Comparative Law News

The European Law Journal, the 'Review of European Law in Context' has made available some additional articles. Have a look.

 

Hart Publishing is delighted to inform you about the 5th Journal of Private International Law Conference.
  Building on the very successful Journal of Private International Law conferences in Aberdeen (2005), Birmingham (2007), New York (2009), and Milan (2011), the 5th Journal of Private International Law conference will take place in Madrid on Thursday 12th September - Friday 13th September 2013.   The organization of the Conference is shared by the Law Faculties of Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (UAM) and Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM).   For all the information about the conference please visit here.   To book your place and for all enquiries please e-mail: Jpil.2013.Madrid@gmail.com

Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellowship, 2013-2015 (USC Center for the Study of Immigration Integration and USC Department of Sociology) The USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII) and the USC Department of Sociology announce a two-year post-doctoral Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Teaching Fellowship, beginning Fall 2013. The fellowship focuses on immigrant populations and the potential impact and/or need for Comprehensive Immigration reform (CIR) for the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 academic years. While we would prefer a post-doctoral teaching fellow looking at the populations likely to benefit from CIR in order to help us build a research project looking at the longitudinal effects, we would also be open to candidates who would study the politics of change. We would prefer an interdisciplinary researcher who could utilize and teach mixed methods approaches (i.e., both quantitative and qualitative) to Sociology graduates and undergraduates in his/her teaching role. The fellow will teach one course each semester at USC and is expected to conduct research with CSII.  The fellowship will offer a competitive salary, a yearly $2,000 research allowance, and fringe benefits. The fellow must have completed all requirements for the Ph.D. by mid-August, 2013.

Review of applications will commence on May 03, 2013, with a decision expected approximately May 17, 2013. 

Please follow the application process and upload the following materials:
            • C.V.
            • Detailed description of the nature of the research to be undertaken during the fellowship period
            • Relevant writing sample of no more than 30 pages, and
            • Contact information for three references (they will be asked to directly submit on your behalf).

Visit this website for more information: http://e2.ma/webview/uk2qd/abac7d9c13bc003f6425f054c03b7d68.

Law and Society - Assistant or Associate Professor -- Wilfrid Laurier University,  Brantford Campus (Ontario Canada)

The Law and Society Program at the Brantford campus of Wilfrid Laurier University invites applications for a tenure-stream appointment at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor, subject to budgetary approval, starting July 1, 2013. Applicants must have a completed PhD in law and society, socio-legal studies, sociology, or a cognate discipline that critically examines the relationships between legal forms and social phenomena.

The preferred candidate will have a strong research record, as evidenced by publications in peer-reviewed sources, and a demonstrated record of excellence in teaching. The research and teaching interests of the preferred candidate will address the intersectionality of law and society with an emphasis on surveillance, security and social movements, regulation and governance, or social justice. Preference will be given to candidates with proven and / or promise of leadership skills and who would be able to take on the role and responsibilities of a Program Coordinator at hiring or soon after. The teaching workload norm at the University is four one-term courses. Program Coordinators are granted an appropriate course release and/or administrative stipend as outlined in the Full-Time Collective Agreement (http://www.wlufa.ca/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/FT-CA-2011-July-31-2012_2-Final.pdf).

Interested candidates should forward a letter of application, a curriculum vita, up to two selected publications, and a teaching dossier. The teaching dossier should include copies of official teaching evaluations for all courses taught, selected course outlines for courses taught in the last two to five years, and a statement of teaching philosophy. Candidates should provide the names and contact information of three referees who can attest to the candidate's commitment to scholarship. The deadline for receipt of all materials is May 15, 2013. All materials may be sent in electronically or in hard copy. All materials should be sent to:

Dr. Andrew Welsh
c/o Margaret Harris
Wilfrid Laurier University - Brantford Campus
73 George St.
Brantford, ON., N3T 2Y3
maharris@wlu.ca

Applicants can learn more about the Law and Society program at Laurier at
http://www.wlu.ca/homepage.php?grp_id=12549 

  For more information on this job description, please visit this website: http://www.wlu.ca/page.php?grp_id=12549&p=23673.

University of Luxembourg, Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance
Associate Professor in Criminal Law

The University of Luxembourg is a multilingual, international research University. The Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance of the University of Luxembourg has an opening for 1 Associate Professor in Criminal Law (M/F) Ref: F2-080002 (to be mentioned in all correspondence).

MISSION: The responsibilities contain the education at the levels BA, MA and doctorate, the research and the management of research projects and the tutoring of students in the various levels.

