JURIS DIVERSITAS

NOTICE: WORKSHOP AND CONFERENCE ON LEGAL PLURALISM IN NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

2012-02-12T23:17:00.001Z

The following may be of interest. Apologies for the late notice:

Commission on Legal Pluralism

A group of Indian scholars is organizing a seminar on legal pluralism and natural resource management which will take place on March 30 and 31st, 2012, in Coimbatore, South India. They would like to have some participation also from the SE Asia network of the Commission, and there is actually some funding available to bring 1-2 members to India for this purpose. Further information can be found below. Interested persons can contact Dr Amalendu via ailp_conference@cb.amrita.edu.

Workshop and Conference on Legal Pluralism in Natural Resource Management

30th and 31st March 2012

Conference Organised at Amrita School of Business

By Asian Initiative on Legal Pluralism

and supported by Commission on Legal Pluralism

Venue: Amrita University, Ettimadai, Coimbatore, India
Venue: Amrita University, Ettimadai, Coimbatore, India
Date of workshop: 30th March 2012
Date of Conference: 31st March 2012

Theme

This workshop and conference are intended to explore the understanding of legal pluralism in guiding policies and management of natural resource especially in the context of forest, water and fisheries and related resources. There is widespread recognition that property rights play a fundamental role in shaping how people manage natural resources. But many conceptions of property rights have focused only on static definitions, usually as defined in statutory law. The legal anthropological perspective highlights the coexistence and interaction between multiple legal orders such as state, customary, religious, project and local laws, all of which provide bases for claiming property rights. These multiple legal frameworks also facilitate considerable flexibility for people to maneuver in their use of natural resources, thus helping to cope with uncertainty. In many parts of the world, usage of resources (especially in the context of forest, water, fisheries and other natural resources), rights are dynamic, flexible and subject to frequent negotiations because of uncertainty due to depletion, and social, economic and political changes. In this context, this workshop and conference on “Legal Pluralism in Natural Resource Management” would explore the role of multiple institutions in managing conflict and shaping negotiations, policies and adapting to changes.

The conference especially aims at exploring the legal pluralism perspective in the context of forest, water, fisheries and other natural resource based activities like pastoral, mining, agriculture etc., resources in Asian context. We invite research papers in these thematic resource areas that deal with various issues at micro, macro or policy level in relation to conflicts, negotiations, adaptability, vulnerability and any other issues those are suitable to explore plurality in terms of norms, customs, law and other institutions.

Prior to the conference, a workshop would be organized on “Legal Pluralism Concepts and Applications in the context of Natural Resource Management”. This workshop would especially be useful for students and scholars working in the field of legal anthropology as well as in natural resource management, and related social science fields.

Deadlines:

for Submission of Abstract: 15th of January 2012
Communication of Acceptance: 30th of January 2012
Confirmation of Participation: 15th February 2012
Submission of Final Paper: 25th February 2012

Submission e-mail id: ailp_conference@cb.amrita.edu

NOTICE: FAURE AND SMITS, DOES LAW MATTER?

2012-02-12T22:44:00.001Z

Intersentia has recently published Michael Faure and Jan Smits (eds), Does law matter? on law and economic growth (2011), the 100th volume of the Ius Commune Europaeum Series.

For many years now, there has been a strong economic scholarship pointing to the importance of institutions in general - and, more particularly, legal rules and the rule of law - for economic development. The importance of law for economic growth has also been empirically tested in many well-known and often cited studies. These studies seem to indicate not only that law is relevant in the development of countries and their economic growth in particular, but more specifically, that particular legal systems do better than others. The tenant of this scholarship (especially initiated by Andrej Schleifer and others) is that the common law would be a more efficient system in promoting economic growth than the civil law. However, many scholars doubt the empirical claim of this and criticize these findings, both on methodological grounds as well as on grounds of a misconception of differences between the civil and the common law. The interest in legal origins for the efficiency of the legal system also focuses on particular legal regimes, such as accident law, environmental law, or corporate law. Increasingly, the question is also asked whether legal institutions and the rule of law are also important in the process whereby poor nations develop their economy. For example, Cooter, Schafer, and Ulen have attempted to examine why particular developing countries do relatively better than others and, roughly speaking, also attribute (part of the) success of some developing countries to legal institutions. However, others (more particularly Ulen) point at the fact that legal rules may play some role, but perhaps only a modest role in economic development. A powerful example which is quoted in that respect is the one of China which, at least at first blush, does not seem to rely strongly on legal institutions (at least in the traditional sense) and nevertheless has experienced a spectacular economic growth. The particular case of China hence remains somewhat puzzling in this debate. So far, these various streams of literature paying attention to the question to what extent legal origins matter for economic growth have not been strongly integrated and have, to a large extent, been developed in separate social sciences (institutional economics, development economics, and comparative law). This multi-disciplinary book brings these approaches together in an integrated and structural manner. (Series: Ius Commune Europaeum - Vol. 100

The introduction is available on SSRN.

NOTICE: Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures

2012-02-08T20:48:00.001Z

NOTICE: Seminar on Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures

Dear colleague,

I am delighted to let you know that Brunel Law School is hosting an Expert Seminar in in collaboration with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights, in Uxbridge, London, on March 8-9, 2012.

The theme of the Expert Seminar will be “Indigenous Peoples’ Languages and Cultures”.

In resolution 18/8 of September 2011 the United Nations Human Rights Council requested the Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples to prepare a study on the role of languages and culture in the promotion and protection of the rights and identity of indigenous peoples. It is envisaged that the Expert Seminar will help the development of the Study that the Expert Mechanism will submit to the UN Human Rights Council.

Participants will receive the draft Study a week in advance and will be able to contribute with comments during the Workshop. The workshop will be attended by the UN Minority and Indigenous Unit, the indigenous mandate holders of the UN Expert Mechanism on Indigenous Issues, academics and NGO representatives. Translation will be provided by IWGIA.

