Spring 2016 International Law Colloquium

The annual International Law Colloquium sponsored by St. John's Center for International and Comparative Law brings leading scholars to campus to present their works to students and faculty. This year, we're pleased to welcome: Dinah Shelton (2/8), George Washington University, If you Break it, do you own it? Legal Consequences of Environmental Harm from Military Activities   Susan Franck (2/22), Washington and Lee University, Inside the Arbitral Mind   Catherine Powell (3/7), Fordham University, How Women Could Transform the World, If Only We Would Let Them: Inclusive Security and Gender Performance   Carlos Vazquez (4/6), Georgetown Law Center, The 4th Restatement and the Doctrine of Self-Executing Treaties   Ruti Teitel (4/11), New York Law School, Transitional Justice and the Peace Process in Colombia   Molly Land (4/25), University of Connecticut, Human Rights and Intermediary Liability All presentations take place from 4:30-6:30 p.m. in room 3-01H at St. John's Law. If you would like to attend one or more of our April 2016 colloquia, please contact Professor Peggy McGuinness at mcguinnm@stjohns.edu.    law.stjohns.edu Contact: St. John's University School of Law, 8000 Utopia Parkway, Queens, NY 11439

Louisiana Law Review Symposium on the Future of the Civil Law

Louisiana—as the lone civil law jurisdiction in the United States—has been instrumental
in developing and maintaining one of the major legal traditions in the world, the civil law, in the English language. Indeed, having as its source Roman and Canon law, with Spanish and French influences dating back centuries, the civil law has developed over time to best suit the needs of the citizenry at the relevant time period. The development of this venerated legal tradition in English, particularly in Louisiana, has contributed to its influence and accessibility around the globe.
The continued viability of the civil law in Louisiana is possible because of the hard work of scholars throughout the state, and particularly the work of the great legal minds of the LSU Law Center. One such legal scholar is our very own Alain Levasseur, who has worked diligently to ensure that the civil law is accessible in English in Louisiana and abroad. This accessibility enables legal scholars from around the globe to share experiences and ideas regarding the history and future of the civil law tradition.
Please join the Louisiana Law Review, the  Center of Civil Law Studies, and the Paul M. Hebert Law Center as we celebrate the development of the civil law in Louisiana, the accomplishments of Professor Levasseur, and the future of the civil law around the world.
For more information and to register,

go to: http://www.law.lsu.edu/symposium/ Registration is required

Venue: Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Schedule of Events
Opening Remarks
8:00 AM - 8:15 AM

Panel 1: The Law of Obligations in Louisiana and Abroad
8:15 AM - 10:00 AM

Break 10:00 AM - 10:15 AM

Commentator: Civil Code Drafting Styles and Conflicts of Law
10:15 AM - 11:00 AM

Lunch 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Panel 2: Translation of the Civil Law
12:00 PM – 1:15 PM

Commentator: Challenges and Rewards of Teaching Comparative Law in the Commonwealth Caribbean
1:15 PM - 2:00 PM

Break 2:00 PM – 2:15 PM

Commentator: U.S. Discovery and Foreign Blocking Statutes
2:15 PM - 3:00 PM

Presentations

Opening RemarksMelissa Lonegrass: Professor, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University

Panel 1: The Law of Obligations in Louisiana and AbroadParticipants will discuss the development of the law of Obligations in Louisiana and in France.
Ronald Scalise: A.D. Freeman Professor of Civil Law, Tulane Law School
David Gruning: Professor, Loyola University College of Law
Michel Séjean: Professor, Université de Bretagne-Sud, France
Mustapha Mekki: Professor, Université Paris 13

Commentator: Civil Code Drafting Styles and Conflicts of LawProfessor Symeonides will discuss the extent to which judges may deviate from the text of a statute by examining recent statutes in which the legislature itself authorizes such a deviation.
Symeon Symeonides: Professor, Willamette University College of Law

Panel 2: Translating the Civil LawParticipants will discuss how the civil law was translated using French and Spanish sources and how the law has been translated contemporarily.