JOB QUALIFICATIONS:
- Ph.D in Criminal Law, since at least 3 years.
- Significant postdoctoral research in the fields of European Criminal Law, comparison of criminal justice systems or criminal law theory.
- Preference will be given to candidates with relevant publications in economic and financial criminal law and who can demonstrate a strong interdisciplinary orientation with research in criminology, legal philosophy or economic analysis of criminal law.
- Large experience of teaching also within an international context. The candidate will be ready to become acquainted to foreign criminal justice systems, namely to Luxembourg's Criminal Law.
- The candidate should speak at least two of the three languages of the University: English, French and German.


APPLICATION PROCEDURE: Applications (in French or English) will contain following documents:
- The application form (on demand to fdef-recrutement@uni.lu);
- A motivation letter;
- A copy of the diploma of doctorate;
- A detailed curriculum vitae with a list of publications of the candidate;
- A text of up to 6000 characters (3 pages) describing the scientific activities which the applicant wishes to carry out;
- A copy of the doctoral thesis;
- A copy of the three publications that the candidate considers as most representative of his or her research activity.

The University of Luxembourg offers competitive salaries. Information about the position can be obtained from Professor Stefan Braum, Dean of the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance, email: stefan.braum@uni.lu

All applications should be sent in printed form and electronic version before 21/06/2013 to the following address:

Professeur Stefan Braum
Dean of the Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance
University of Luxembourg
4, rue Alphonse Weicker
L-2721 Luxembourg
Email: fdef-recrutement@uni.lu
Link for the ad: http://emea3.mrted.ly/5tp2

All applications will be handled in strictest confidence.
The University of Luxembourg is an equal opportunity employer.

The review section of the journal Histoire du XIXe siècle (online on recensio.net) features a discussion by Christophe Voilliot (Paris X-Naterre) of a recent Ph.D. by political scientist Guillaume Sacriste (Paris I) on the use of constitutional law in the legitimation of the French State during the Third Republic (1870-1914). This regime achieved some internal stability in France, after a constitutionally extremely turbulent succession of absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, republic, consulate, Empire, constitutional monarchy with intermediate revolutions (1830/1848) and Second Empire. Sacriste's work discusses the intellectual transmission and education infrastructure for the French political elite, and the operation of scientific networks, consecrating the emancipation of public law from the dominant civilist tradition.
Full text here.
Link to the book here.

The Research Group Personal Rights and Property Rights of the University of Antwerp organises an

Expert Seminar
Legal Pluralism in Family Law
on Wednesday 22 May 2013 – 13.30 – 16.00 – A.202

Participation free of charge – RSVP at familierecht@ua.ac.be

Programme
 

President:                             Dr. Mariano Croce, FWO Pegasus Marie Curie Fellow
                                           Centre for Law and Cosmopolitan Values, University of Antwerp

 13.30                                     Introduction        
                             Prof. dr. Frederik Swennen, Professor of Family Law                                 Research Group Personal Rights & Property Rights, University of Antwerp
 Academic perspective
13.35                                     Keynote speech “Responsible Decision-Making in Family Law”
                             Prof. Werner F. Menski, Professor of South Asian Laws, SOAS School of Law                                            Chair, Centre for Ethnic Minority Studies

14.20                                  Respondent
               Prof. Susan Rutten, Lecturer in Family Law, International Family Law and Islam                                            Maastricht University
 14.30                                     Discussion
 15.45                                  Coffee/Tea
 Practical perspective
 15.00                                    Legal Pluralism in Belgium: a human rights analysis of migrant group's family conflict resolution
                                          Prof. dr. Eva Brems, Professor of Human Rights Law Dra. Kim Lecoyer, Researcher                                           Human Rights Centre, University of Ghent
15.30                                    Respondent
                                          Khadija Aznag, trainer-consult interculturalisation & diversity                                           Province Vlaams-Brabant
15.40                                 Discussion
15.55                                 Closing Remarks
                                               Prof. dr. Thalia Kruger, Professor of Private International Law Research Group Personal Rights & Property Rights, University of Antwerp

Bruylant published the Egyptian scholar Victor-Yves Ghebali (Graduate Institute, Geneva)'s work on interwar international organizations. Ghebali's original approach consists in the legal analysis of the organizations' functioning during World War II. Whereas the League of Nations, without the US from the start on, without Germany, Japan or Italy in the 1930s, declined, the International Labour Organization, on the contrary, knew considerable positive dynamics. A final chapter comes back on the integration of the ILO within the UN System.


Link: table of contents.