For more information about the expert seminar and for the full programme of the event, please consult our webpage: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/law/research/events/hrc-human-rights-centre/ne_153762 or contact Dr Alexandra Xanthaki Alexandra.Xanthaki@brunel.ac.uk

There is no fee for attending the expert seminar, although registration is necessary, as availability is limited. To register, please complete the online registration form: http://www.brunel.ac.uk/law/research/events/hrc-human-rights-centre/ne_153762/application-form

Best Regards,

Dr Stavroula Karapapa
Law Lecturer
Brunel University, London
Uxbridge, Middlesex
UB8 3PH
Tel.: +44 (0) 1895267617

CALL FOR PROPOSALS: &LAW

2012-02-08T20:43:00.000Z

Call for Proposals

Announcing a New Series: &LAW

&LAW, a new book series, aims to examine legal problems and issues across a diverse range of opinions. After providing a legal framework for a particular question, books in the series will call on experts in other fields like science, business, history, engineering, political science, and even art to broaden and enhance the discussion. &LAW will provides unique, and at times, unexpected, answers to challenging topics of contemporary importance.

DESCRIPTION: The series, sponsored by The University of Akron School of Law and published by The University of Akron Press, will be comprised of one or two publications annually. The series will be available in traditional print format and e-book formats.

SUBMISSION PROCEDURE: Book proposals should be sent to:

Tracy A. Thomas
Professor of Law
The University of Akron School of Law
Akron, OH 44325-2901
(330) 972-6617
thomast@uakron.edu

CALL FOR PAPERS: Australia New Zealand Law & History Society

2012-02-08T15:38:00.001Z

The following Call for Papers was lifted straight from the Legal History Blog:

CFP: Australia New Zealand Law & History Society

Posted by Dan Ernst

[Here's a call for papers for what appears to be a particularly well-crafted annual meeting of Antipodean legal historians, to be held at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS). The organizers tell me that they are keen to have "many of our North American colleagues" attend. Here is the link to the conference website; here a link to another conference at UTS, on the "historical connections" between the legal profession and defense forces; here a link to yet another, on feminism and the law that will include "revisiting the past."]

The 31st Annual Conference of the Australia New Zealand Law and History Society will be held at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), 10-12 December 2012. UTS is the most centrally located law school in Sydney, situated next to Central Station, on the edge of China Town, three minutes by monorail from Sydney’s central shopping district and a short trip to the harbour by direct train or bus.

The conference theme is “Receiving Laws/Giving Laws”. It is orientated towards the movement, transmission and transformation of laws and their histories – across Empire, through time, in and between genres and disciplines. The receiving and giving of laws could be addressed in a broad range of ways. How do laws and histories translocate? By what means (doctrinal, processual, cultural) are laws transmitted and received in new places? What transformations happen as a result of this movement? Whose histories, cultures and laws appear and disappear through these transformations? What kinds of interventions can bring about ways of transforming, perceiving and transmitting the law and its histories/cultures?

The keynote speaker is Professor Philip Girard, University Research Professor and Professor of Law, History & Canadian Studies, Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University. There will also be a plenary panel in which three scholars will address the theme of the conference, each through a different genre of legal history: Professor Anne Orford, Melbourne Law School; Dr Katherine Biber, School of Law, UTS; Dr Damen Ward, Crown Law Office, Wellington.

The organising committee would welcome interest from historians from any jurisdiction. The call for papers will be open until late June. Inquiries or paper proposals - including a title, brief abstract and brief biography - should be sent to shaunnagh.dorsett@uts.edu.au

NOTICE: New Issue of LEGISPRUDENCE

2012-02-07T00:04:00.000Z

The latest issue of Legisprudence: International Journal for the Study of Legislation has been published.

The journal includes an interesting article by Juris Diversitas member Jaakko Husa on 'European Polynomia and Pluralist Methodology'. Its abstract reads:

Globalisation and Europeanisation do not only produce coherence and uniformity but are flanked by differentiation and fragmentation, producing diverse and polycentric outcomes. This article puts forth reflections on European legal pluralism and a proposition for pluralist methodology. The author claims that in today's Europe there is legal pluralism, which means that there are many overlapping normative orders in Europe. It is claimed that Europe is fundamentally pluralistic. Hence there are overlapping non-coherent hierarchies and competing claims for normative power. This is conceptualised as polynomia. The article seeks to demonstrate that legal pluralism in the strong sense has penetrated into European legal doctrine. This state of affairs is claimed to result in a situation in which pluralism is not something that would concern legal anthropologists, legal historians or sociologist of law only. According to this article, doctrinal methods forged in the moulds of legal centralism and monism are outdated and respond poorly to the present day European legal pluralism.

The journal includes:

Jaakko Husa - The Method Is Dead, Long Live the Methods! European Polynomia and Pluralist Methodology

Mirko Pečarič - A Dynamic Reflection on the Factual State of Affairs through an Experimental Norm

Demetrius Klitou - Privacy by Design and Privacy-Invading Technologies: Safeguarding Privacy, Liberty and Security in the 21st Century

Nicolle Zeegers - How to Theorise Collective Decision Making Concerning Legal Rules? The Need to Acknowledge the Rhetorical as Well as the Rational Variables

CALL FOR PAPERS: Revelation and Interpretation Conference

2012-02-06T21:02:00.000Z

Conference and Call for Papers: Revelation and Interpretation

Legal Interpretation of Religious Texts

The International Conference will be held at NYU School of Law on September 11-12, 2012. The conference will focus on the legal interpretation of religious texts, in order to explore the characters and methodologies of such interpretation whether within a particular tradition or on a a comparative basis between different traditions.

Paper Submission: An abstract of 600 (max.) words should be sent to jlrs@biu.ac no later than March 15, 2012. Please indicate academic affiliation and attach a short CV. The conference committee will consider all the abstracts and will notify applicants of papers acceptance by April 30, 2012. The participants will be required to submit their papers by August 15, 2012. For more information on the conference and paper submission procedures, go here.

NOTICE: LAW IN THE FRENCH ATLANTIC Symposium

2012-02-06T12:33:00.002Z

2012-13 Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History

Friday, October 5, 2012

9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m.

Law and the French Atlantic

Organized by Allan Greer, McGill University, and Richard J. Ross, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

The French Atlantic has not yet received the sustained attention given to the British and Spanish Atlantic, particularly where the topic of law is concerned. This conference will explore the legal dimension (broadly conceived) of the French Atlantic empire in the early modern period. The variegated and rapidly evolving juridical order of ancien régime France was deeply implicated in the expansion of overseas commerce, the founding of colonies, and the creation of imperial administrations.

