledgements and Questions 

The YCC gratefully acknowledges the support of UC Davis School of Law and the California International Law Center. Please direct all inquiries to Professor Afra Afsharipour, Chair of the Program Committee, by email at aafsharipour@ucdavis.edu or telephone at 530-754-0111. Please feel free to share this Call for Papers with any colleagues who may be interested. 

The Program Committee: 

Afra Afsharipour (UC Davis School of Law) (Chair)
Virginia Harper Ho (University of Kansas School of Law)
Wulf Kaal (University of St. Thomas School of Law)


Workshop Selection Committee: 
Afra Afsharipour (UC Davis School of Law)
Martin Gelter (Fordham University School of Law)
Virginia Harper Ho (University of Kansas School of Law)
Wulf Kaal (University of St. Thomas School of Law)
Shruti Rana (UC Berkeley Law)

YCC Board of Directors: 
Richard Albert, Chair (Boston College Law School)
Virginia Harper Ho (University of Kansas School of Law)
Wulf Kaal (University of St. Thomas School of Law)
Sudha Setty (Western New England)
Ozan Varol (Lewis & Clark Law School)

WORKSHOP: Religion and Public Life at Queen's University Belfast

Religion and Public Life

15-16 May 2014

Senate Room, Lanyon Building, Queen’s University Belfast

This workshop is funded by the School of Politics, International Studies and Philosophy, Queen's University Belfast, and by the Society for Applied Philosophy. The workshop is part of the President of Ireland’s Ethics Initiative.

Thursday 15 May 2014

13:00-14:00:   Registration and Lunch

14:00-14:10:   Welcome and Opening Remarks

14:10-15:20:   Maeve Cooke (University College Dublin): ‘Religious Conviction and Democratic Protest: Reconsidering Conscientious Objection’ - Chair: Keith Breen  

15:20-16:30:   Peter Jones (Newcastle University): ‘Belief, Choice and Responsibility’ - Chair: Vincent Geoghegan

16:30-16:50:   Tea and Coffee

16:50-18:00:   Veit Bader (University of Amsterdam): ‘Neo-Republicanism on “Religion and Public Life”. Some Critical Remarks’ - Chair: Keith Breen

19:30               Workshop Dinner (by Invitation Only)

Friday 16 May 2014

09:00-10:00:   Matteo Bonotti (Queen’s University Belfast): ‘Political Liberalism, Free Speech and Public Reason’  - Chair: Jeremy Watkins

10:00-10:20:   Tea and Coffee

10:20-11:30:   Sune Lægaard (Roskilde University): ‘Multiculturalism and Secularism’ - Chair: Cillian McBride

11:30-12:30:   Cillian McBride (Queen’s University Belfast): ‘Religion, Respect, and Reasoning’ - Chair: Matteo Bonotti

12:30-13:10:   Lunch

13:10-14:20:   Jonathan Seglow (Royal Holloway, University of London): ‘Religious Accommodation and Self Respect’ - Chair: Cillian McBride

14:20-15:30:   Cécile Laborde (University College London): ‘Is Religion a Conception of the Good?’ - Chair: Matteo Bonotti

                        CLOSE

Registration is free and includes lunches, teas, and coffees. However, places are limited and registration is therefore essential.

To register, please email Matteo Bonotti (m.bonotti@qub.ac.uk). Please include your full name, email address, institutional affiliation (if any), dietary requirements, and any other requirements you think the organizers need to know about.