Agustín Parise: Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, Maastricht University, The Netherlands
Randy Trahan: Professor, Paul M. Hebert Law Center, Louisiana State University

Commentator: Challenges and Rewards of Teaching Comparative Law in the Commonwealth CaribbeanProfessor Ostroukh will discuss the challenges she has faced in teaching comparative law at a university in the West Indies, and will focus on how certain characteristics of the region have shaped her experience of teaching comparative law.
Asya Ostroukh: Senior Lecturer, Cave Hill Campus of the University of the West Indies in Barbados

Commentator: U.S. Discovery and Foreign Blocking StatutesProfessor Curran will discuss the relationship between U.S. discovery practices and
blocking statutes in France and Germany that have for decades impeded discovery efforts by U.S. entities.
Vivian Grosswald Curran: Professor, University of Pittsburgh School of Law

Also featured in Volume 76, Issue IV of the Louisiana Law Review, Liber Amicorum: Professor Alain A. Levasseur, without presentation:
Nicholas Kasirer: Justice of the Court of Appeal for Québec
Jean-Louis Baudouin: Counsel, Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP

You are invited to the book launch for

Volume I of the series

STUDIES IN THE CONTRACT LAWS OF ASIA

Remedies for Breach of Contract

Edited by

Mindy Chen-Wishart

(Oxford University, (fractional) National University of Singapore)

Alexander Loke

(City University Hong Kong)

Burton Ong

(National University of Singapore)

to be held in

The Cube Lecture Room, Oxford University Faculty of Law

St Cross Building, Oxford, OX1 3UL

on

3 March 2016, 5.20-6.45pm

Speakers:
Dean Professor Anne Davies Welcome and introduction
Professor Mindy Chen-Wishart Why no sensible people would attempt such a project
Lord Toulson Comment
Professor Hugh Beale Comment
The event will be followed by drinks

Please RSVP to: mindy.chen-wishart@law.ox.ac.uk

Juris Diversitas Conference: CALL FOR PAPERS PROLONGED

2016 Annual Conference: 

Unity and/or Diversity

May 30 to June 1, 2016

Louisiana State University Law Center, USA

 Still time to submit, do not miss the event!

Over 50 submissions accepted so far, from scholars worldwide

Theme: Comparative legal studies have long been perceived as an

 engine pulling legal traditions and systems towards 

convergence, harmonization, and unification. Today, legal pluralism 

pushes towards the recognition of human and social diversity. 

Does this mean that we have to choose between unity and 

diversity, Jus unum or juris diversitas?  To what extent do pluralistic 

societies embrace or reject harmonization and uniformity, 

or simply ignore them? Do we unify or add layers, increasing the 

complexity of legal orders? Does history reflect a move from 

diversity to unity or an ongoing conflict between the two? What 

makes unity successful or sustainable? This is an invitation to 

discuss, in an interdisciplinary way, the development of laws and 

social norms, in the dialectical tension between the ontological 

unity of human beings and mankind and the plurality of individual 

aspirations and social arrangements.

Submissions: Panel proposals are strongly

encouraged, as is the participation of doctoral students and

scholars from outside the discipline of law. While parallel sessions

of three twenty-minute presentations will be used, we 

encourage more original session structures.

Proposals should be in English or in French. Proposals of 

circa 250 words (or 1000 words for panel proposals) should 

be submitted to Professor Salvatore Mancuso at 

JDLSU2016@gmail.com by February 29, 2016 

with a short biography listing major or relevant publications. 

Make this a single Word document with minimal formatting, 

so that proposal and biography can be copied easily into 

the conference program.

Registration fees: €200 or €125 for Juris Diversitas members paid up 

for 2016. Membership and fee payment information is available on 

the Juris Diversitas Blog (http://jurisdiversitas.blogspot.com/). 

Note that fees don’t cover travel, accommodation, or the 

conference dinner (€50).