Participants may explore topics such as: legal discourse and imperial ideologies; the establishment of colonial jurisdictions in Canada, Louisiana, and the French West Indies; the regulation of slavery; indigenous peoples and the law; the emergence of colonial land tenures; and the legal framework for trade and business enterprise. The organizers wish particularly to encourage comparative approaches that consider more than one French colony and that examine contrasts and convergences with the British, Spanish and Portuguese empires. In according due attention to the distinctive features of French law and the French New World empire, we hope to enrich understandings of Atlantic history generally.

Speakers and paper titles to be announced.

This program is free and open to the public, but registration in advance is required. Register online here.

Faculty and graduate students of Center for Renaissance Studies consortium institutions may be eligible to apply for travel funds to attend CRS programs or to do research at the Newberry Library. Each member university sets its own policies and deadlines; contact your Representative Council member in advance for details.

Learn more about the Center for Renaissance Studies Symposium on Comparative Early Modern Legal History.

REMINDER: Juris Diversitas Colloquium on Doing Justice: Official and Unofficial ‘Legalities’ in Practice

2012-02-03T15:22:00.000Z

Doing Justice:

Official and Unofficial ‘Legalities’ in Practice

Juris Diversitas is organising, with the Centre Jacques-Berque, a colloquium on Mediterranean laws and norms. It will be held in Rabat, Morocco from 15-16 June 2012.

Participants, both jurists and others, are asked to speak on the complexity of

state laws (both Western and non-Western), including the gap between legal theory and practice
other non-state normative orders (religious, customary, etc)

Speakers may discuss, in English or French, either of these aspects (including case studies) or the relationship between the two.

Those engaged in our Mediterranean Hybridity Project may also present preliminary overviews of the jurisdictions they’re working on. Indeed, related proposals focusing on similar themes beyond the Mediterranean are also welcome.

For additional information, see the original Call for Papers or contact Seán Patrick Donlan (sean.donlan@ul.ie) or Baudouin Dupret (baudouin.dupret@cjb.ma).

Those interested in making a presentation should send a short (250 word) proposal to Baudouin Dupret by 7 February 2012.

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: Jurisdictional Complexity Workshop

2012-02-03T13:15:00.000Z

Jurisdictional Complexity Workshop

Ghent University (Belgium) - 6-7 July 2012

As part of a project on ‘jurisdictional complexity’ in Western legal history (c1600-1900), led by Dr Seán Patrick Donlan (Limerick) and Dirk Heirbaut (Ghent), a workshop will be held in Ghent from 6-7 July 2012.

Participants in the workshop need not be part of the project and are free to discuss other periods and places.

The workshop will focus on the historiographical methods necessary for the study of jurisdictional complexity, the attempt to capture a sense of the legal-normative whole in context studied. As described in the project statement, to do this:

[t]hose working on the project will be encouraged to utilise a number of interdisciplinary methods—comparative, contemporary theories of interpretation, as well as historical anthropology, geography, and sociology …. [The project] is, in effect, an analysis of the both the ‘law in action’ (per Roscoe Pound) and the ‘living law’ (per Eugen Ehrlich) of the past. Concentrating on limited geographical areas, its case studies will investigate, in a form akin to modern comparative ‘country reports’, both the legal and normative complexity of the past. It will do so, however, in light of the realities of the past, avoiding the imposition of modern national and juridical boundaries [and will] serve as instantiations of wider intellectual and institutional developments….

For additional information, contact Dr Seán Patrick Donlan (sean.donlan@ul.ie) or Dirk Heirbaut (Dirk.Heirbaut@UGent.be). Those interested in participating should contact Dr Donlan with a short abstract (approximately 250 words) and a curriculum vitae, ideally before 1 May 2012. Depending on the number of participants, presentations are likely to be approximately 15-20 minutes and should be in English.

There is no fee for participation, but participants will be expected to cover their own travel, accomodation, and meal costs.

Finally, note that this gathering immediately precedes the European Society for Comparative Legal History Conference to be held in Amsterdam (9-10 July 2012). Participants in that conference might consider visiting us in advance of that event.

CALL FOR PAPERS AND SESSION PROPOSALS: Stateless Law? The Future of the Discipline

2012-02-02T15:12:00.001Z

Faculty of Law and Quebec ResearchCentreof Private and Comparative Law

McGill University, Montreal

CALL FOR PAPERS AND SESSION PROPOSALS

STATELESS LAW? THE FUTURE OF THE DISCIPLINE

Faculty of Law, McGill University

28‐29 September 2012

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first graduating class of the McGill Program, the Faculty of Law and the Quebec Research Centre of Private and Comparative Law will host an international conference on the future of the discipline of law. This event will aim to foster a debate that critically assesses the latest developments in legal thought and innovative approaches to law, in the light of the challenge of globalization and the move away from a national paradigm for understanding law. It will also ask the question of how to integrate the insights so gained into the teaching of law. The concern is with law in all its dimensions: public and private, local and transnational, formal and informal. By being forced to abandon, at least in part, the posited law of the nation state as their lode star, legal education and legal scholarship have been presented with an opportunity to break the mould of centuries of legal nationalism: an opportunity that encourages new, transdisciplinary and transnational ways of thinking about law. In short, the goal is to re-assess and to re-imagine the discipline of law, its place in the university, and its role in society. The working languages of the conference will be English and French.

Some of the themes which we expect to be covered include: How do globalization and legal pluralism affect our understanding of law, legal education or both? In its interaction with other disciplines, how does law preserve its disciplinary identity? Can a renewed understanding of particular fields of law shed light on our evolving understanding of the discipline? How is the teaching and research of basic private law—contracts, civil wrongs, property, the law of persons—affected by the increasingly transnational and transdisciplinary focus of legal scholarship?

Confirmed speakers include:

Professor Mireille Delmas-Marty (Collège de France)
Professor John Gardner (University of Oxford)
Professor Ernest Weinrib (University of Toronto)
Professor Annelise Riles (Cornell University)

Proposals for papers are now invited. If you would like to offer a paper, please submit a working title and an abstract (of no more than 350 words) by email to crdpcq.law@mcgill.ca before April, 16th, 2012. The abstract should be written in English or French, the language of the abstract indicating the language of the proposed full paper.