(source: MULTIPOL-blog)

Invitation to subscribe to the tabula gratulatoria of the Festschrift: 
Honos alit artes. Studi per il settantesimo compleanno di Mario Ascheri,  ed. by Paola Maffei and Gian Maria Varanini, Reti Medievali - Firenze University Press.
Anticipated date of publication: February 2014
Deadline for subscriptions: 30 October 2013
The Festschrift will consist of about 200 contributions, totalling over 2,000 pages, in four thematic volumes which can be purchased separately

• The formation of common law
  • Consilia
  • Lawyers, texts and universities in the Middle Ages and early modern period
  • Canon law    
• Particular worlds
  • Communes, corporations, statutes and other specific legislation
  • Siena and Toscana  
  • Liguria and other places  
• The development of ideas from the Middle Ages to the Ancien Régime
  • The history of books
  • Legislation and practice  
  • Reflections and theories  
• Modern and contemporary history    
  • Individuals, ideals and events  
  • Science, legislation and government  
  • The administration of justice and the forensic professions  
  • Lawyers and the countries under common law  

The contributions are by scholars working in Italy and Europe, America and  Japan, and are in Italian, French, English, German and Spanish. They range in time from late antique to contemporary history, treat historical themes in law, institutions, economy, art, philosophy, politics, society, literature, numismatics, bibliography and archival studies, and relate to a wide range of places in the Old and New Worlds. Together they offer a vast fresco of the current state of the historical sciences. The list of authors and titles to be included in each volume can be consulted at the website http://studiascheri.wordpress.com/, which will be regularly updated to include any possible minor changes. The cost of each volume is 50 euros + postage On the basis of current Italian prices the cost of postage is fixed per volume at €2 for postage to Italy, €10 to Europe and €15 to other continents. To avoid postal charges it will be possible to collect volumes from the publisher or the editors; if you intend to do this, please say so at the moment of payment. Methods of payment


Contributions can be sent

• by direct payment to one of the members of the editorial committee (http://studiascheri.wordpress.com/comitato-redazionale/);
• by bank transfer to the Associazione culturale Reti Medievali, Banco Popolare di Verona e Novara, Piazza Nogara 2, 37121 Verona (IBAN: IT34 R 05034 11750 000000164505, SWIFT code: BAPPIT21001), stating the reason for the payment;
• by credit card via the safe website of Paypal (http://www.rm.unina.it/rmebook/index.php?mod=none_Studi_Ascheri), stating the reason for the payment.

At the time of payment, each subscriber should also declare the form in which they wish their names to appear in the tabula gratulatoria, using the form on the website http://studiascheri.wordpress.com/modulo/:

• For individuals, in addition to their first and last names, their institution (e.g. Università di Bologna, Archivio di Stato di Verona, Foro di Arezzo, Tribunale civile di Roma) or failing that their place of origin.
• For institutions, their formal name and place (e.g. Biblioteca “Circolo Giuridico” dell’Università di Siena).

The deadline for subscription is 30 October 2013. Further information about the Festschrift will be made available on the website:http://studiascheri.wordpress.com/.

Member François-Xavier Licari (Lorraine) has made his 'L'ARBITRAGE RABBINIQUE, ENTRE DROIT TALMUDIQUE ET DROIT DES NATIONS (RABBINIC ARBITRATION, BETWEEN TALMUDIC LAW AND THE LAW OF THE GENTILES' available on SSRN. The abstract reads:

Rabbinical arbitration has existed for two thousand years, but remains largely unknown. After a long period of decline which lasted until the middle of the twentieth century, it is now in widespread use, and is participating in a renaissance of confessional arbitration throughout the world. Even though it applies fundamental mechanisms which are familiar to us, it is singular in several respects, the most significant being that rabbinical arbitration is not a form of alternative dispute resolution. For members of a Jewish community, it is – or should be – the principal mode of dispute resolution since, in principle, recourse to secular courts is prohibited by Talmudic law. Our study will start with the very nature and scope of this prohibition. Certain aspects of procedure before rabbinical tribunals also merit close examination. After having explored arbitration from an "internal" perspective, i.e. from Talmudic sources, we will examine this from an "external" viewpoint, i.e. from that of the law of nations, in other words the national legal system into which it must be inserted. Such insertion is not straighforward, since even though Talmudic law and the law of nations diverge in many respects by reason of their radically different nature (one is revealed, the other is contingent), in other respects they appear to be on a head-on collision course (witness evidence from women, inheritance rights in particular). This therefore raises questions as to the recognition and enforcement of rabbinical arbitral awards, and on the role of public policy in this respect.