NEW FROM MCGILL-QUEEN'S UNIVERSITY PRESS

From Treaties to Reserves

The Federal Government and Native Peoples
in Territorial Alberta, 1870-1905 

   

D.J. HALL

How divergent understandings of treaties contributed to a heritage of distrust.

  

Though some believe that the Indian treaties of the 1870s achieved a unity of purpose between the Canadian government and First Nations, in From Treaties to Reserves D.J. Hall asserts that - as a result of profound cultural differences - each side interpreted the negotiations differently, leading to conflict and an acute sense of betrayal when neither group accomplished what the other had asked. 

Hall explores the original intentions behind the government's policies, illustrates their attempts at cooperation, and clarifies their actions. While the government believed that the Aboriginal peoples of what is now southern and central Alberta desired rapid change, the First Nations, in contrast, believed that the government was committed to supporting the preservation of their culture while they adapted to change. Government policies intended to motivate backfired, leading instead to poverty, starvation, and cultural restriction. Many policies were also culturally insensitive, revealing misconceptions of Aboriginal people as lazy and over-dependent on government rations. Yet the first two decades of reserve life still witnessed most First Nations people participating in reserve economies, many of the first generation of reserve-born children graduated from schools with some improved ability to cope with reserve life, and there was also more positive cooperation between government and First Nations people than is commonly acknowledged.

D.J. Hall 

is professor emeritus of Canadian history at the University of Alberta.

 Click here to learn more or order a copy of the book 

Forthcoming: Fundamental Labour Rights in China

Fundamental Labour Rights in China - Legal Implementation and Cultural Logic

Editors: Ulla Liukkunen, Yifeng Chen

Book

Ius Gentium: Comparative Perspectives on Law and Justice

Volume 49 2016

Springer.com     http://www.springer.com/gp/book/9783319231556   

Springerlink        http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007%2F978-3-319-23156-3

Baltimore Conference on The Fate of Scholarship in American Law Schools

CONFERENCE: The Fate of Scholarship in American Law Schools 

March 31-April 1, 2016

The University of Baltimore School of Law will host this groundbreaking conference   on March 31 and April 1, 2016, at UB’s landmark new John and Frances Angelos Law Center in midtown Baltimore.

As American legal education faces an identity crisis, what will become of scholarship in U.S. law schools? Will it survive the tumult – should it survive – and in what form?

The conference will reexamine first principles of legal scholarship – its value (to legal education, to the legal profession, to society) and its essential aspects – and will survey particular issues of contemporary concern, including emerging scholarly forms and technologies and the relationship among legal scholarship, journalism and new media.

The two-day conference will consist of themed plenary sessions, concurrent small-group sessions, opportunities to interact informally and a keynote address by Jack M. Balkin , Knight Professor of Constitutional Law and the First Amendment at Yale Law School.

Questions and sponsorship interest may be directed to the conference organizer, UB School of Law Associate Dean for Faculty Scholarship C.J. Peters , at cpeters@ubalt.edu  or410.837.4509.

Online registration for the conference will be available soon. Watch this space for more information.

Weaving Intellectual Property Policy in Small Island Developing States

Weaving Intellectual Property Policy in Small Island Developing States Miranda Forsyth and Sue Farran September 2015 | ISBN 978-1-78068-225-9 | xiv + 280 pp. | paperback 62 euros | 74 US dollars | 59 GB pounds This book considers the challenges of creating appropriate intellectual property frameworks in developing economies. It focuses on the small island states of the Pacific region to explore and illustrate the many dilemmas, drawing together considerations of policy, theories of development and law, and empirical studies to suggest solutions and possible strategies. read more...