Proposals for sessions may also be submitted. Such proposals should include three or four paper proposals on a given theme. A session might be organized around an interdisciplinary nexus, postgraduate and/or undergraduate legal education, or a particular field of law or approach to law. Session proposals must include a statement that all of the proposed speakers have agreed to participate, and contact information for all proposed speakers.

Proposals will be selected on the basis of their quality and originality, as well as their engagement with the conference theme and their fit with other papers being presented at the conference. The selection will be made by a scientific committee. Presenters whose proposals are accepted will be expected to meet their own travel and accommodation costs, although the conference registration fee will be waived. Depending on the outcome of applications for financial assistance, some funds may be available to assist presenters with travel and accommodations; those who have need of such funds should indicate this in their applications.

NOTICE: Registration - Second Biennial Conference of the European Society for Comparative Legal History

2012-02-02T14:52:00.002Z

REGISTRATION

Second Biennial Conference of the

European Society for

Comparative Legal History

The Second Biennial Conference of the ESCLH will take place on 9 and 10 July 2012 in Amsterdam. The venue is the campus of the VU University.

The Conference theme is “Comparative Legal History - Definitions and Challenges”: how do we delineate the landmarks which fruitful legal historical comparison requires and which are the specific problems that a comparative-historical approach of the various branches of law may encounter?

Subthemes are Fascist Criminal Law (coordinator Stephen Skinner) and Corporate Law (coordinator Dave De ruysscher).

Enrolment/Registration is possible through the conference website until June 11: http://www.rechten.vu.nl/comparativelegalhistory

The fee (including coffee/tea during the breaks, drinks on Monday afternoon, the lunch and canal round trip on Tuesday) is €100 for non-members and €50 for students and PhD-students. ESCLH-members enroll free of charge. For the Buffet-Diner on Monday night an additional fee of €40 per head will be required for all participants (members, non-members and companions).

For additional information, please see the original notice.

CALL FOR PAPERS: British Association of Comparative Law Postgraduate Workshop on Comparative Law

2012-02-02T14:15:00.002Z

CALL FOR PAPERS

British Association of Comparative Law (BACL)

Postgraduate Workshop on Comparative Law

Kent Centre for European and Comparative Law

Kent Law School

Canterbury, UK

19–20 June 2012

The Kent Centre forEuropean and Comparative Law (KCECL) will host the British Association of ComparativeLaw (BACL) “Postgraduate Workshop on Comparative Law” on 19-20 June 2012. The workshop will precede an international conference on “Comparative Law: Engaging Translation” on 21-22 June 2012. Both events are scheduled to take place at Kent Law School, Canterbury, Kent, UK.

The BACL Postgraduate Workshop on Comparative Law is designed for doctoral students working on dissertations in the field of comparative legal studies and related subjects. In a round-table setting, the 2-day workshop will address both the benefits and methodological problems of postgraduate research in comparative law.

The workshop will start on Tuesday early afternoon with a welcome from the Chair of BACL, Professor Paula Giliker, and a series of plenary lectures, followed by a dinner at a nearby restaurant. Wednesday morning will be given over to student presentations and group discussion, followed by a final plenary session.

Confirmed Speakers:

• Dr Raluca Bercea, University of Timisoara, Romania

• Professor Paula Giliker, University of Bristol, UK

• Dr Simone Glanert, University of Kent, UK

• Professor Geoffrey Samuel, University of Kent, UK

BACL and KCECL are subsidising most of the costs of this event. However, a

contribution, which covers refreshments, the conference dinner on Tuesday, 19 June 2012 and a sandwich lunch on Wednesday, 20 June 2012, will be required (£30 for postgraduate students whose institutions are members of BACL, £40 for students whose institutions are not members of BACL, £45 for full-time academics). The fee is payable in cash at the beginning of the workshop.

Participants will be expected to organise and pay for their own transport to and from Canterbury. Canterbury is easily reached by fast train out of London St Pancras (1 hour) or out of Paris (2 hours on the Eurostar to Ashford International and 20 minutes on a local connecting train). Participants will also be expected to pay for their overnight accommodation, which can readily be found in the University’s halls of residence if so desired. Bookings must be arranged independently through the Internet: http://kenthospitality.kent.ac.uk/kxBnB/. A single standard room will cost £30 per night and an en-suite single room £45 per night (plus VAT). If preferred, a number of B&Bs and small hotels are to be found in the city centre within a few minutes’ reach of the university campus: http://www.guesthousesincanterbury.co.uk/.

Students interested in participating in the workshop should submit an abstract of no more than 400 words and a short biographical note by 1 March 2012. All inquiries and materials should be addressed to Dr Simone Glanert (S.Glanert@kent.ac.uk), Kent Centre for European and Comparative Law, University of Kent, Canterbury, Kent, UK. Formal invitations to selected candidates will be issued before 15 March 2012.

Students invited to join the workshop may want to consider attending the international conference on “Comparative Law: Engaging Translation” to take place on 21-22 June 2012. This conference will bring together leading scholars from various disciplines, including translation studies, linguistics, postcolonial studies, sociology and law with a view critically to reflect upon the many issues arising from legal translation in the context of comparative legal studies. For a detailed conference programme and information regarding the registration process, please see: http://www.kent.ac.uk/law/cecl/News.html.

The following institutions are members of BACL: Aberdeen, Birmingham, Bristol, Buckingham, Cambridge (TBC), Derby, Edinburgh, Essex, Exeter, Glasgow, Hull, KCL (TBC), Kent, Leicester, Liverpool JMU, Manchester, Nottingham, Nottingham, Trent, Northumbria, Oxford, Sheffield, Strathclyde, UCL, UEA, Warwick.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Comparative Law Call for Papers for SLS Conference

2012-01-31T19:25:00.004Z

Comparative Law Call for Papers for SLS Conference, from David Marrani

SLS Conference 2012 Bristol - Call for Papers: Comparative Law Section

Dear all,

The 2012 SLS Annual Conference will take place at Bristol University from 11-14 September. The theme of the conference this year is “Pressing Problems in the Law and Legal Education” and papers on that topic are particularly welcome.