The article was just published in (2013) Revue de l'arbitrage57.

The following articles on SSRN might be of interest:

Lisa R Pruitt, ‘The rural lawscape: space tames law tames space’ (forthcoming in I Braverman, N Blomley, D Delaney & A Kedar (eds), The expanding spaces of law: a timely legal geography (Stanford University Press, 2013)):
A fundamental tenet of legal geographies scholarship is that the legal and the spatial are mutually constituting. This chapter investigates that dynamic in contemporary rural contexts in the United States. In particular, I posit that law and rural spatiality are at odds with one another because the presence of law as an ordering, governing, regulating force of state is in tension with the socio-spatial character of rurality. Law seeks to tame or control rural spatiality, but the material (low population density, dominance of nature over the built environment) and associated social characteristics of rural and remote places effectively resist those efforts. Rural spatiality’s features tend to impede the efforts of law’s agents and processes, making for a thinner, less robust legal presence.
Critical and legal geographers, like legal scholars generally, have largely ignored the rural end of the rural-urban continuum, reflecting a rarely acknowledged urban-normativity (not to mention urban hubris). This chapter begins the work of recovering the rural, bringing it into scholarly view in order to broaden our understanding of the diffuse and localized operation of law in rural places. The chapter is thus a step toward theorizing the significance and force of rural spatiality in relation to law and legal processes. But the investigation into the rural lawscape reveals something not only about rural difference, but also about the otherwise obscure nature of law as variegated and variable. Further, looking to the rural margins reveals something about the center because the process by which law differentiates the rural also depicts, at least implicitly, the default urban norm.
Mark D Rosen ‘Religious institutions, liberal states, and the political architecture of overlapping spheres’ (forthcoming, University of Illinois Law Review)
Alongside the contemporary consensus favoring strong protections for individual religious liberty, controversial new claims on behalf of religiously affiliated institutions have been asserted with increasing frequency. They raise difficult questions. For example, are churches entitled to a “ministerial exception” exempting them from federal anti-discrimination laws when hiring and firing ministers? Must Catholic hospitals be exempted from the Affordable Care Act’s “contraception mandate,” which requires that employers provide their employees health insurance that includes contraceptive devices, because use of contraceptives is contrary to Catholic tenets?

To date, scholars have staked out two diametrically opposed approaches. One group argues that churches have inherent autonomy, and a corresponding jurisdictional independence of the state, vis-à-vis matters within the church’s domain. A second argues that churches are voluntary associations that accordingly enjoy no protections beyond their members’ constitutional and statutory rights. The first group favors the ministerial exception and exemptions from the contraception mandate, whereas the second group opposes them.
This Article critiques both approaches, and provides an alternative framework derived from John Rawls’s monumental works on political theory. What this Article calls the “Religious Institution Principle” provides a basis for determining what qualifies as a religious institution, as it explains why religious institutions are not reducible to their members, and why they are meaningfully different from most, possibly all, other associations. But religious institutions do not have any inherent autonomy. Not all religions are entitled to the Religious Institution Principle’s protections, and the principle does not provide anything approaching full immunity from state regulation for the religions falling within its coverage.
In essence, whereas the first scholarly approach treats state and church as separate juridical spheres, and the second approach eliminates the distinct sphere of religion by folding churches into their individual members, this Article conceptualizes government and religious institutions as overlapping spheres.
The Religious Institution Principle’s derivation reveals why it is fair, and why it plausibly can be thought to be acceptable to both religious and non-religious citizens. The principle generates a robust normative framework for evaluating religious institutions’ claims, which the Article applies to a wide array of difficult questions, including the polygamy decision in Reynolds v. United States, sexual abuse lawsuits against clergy, the ministerial exception, the contraception mandate, and the church autonomy cases.

(2012) 3:4 Transnational Legal Theory is now published. It includes:

Articles
Lex Mercatoria, International Arbitration and Independent Guarantees: Transnational Law and How Nation States Lost the Monopoly of Legitimate Enforcement
Cristián Gimenez Corte

Accidental Cosmopolitanism
Alexander Somek

National Sovereignty and the Constitution of Transnational Law: A Sociological Approach to a Classical Antinomy
Chris Thornhill

Review

Cosmopolitan Pluralism as an Approach to Law and Globalisation: A review of Paul Schiff Berman, Global Legal Pluralism: A Jurisprudence of Law Beyond Borders by Lars Viellechner

Members might be interested in the excellent Pluri-Legal, an e-mail discussion group on JISC mail.