Juris Diversitas Appel à communications: nouvelle date (8 janvier 2016)

APPEL À COMMUNICATIONS

JURIS DIVERSITAS

CONGRÈS ANNUEL  

Du 30 mai au 1^er juin, 2016

Louisiana State University

Law Center, Baton Rouge, États-Unis

Unité et/ou Diversité

Colloque international et interdisciplinaire de droit comparé

Thème : Les études juridiques comparatives ont longtemps été perçues comme un moteur de convergence, d’harmonisation et d’unification des traditions et des systèmes juridiques. Le pluralisme juridique met aujourd’hui l’accent sur la reconnaissance de la diversité humaine et sociale. Faut-il pour autant conclure que nous devons choisir entre unité et diversité, jus unum ou juris diversitas ? Dans quelle mesure les sociétés pluralistes embrassent-elles ou rejettent-elles l’harmonisation et l’uniformité, ou les ignorent-elles tout simplement ? Unifions-nous vraiment ou ajoutons-nous un niveau supplémentaire de complexité juridique ? L’histoire révèle-t-elle un mouvement de la diversité vers l’unité ou un conflit entre les deux ? À quelles conditions l’unité est-elle une réussite durable ? Ce colloque est une invitation à une discussion interdisciplinaire du développement du droit et des normes sociales, pris dans la tension dialectique entre l’unité ontologique des êtres humains et de l’humanité et la pluralité des aspirations individuelles et des arrangements sociaux.

Communications : Les propositions de tables rondes et présentations interdisciplinaires sont encouragées, de même que la participation de doctorants et d’universitaires non juristes. En plus des sessions parallèles avec trois orateurs parlant chacun vingt minutes, les organisateurs invitent à une organisation plus originale.

Les propositions, en anglais ou en français, de 250 mots environ (ou 1.000 pour une table ronde) sont à adresser au Pr Salvatore Mancuso (JDLSU2016@gmail.com) avant le 8 janvier 2016 avec une brève notice biographique. Merci de composer la proposition et la notice biographique dans un seul document Word, avec le minimum de mise en forme, pour faciliter la composition du programme.

Droits d’inscription : €200 ou €125 pour les membres de Juris Diversitas à jour de leur cotisation pour 2016. Les informations relatives à l’adhésion et l’inscription sont disponibles sur http://jurisdiversitas.blogspot.com/. Les droits ne couvrent pas les frais de voyage et de logement, ni le banquet du congrès (€50).

Juris Diversitas Call for Papers: Time Extension (January 8, 2016)

CALL FOR PAPERS

JURIS DIVERSITAS

ANNUAL CONFERENCE  

May 30 - June 1, 2016

Louisiana State University

Law Center, Baton Rouge, USA

Unity and/or Diversity

An International, Interdisciplinary Conference on Comparative Law

Theme: Comparative legal studies have long been perceived as an engine pulling legal traditions and systems towards convergence, harmonization, and unification. Today, legal pluralism pushes towards the recognition of human and social diversity. Does this mean that we have to choose between unity and diversity, Jus unum or juris diversitas?  To what extent do pluralistic societies embrace or reject harmonization and uniformity, or simply ignore them? Do we unify or add layers, increasing the complexity of legal orders? Does history reflect a move from diversity to unity or an ongoing conflict between the two? What makes unity successful or sustainable? This is an invitation to discuss, in an interdisciplinary way, the development of laws and social norms, in the dialectical tension between the ontological unity of human beings and mankind and the plurality of individual aspirations and social arrangements.

Submissions: Panel proposals and interdisciplinary presentations are strongly encouraged, as is the participation of doctoral students and scholars from outside of the discipline of law. While parallel sessions of three twenty-minute presentations will be used, we encourage more original session structures.

Proposals should be in English or in French. Proposals of circa 250 words (or 1000 words for panel proposals) should be submitted to Professor Salvatore Mancuso at JDLSU2016@gmail.com by January 8, 2016, with a short biography listing major or relevant publications. Make this a single Word document with minimal formatting, so that proposal and biography can be copied easily into the conference program.

Registration fees: €200 or €125 for Juris Diversitas members paid up for 2016. Membership and fee payment information is available on the Juris Diversitas Blog (http://jurisdiversitas.blogspot.com/). Note that fees don’t cover travel, accommodation, or the conference dinner (€50).