The Comparative Law Section is in group A. We will be meeting on Tuesday 11th (2 slots) after the morning workshop organised at the conference by the British Association of Comparative Law (BACL) and Wednesday 12th (2 slots). Each slot lasts 90 minutes (with two to three papers, if possible grouped around a theme).

Contributions from established and new scholars are welcome. Papers can be at any stage from work-in-progress to an article ready for publication. Speakers will have to provide an abstract of their paper by August (abstracts will be generally accessible this year, as opposed to being restricted to those registered for the conference), but providing a full text is optional.

New this year:

**There will be an opportunity for poster presentations (Posters A1 size) to be displayed beside the publishers’ stands in the area where tea and coffee are served; space is limited (only 20 posters for each half of the conference). Poster presenters are expected to attend the conference in the usual way and to be available to discuss their work. Please let me know if you are interested in this opportunity to present your work in a different way.

If you are interested in presenting a paper or poster, please email me by Monday 20th February. At this stage I need no more than your name and a brief outline of the paper or poster that you would like to present. Please note that there will be a Best Paper prize and a new Best Poster prize.

Also I have been asked to remind all speakers that they are expected to book and pay for the conference in the usual way. Furthermore, if you have submitted, or are intending to submit a paper to another section, could you please let me know when submitting your Comparative Law proposal?

Best wishes,

Dr. David Marrani,
Convener SLS Comparative Law Section
dmarrani@essex.ac.uk
SLS Comparative Law Section.
Society of Legal Scholars,
PO Box 3017.
Bristol BS6 9HJ. UK.
webadmin@legalscholars.ac.uk

CALL FOR PAPERS: Encounters: An International Journal for the Study of Culture and Society

2012-01-23T20:53:00.000Z

A Call for Papers for Encounters: An International Journal for the Study of Culture and Society has been issued. The topic, 'Islamic Law: Society, Culture and State' is quite similar to our Mediterranean Project. The Guest Editor is Sabrina Joseph (Zayed University, Dubai).

The Call for Papers reads:

We invite papers that deal with the intersection between Islamic law and society particularly as it pertains to such issues as: the status of women and/or family law, property rights, land tenure, criminal law, finance/economy, and inter-faith relations. Papers from all periods of history and all disciplines arewelcome, as are papers that examine the impact of Islamic law in western contexts. Questions that are of particular interest include (but are not limited to) the following:

- How is the law a 'living law'? To what extent have legal thinkers integrated custom into the lawmaking process?

- To what extent has the law provided an arena for individuals of different religions to negotiate and/or settle their disputes?

- What sort of relationship has existed between the various schools of law and have legal thinkers drawn upon schools of law other than their own in formulating laws?

- To what extent have Western legal systems accommodated Islamic law? What impact has this had onnotions of citizenship and minority rights?
- How have state law/secular law and shari'a overlapped and/or informed one another in the lawmaking process? How has this relationship evolved over time?

Please submit your paper (6,000 to 10,000) in MS Word format to Sabrina.joseph@zu.ac.ae by July 1, 2012. Submissions should include a cover letter to the editor describing the work in approximately one hundred words.

NOTICE: Janke and Licari on Enforcing Punitive Damage Awards in France

2012-01-23T20:14:00.001Z

Benjamin West Janke (Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC) and Juris Diversitas Member François-Xavier Licari (University of Metz - Faculty of Law)'s 'Enforcing Punitive Damage Awards in France after Fountaine Pajot' is forthcoming in the American Journal of Comparative Law. It is available on SSRN.

In a landmark ruling, the Cour de cassation held that 'an award of punitive damages is not, per se, contrary to public policy,' but that 'it is otherwise when the amount awarded is disproportionate with regard to the damage sustained and the debtor's breach of his contractual obligation.' Schlenzka & Langhorne v. Fountaine Pajot, S.A. involved the failed attempt by American judgment creditors to enforce their California judgment against a French defendant in France. At the same time that the judgment creditors were taking their case through the French legal system, the Cour de cassation, in a different line of cases, liberalized the conditions under which a foreign judgment could be enforced in France. But when the Court opened one door for the American plaintiffs, it closed another by refusing to enforce the judgment because it included disproportionate punitive damages. The Court's reasons were inconsistent with prior interpretations of proportionality and disingenuous to the court's modern approach to the enforcement of foreign judgments. In just a few words, the Court echoed prevailing French and European sentiments about American punitive damage awards. Unfortunately, the prevailing attitudes are dominated more by prejudice than by fact and reason.

The Civil Law and its Codes: A Journey Through the Americas

2012-01-20T23:39:00.003Z

Les Editions Thémis, Montreal, published Le droit civil et ses codes: parcours à travers les Amériques, a collection of papers presented at a workshop series conducted at the Quebec Research Center of Private and Comparative Law at McGill University, edited by Jimena Andino Dorato, Jean-Frédérick Ménard and Lionel Smith. View the Table of Contents.

Les neufs juristes conviés par le centre de recherche en droit privé et comparé du Québec de l'Université McGill à parcourir le droit civil à travers les Amériques et leurs codes en dressent un portrait pluriel. Cela dit, comme le relève Benoît Moore dans le rapport de synthèse qui clôt cet ouvrage collectif dans lequel il se penche sur l'unicité, la centralité et la pérennité des "codes d'Amérique", des thèmes récurrents traversent les textes des auteurs, indépendamment de leur origine nationale. Ainsi, on observe l'évolution du rôle normatif du Code civil en Argentine avec Julio César Rivera qui s'attarde notamment à ses interactions avec le common law et la lex mercatoria. On constate aussi, tant avec Olivier Moréteau, qui réfléchit à la place du Code civil en Louisiane qu'avec Jimena Andino Dorate, Graciela Jasa-Silveira et Nelcy Lopez Cuellar qui abordent le dialogue des codes civils avec les normes constitutionnelles et internationales en Argentine , au Mexique et en Colombie, que la place du code civil dans l'univers juridique a beaucoup changé depuis la première vague de codification au 19ème siècle. De même, l'exposé de de José Antônio Peres Gediel sur la modernisation du droit des personnes physiques en réponse aux innovations médicales et scientifiques et dans la foulée de l'adoption par le Brésil d'un nouveau code civil rejoint à la fois le propos sur les défis associés à la réforme et à la recodification du droit privé que livre Luis Muniz-Argüelles à partir de Puerto Rico et le point de vue québécois de Sophie Morin sur l'avenir du Code civil du Québec. Tel que l'évoquent en ouverte Jimena Andino Dorato, Jean-Frédérick Ménard et Lionel Smith, cet ouvrage pose un regard renouvelé sur le droit civil tel qu'il s'est développé sur le continent américain et constitue une excellente introduction à son étude comparée.