The group 'is devoted to issues regarding the legal accommodation of cultural, ethnic and religions minorities in Europe.'

It's often the site of informed and invigorating exchanges.

You can join by going to: www.jiscmail.ac.uk/PLURI-LEGAL

I've recently become aware of a seminar delivered by Prakash Shah (Queen Mary) at the University of Wisconsin, Madison (US).

The seminar was 'The Dysfunctional Legal Effects of Secularization: South Asians and Muslim Law in England'. It was jointly hosted by the Global Legal Studies Center and Center for South Asia at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, on 4 April 2013. The audio, and much more, can be found here.

 

We are pleased to announce that the call for applications has been launched for the Law Summer School (LSS) Bangalore 2013.

The LSS Bangalore, which is scheduled from August 25 to September 19, 2013, is an intensive course in international law, organized by the Faculty of Law at the University of Zurich in cooperation with the National Law School of India University (NLSIU) in Bangalore. Admission to the LSS Bangalore is open to 18 to 35 students who have a Bachelor’s or an equivalent degree in law.
The LSS Bangalore offers students an opportunity to intensify their legal knowledge in selected areas of specialization and, simultaneously, to acquire a reflective understanding of the Indian legal system within an intensive intellectual and cultural experience.
The following modules will be taught:
- Religion, Family, Gender and the Law
- European Economic Law
- Climate Change
- Comparative Constitutional Law

Participants may, in principle, enrol for two modules and will be required to take an exam or write a paper for each module. Following successful completion, graduates will be awarded six ECTS credit points per module. In addition, they will receive a Certificate of Attendance. The LSS Bangalore courses are fully recognized by the University of Zurich.

The application deadline is 15 May 2013. For further information and details regarding admission requirements, tuition fees, etc., please visit http://www.rwi.uzh.ch/lehreforschung/alphabetisch/buechler/lss. Yours sincerely,
Andrea Büchler, On-site Director LSS Bangalore, and Amira Latif, Coordinator

--
MSc BLaw Amira Latif
Program Office Law Summer School Bangalore
University of Zurich, Institute of Law
c/o Chair of Prof. Dr. iur. Andrea Büchler
Rämistrasse 74/6
CH-8001 Zurich
http://www.rwi.uzh.ch/lehreforschung/alphabetisch/buechler/lss.html

(Holy Roman Emperor Emperor Charles VI by Auerbach, Wikimedia Commons)   In 2012, Anja Amend-Traut, Anette Baumann, Stephan Wendehorst and Steffen Wunderlich edited a collective work (in German) on the Reichshofrat (Imperial Aulic Council) and Reichskammergericht (Imperial Aulic Chamber), the two most important tribunals in the Holy Roman Empire, representing the Emperor as a feudal lord, on one hand, and the members of the Empire, on the other. A lot has been written on these institutions and their considerable archives. Yet, this volume offers a different perspective, looking at the courts and the early-modern juridification of Habsburg rule through the prism of communication and symbolic representation.
An extensive review in French by Claude Michaud (Orléans) is available on recensio.net, in the digital edition of Francia:Recensio (the book review section of the German Historical Institute in Paris' journal Francia).

 
The final programme of the 19th European Forum of Young Legal Historians ("(Wo)men and the law", Ghent/Lille, 15-18 May 2013) is now online on the AYLH's website.

BIROCCHI ITALO-CORTESE ENNIO-MATTONE ANTONELLO-MILETTI MARCO N. (cur.), Dizionario Biografico dei Giuristi Italiani (XII-XX secolo), 2 tt., Bologna, Il Mulino, 2013, pp. 2400 [ISBN 9788815241245]
This huge dictionary is the result of the collaboration of some of the most important Italian legal historians who worked together to achieve an ambitious goal: to tell the story of 9 centuries of Italian legal culture through the lives of law professors, judges, notaries and intellectuals involved in the legal world. 

What: Il codice-testo. Questioni di storia della codificazione: a lecture by Carlos Petit
Where: University of Macerata, Piaggia dell'Università 2, Aula Magna
When, 29 April 2013, 5:00 pm

Marco Fioravanti, Il pregiudizio del colore. Diritto e giustizia nelle Antille francesi durante la Restaurazione, Carocci 2012

What: Presentation of the book Il pregiudizio del colore
Where: Napoli, Cappella Pappacoda, Largo S. Giovanni Maggiore
When: 29 April 2013, 3:30 pm

The book will be presentated by the author, together with Ann Thomson, Luigi Nuzzo and Miguel Mellino. Introduction by Girolamo Imbruglia.