REMINDER: Call for Papers - Doing Justice: Official and Unofficial ‘Legalities’ in Practice

2012-01-20T15:47:00.000Z

Doing Justice:

Official and Unofficial ‘Legalities’ in Practice

Juris Diversitas is organising, with the Centre Jacques-Berque, a colloquium on Mediterranean laws and norms. It will be held in Rabat, Morocco from 15-16 June 2012.

Participants, both jurists and others, are asked to speak on the complexity of

state laws (both Western and non-Western), including the gap between legal theory and practice
other non-state normative orders (religious, customary, etc)

NOTICE: Pargendler on the Rise and Decline of Legal Families

2012-01-17T08:50:00.000Z

Mariana Pargendler (Fundação Getulio Vargas School of Law at São Paulo)'s 'The Rise and Decline of Legal Families' (2012) 60 American Journal of Comparative Law is now available on SSRN.

The abstract reads:

The effort to group jurisdictions around the world into a handful of legal families based on common characteristics of their laws has traditionally occupied a central role in the comparative law literature. This Article revisits the intellectual history of comparative law and surveys the evolution of legal family taxonomies from the first efforts at classification in the late-nineteenth century to the influential categorizations advanced by René David and Zweigert and Kötz in the 1960s. The early taxonomies differed from their modern counterparts in important ways. Although the nineteenth century is usually viewed as the apex of the common-civil law dichotomy, this distinction was conspicuously absent from legal family classifications until the twentieth century. A number of economic and political factors – ranging from economic liberalism to anti-colonialist sentiment – likely played a role in minimizing the salience of legal traditions in nineteenth-century legal thought.

NOTICE: Palmer on 'The Great Spill in the Gulf . . . and a Sea of Pure Economic Loss'

2012-01-16T09:46:00.000Z

Vernon Valentine Palmer has recently published 'The Great Spill in the Gulf . . . and a Sea of Pure Economic Loss: Reflections on the Boundaries of Civil Liability' in the (2011) 116 Penn State Law Review 105. It begins:

What has been called the greatest oil spill in history, and certainly the largest in United States history, began with an explosion on April 20, 2010, some 41 miles off the Louisiana coast. The accident occurred during the drilling of an exploratory well by the Deepwater Horizon, a mobile offshore drilling unit (MODU) under lease to BP (formerly British Petroleum) and owned by Transocean. The well-head blowout resulted in 11 dead, 17 injured, and oil spewing from the seabed 5,000 ft. below at an estimated rate of 25,000-30,000 barrels per day.

The Deepwater Horizon is technically described as “a massive floating, dynamically positioned drilling rig” capable of operating in waters 8,000 ft. deep. In maritime law, such a rig qualifies as a vessel; yet, as a MODU, the rig also qualifies as an offshore facility that may attract higher liability limits under the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 (OPA). Under these provisions the double designation as vessel and/or MODU potentially raises the liability limits to as much as $75 million. The operator and principal developer of this well is BP, which owns a 65% interest. Various attempts at stemming the initial flow of oil failed. The oil spread on the surface and in the depths over a very wide area, killing marine life and water birds, entering estuaries, and polluting shores. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration closed commercial and recreational fishing in a very wide area of the Gulf, and the federal government declared a moratorium on exploratory drilling for six months, thus idling about 33 drilling operations in progress. Meantime, BP, after meeting with President Obama, agreed to establish a $20 billion compensation fund, which would be independently administered by a nongovernmental agency led by Kenneth Feinberg. BP carried very little or no third party liability insurance and reportedly operated on a self-insured basis. Given the minimal insurance, questions arise as to whether BP’s pockets are deep enough to meet its overall liabilities which, in addition to the compensation fund already discussed, may include $21 billion further in civil fines under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The compensation fund, after an initial $5 billion deposit in 2010, would receive quarterly installments of $1.25 billion until the full amount is reached in mid-2013. The fund would pay for damage to natural resources, state and local response costs, and individual economic losses (whether in the form of civil judgments or settlements with the fund), but it will not be used to cover any fines and penalties incurred by BP. The right of individuals to seek compensation through the courts instead of the Fund remains open.

The flow of oil was finally arrested on July 15, 2010, 87 days after the blowout. By then more than 200 million gallons of oil had poured into the Gulf, which was nearly 20 times more than the Exxon Valdez emptied into Prince William Sound (11 million gallons) and 60 million gallons more than the Ixtoc I disaster in the Bay of Campeche (140 million gallons). The environmental, economic, and social impacts of the spill are staggering, and long-term effects will be unknown for much time to come.

CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS: Rethinking Inheritance

2012-01-14T19:45:00.000Z

Call for Participants

The New School for Social Research

2012 Anthropology Conference: “Rethinking Inheritance”

April 28th, 2012

The Theme: Inheritance has typically been conceived as a passive process of reception. Yet, inheritance also implies claims to something. Claiming inheritance and claiming selves, communities, nations and other units as heirs is an active practice. How can we better conceptualize the labor involved in establishing inheritance? How are inheritances rejected, resisted, renewed, reformed, or renegotiated? How are identity and belonging implicated in inheritance?

As we begin to think of inheritance in multiple registers, we hope to challenge its supposed passivity and expand its conceptualization. What does it mean to inherit a citizenship, a nationality, a legal framework, or an ethnicity, and what are the modes for these inheritances? How can inheritance be employed to think through temporal relationships of historical consciousness, collective memory, and their narration? We also hope to think together about how active inheritance relates to materialities and economies, financial institutions, and the act of making claims on properties, whether virtual or physical. Similarly, we can consider inheritance in terms of spaces and boundaries, wondering how territories are passed down and how borders are maintained.

Seeking

Rather than curating panels in which participants read papers, we seek an active, dialogue-driven event featuring multiple conversations through which attendees can move, beginning with a keynote address from an innovative scholar, and closing with a second address that reflects on what we have thought and experienced in the course of the day. To prompt discussion and encourage an expansion of the mediums with and through which we think inheritance, we encourage submissions of “objects” (including, but not limited to, physical objects, artifacts, short film clips, photographs, texts, games, artwork, music/sound, and performance) alongside a brief 300-500 word statement explaining your choice of “object” and how it relates to our theme. When selecting participants, we will primarily be looking for innovative ideas that identify a "site" of inquiry that attendees will engage with during the event. We are NOT looking for finished papers or solidified arguments. Rather, your submitted “object” will inspire new questions and interventions targeting inheritance. Selected participants will attend the event, informally present their “object” as it relates to Rethinking Inheritance, and take part in workshop conversations.

How to Submit: Email submissions, 300-500 word statement, and, if you are including an object or prompt, a picture or description to inheritanceconference@gmail.com by February 20th, 2012. Please also include your full name, academic affiliation, and a current CV in the email.

Visit Our Blog: http://inheritanceconference.wordpress.com
: Participants who are engaged in creative and critical rethinking of inheritance in ways that may include, but certainly are not limited to the ideas above. As part of this process, we are reimagining the conference format that we have inherited as scholars.

NOTICE: New Issue of Jurisprudence

2012-01-13T01:32:00.000Z

The newest issue of Jurisprudence is now available. It includes.

Articles

Natural Law Beyond Finnis

Jonathan Crowe

Self-Reference of the Constitutional State: A Systems Theory Interpretation of the Kelsen-Schmitt Debate

Jiří Přibáň

Discussion

Three Comments on Joseph Raz’s Conception of Normativity

Introduction

George Pavlakos

Raz’s Nexus

Niko Kolodny

Guided by Reasons: Raz on the Normative-Explanatory Nexus

Ulrike Heuer

Problems of Intellectualism: Raz on Reason and its Objects

Douglas Lavin

Reviews

Five reviews of Rae Langton, Sexual Solipsism: Philosophical Essays on Pornography and Objectification, with a response from Rae Langton

Subordination, Silencing, and Two Ideas of Illocution

Jennifer Hornsby

Against Langton’s Illocutionary Treatment of Pornography

Louise Antony

Maker’s Knowledge or Perpetuator’s Ignorance

Jennifer Saul

Langton on Objectification and Autonomy-Denial

Natalie Stoljar

Finding Love in the Kingdom of Ends

Nellie Wieland

Response

Rae Langton

Three reviews of Andrei Marmor, Social Conventions: From Language to Law, with a response from Andrei Marmor

Marmor on the Arbitrariness of Constitutive Conventions

Federico José Arena

The Role of Conventions in Law

Dale Smith

The Conventionality of Promising: A Defence

Hanoch Sheinman

Conventions Revisited: A Reply to Critics

Andrei Marmor

Conceptual Collisions: A Review of Keith Culver and Michael Giudice, Legality’s Borders: An Essay in General Jurisprudence

Andrew Halpin

Philosophy for International Lawyers: A Review of Samantha Besson and John Tasioulas (eds), The Philosophy of International Law

Patrick Capps

Reasonableness, thy Name is Nature: A Review of John Finnis, Natural Law & Natural Rights

Andrés Rosler

Coercion and the State: A Review of B Sharon Byrd and Joachim Hruschka, Kant’s Doctrine of Right: A Commentary

Helga Varden

Intentions, Blame, and Contractualism: A Review of Tim Scanlon, Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame

Jussi Suikkanen

Discourse, Principles, and the Problem of Law and Morality: Robert Alexy’s Three Main Works

Martin Borowski

A Review of Izhak Englard, Corrective and Distributive Justice: From Aristotle to Modern Times

Sean Coyle

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Transformation of Property Rights in Land and Property Law in China

2012-01-13T00:02:00.000Z

Workshop on Law, Governance and Development:

The Transformation of Property Rights in Land and Property Law in China

11 May 2012 (9am-5pm)

Call for Papers

Following its workshop on Law and Orientalism in 2011, CEAL, with the support of the Centre of Chinese Studies, SOAS, will hold a workshop on The Transformation of Property Rights in Land and Property Law in China.

Since 1978, China has seen a ‘revival’ of property rights. The decollectivisation of rural communes, the ‘corporatisation’ of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), and the emergence of urban property markets have been hindered or encouraged by legal reforms. The purpose of this workshop is to discuss the nature and significance of the re-emergence of private property in land and the legal framework concerning landed property in the context of rapid socio-economic change in post-Mao China from a variety of perspectives whilst retaining a focus on law. The workshop’s broader aim is to contribute to the understanding of the changing nature of contemporary China through an examination of private property.

Title and abstract of papers (not exceeding 1 page, Arial font size 11 or similar) should be sent to both Carol Tan (ct9@soas.ac.uk) and XU Ting (t.xu1@lse.ac.uk) by the 15 February 2012. Notification of acceptance of abstracts will be sent by the 2 March 2012. Full papers will be required by 15 April 2012. Publication of previously unpublished papers from the workshop will be considered after the workshop has taken place.

Workshop speakers are likely to include the following: Professor Anthony Dicks (CEAL, School of Law, SOAS); Dr XU Ting (Economic History Department, LSE); Dr Zhu Sanzhu (CEAL, School of Law, SOAS); Professor Tim Murphy (School of Law, LSE); Professor Athar Hussain (Asia Research Centre, LSE)

Organiser: Carol Tan and XU Ting
Contact email: ct9@soas.ac.uk, t.xu1@lse.ac.uk

NOTICE: Search for Legal Experts with a Bijural Background

2012-01-11T13:51:00.000Z

The following message (with a deadline today) has just come to my attention. SPD

Greetings,

This memorandum is to notify you that the ABA-UNDP International Legal Resource Center (ILRC <http://www.abanet.org/intlaw/intlproj/ilrc/home.html> ) is in search of legal experts with a bijural background and experience with transitioning to a common law system. UNDP/Rwanda is in the preparatory stages for a regional conference focusing on the civil and common law situation in Rwanda within the East African context. Rwanda has a dual legal system, embracing aspects of both civil and common law, but gradually moving towards a more common law based system. One of the most interesting challenges faced by Rwanda has been the transformation from civil law to common law. Rwanda was a civil law country, and some concepts of the common law practices have not been readily accepted. The challenges related to such transitions can be multiple and wide-reaching. They can include the need for substantial legal and regulatory reform, comprehensive re-training and education of legal and other professionals (such as the judiciary, civil service, parliamentary committees and other authorities), and broad-scale legal education, communication and outreach to inform the private sector and the public about new laws and practices, and the administration of justice in the country. These can require investment of resources in reform and the formulation of new policies, strategies and plans for the transition to ensure predictability and effectiveness in the legal order and to strengthen, rather than undermine, the legal system.

Despite the challenges, such transitions also offer important and unique opportunities to strengthen the rule of law and to reinforce the legitimacy, transparency, effectiveness and efficiency of the administration of justice and governance institutions. Transitioning to common law, for example, can allow more flexible legal responses to bottlenecks and emerging legal issues, broader scope for judicial decision-making and precedent-setting, and the smoother integration of plural legal orders. Such strengthening can help to build confidence of the private sector and the public in the legal order and the state, engender access to justice and further legal protection of rights and entitlements, facilitate smoother integration with the legal, regulatory and judicial systems in the region, and promote economic security and investment.

The conference will seek to:

Bring together delegates from Rwanda, Burundi and South Sudan;
Identify the shared as well as the distinct challenges faced by the countries in focus with regards to transitions in law and hybrid legal systems;
Highlight the lessons learned, experiences and good practice of other countries with hybrid or transitioning legal situations;
Explore the opportunities offered by such transitions in terms of strengthening the rule of law and access to justice; and
Outline the potential avenues and ways forward to strategically overcome the challenges and enhance the legitimacy and effectiveness of governance in the context of hybrid systems and legal transitions.

While UNDP/Rwanda is still in the preparatory stages of this conference, they hope to host this conference in late February 2012. The agenda is still in draft form, but UNDP/Rwanda has requested assistance in identifying experts who may be interested in serving as speakers. In particular, legal practitioners with experience in hybrid legal systems across Africa and Asia, including South Africa, Cameroon, Mauritius, Sri Lanka, Singapore, and other countries who can share their experiences, lessons learned, and recommendations for Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan. It’s important to have proven experience with transitioning to common law. Membership into the East African Community has mandated that Rwanda and Burundi adopt the common law tradition. Kenyan, Tanzanian, and Ugandan legal systems were modeled after the U.K. common law system, while the Rwandan and Burundi systems were heavily based on the Belgian civil law system. Additionally, the newly independent Republic of South Sudan is also facing similar challenges as it returns to the common law system after decades of Shari’a law.

Please note that UNDP/Rwanda hopes to cover the costs of travel and lodging, but this is not 100% confirmed. Experts with proven experience and ability to make presentations, kindly email (Jacqueline.Gichinga@americanbar.org) your CV and short cover letter highlighting your bijural qualifications/experience. Fluency in both French and English is a plus. Furthermore, experts must be willing to travel to Rwanda for the conference set to take place in late February 2012. The deadline for applications is January 11, 2012. Thank you!

Best in 2012,

Jacqueline

Jacqueline Gichinga
International Program Associate
American Bar Association, Section of International Law
ABA-UNDP International Legal Resource Center (ILRC)
740 15th St, NW
Washington, DC 20005
T: +1-202-662-1662
F: +1-202-662-1669
http://ambar.org/ilrc
Jacqueline.Gichinga@americanbar.org (NEW EMAIL ADDRESS)

NOTICE: 8 Doctoral Student Positions - Law in a Changing World Programme

2012-01-05T19:48:00.000Z

The doctoral programme Law in a Changing World announces

8 DOCTORAL STUDENT POSITIONS

for the period 1 September 2012 – 31 August 2016
Law in a Changing World (LCW) includes all the sub-disciplines of law. Each doctoral student will be acquainted with the Europeanization and internationalization of law, but the research conducted does not have to connect to these themes. The student must register in one of the participating Finnish universities to carry out the doctoral studies.

The appointed candidates will focus on completing a doctoral thesis in the field of legal studies. They will participate in the training and other activities organized by the LCW programme. The tasks of doctoral students will include a limited amount teaching and administrative work. Also affiliated self-funded researchers may be accepted to participate in the LCW programme.

A suitable master´s degree in law or a neighboring discipline is required. The student must show the ability and motivation for postgraduate studies and for completing the doctoral degree according to the research plan.

The application must include the following information and appendices:

a cover letter (max 2 pages), which sheds light on the applicant's motivation to conduct doctoral research and to complete a doctoral degree; the sub-discipline of the research should be indicated (e.g. public law, IP law, criminal law)
a research proposal for a doctoral thesis (max 6 pages)
an individual study plan for the degree built on participation in the LCW programme (max 4 pages)
a Curriculum vitae and list of possible publications (or an academic portfolio including these documents)
copies of degree certificates
possible written assessments concerning Master´s dissertations
a possible statement from the proposed supervisor and other possible references (eventual supervisor must be contacted beforehand)
relevant documents indicating proficiency and skills in English (TOEFL test or equivalent)
information on possible previous funding

Salaries will be based on levels 1–4 of the job requirement level chart for teaching and research staff in the salary scales of Finnish universities. In addition, the appointees will be paid a salary component based on personal work performance. The salary will be set at approximately 1.800–2.800 euros per month.

The applications shall be addressed to the LCW doctoral programme and sent in 4 copies with appendices to: Registry and Records Management, Yliopistonkatu 4 (P.O. Box 33), 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. The applications may be written in Finnish, English or Swedish. The closing date for applications is Wednesday, 15 February 2012, 3.45pm (GMT +2), when all the documents must be received by the University's Registry.

Shortlisted candidates will be interviewed. Final decisions will be made in April. Unsuccessful applicants may be admitted as affiliated researchers to the LCW programme. Affiliated researchers follow the same programme but will not be funded through a work contract.

Further details of the LCW programme can be found at www.helsinki.fi/omm/english/. For further information, please contact Director of the doctoral programme, Prof Kimmo Nuotio (kimmo.nuotio[at]helsinki.fi), or Coordinator, post-doctoral researcher, Dr Ida Koivisto (ida.koivisto[at]helsinki.fi), tel. +358 9 19123538.