Comparative Law News

What: Presentation of "L'histoire à parts égales" by Romain Bertrand,  with Stefania Gialdroni (Università Roma Tre) and Arthur Weststeijn (Koninklijk Nederlands Instituut Rome), coordinated by Guillaume Calafat (École française de Rome) and François Dumasy (École française de Rome)
Where: École française de Rome, Piazza Navona 62, Rome 
When: March 8 2013, 5:30 pm 

The presentation will take place in English 

I received word earlier today that Professor Vernon Palmer, President of the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists and a member of our star-studded Advisory Board is to receive an honorary doctorate in Paris:
Professor Vernon Valentine Palmer of the Tulane Law School will be awarded an honorary doctorate by the President of the Université Paris-Dauphine on March 27th in Paris.
The title Doctor Honoris Causa is one of the most prestigious distinctions conferred by French universities upon foreign scholars with the approval of the French Foreign Affairs Ministry.
Professor Palmer will receive the doctorate “in consideration of his very important contribution to Comparative Law and for a better understanding between common law and civil law, not only in Louisiana and the USA, but also beyond the borders, in Asia and Europe.”
We add our sincere congratulations for a well-deserved honor.

The following are a few of the new titles recently published by Hart:

• Managing Family Justice in Diverse Societies - Edited by Mavis Maclean and John Eekelaar
• Comparative Company Law: A Case-Based Approach - Edited by Mathias Siems and David Cabrelli
• Organised Crime and the Law: A Comparative Analysis - Liz Campbell
• European Competition Law Annual 2010: Merger Control in European and Global Perspective - Edited by Philip Lowe and Mel Marquis

See below for additional information.

Managing Family Justice in DiverseSocieties - Edited by Mavis Maclean and John Eekelaar
The aim of this book is to explore what response the law has or should have to different family practices arising from cultural and religious beliefs. The issue has become increasingly debated as western countries have become more culturally diverse. Although discussion has frequently focused on the role Islamic family law should have in these countries, this book seeks to set that discussion within a wider context that includes consideration both of theoretical issues and also of empirical data about the interaction between specific family practices and state law in a variety of jurisdictions ranging from England and Wales to Bangladesh, Botswana, Spain, Poland, France, Israel, Iran and South Africa. The contributors to the 17 chapters approach the subject matter from a variety of perspectives, illustrating its complex and often sensitive nature. The book does not set out to propose any single definitive strategy that should be adopted, but provides material on which researchers, advocates and policy makers can draw in furthering their understanding of and seeking solutions to the problems raised by this significant social development.
Comparative Company Law: A Case-Based Approach - Edited by Mathias Siems and David Cabrelli
As attention moves rapidly towards comparative approaches, the research and teaching of company law has somehow lagged behind. The overall purpose of this book is therefore to fill a gap in the literature by identifying whether conceptual differences between countries exist. Rather than concentrate on whether the institutional structure of the corporation varies across jurisdictions, the objective of this book will be pursued by focusing on specific cases and how different countries might treat each of these cases. The book also has a public policy dimension, because the existence or absence of differences may lead to the question of whether formal harmonisation of company law is necessary.
The book covers 10 legal systems. With respect to countries of the European Union, it focuses on the most populous countries (Germany, France, the UK, Spain, Italy and Poland) as well as two smaller Member States (Finland and Latvia). In addition, the laws of two of the world's largest economies (the US and Japan) are included for the purposes of wider comparison. All of these jurisdictions are subjected to scrutiny by deploying a comparative case-based study. On the basis of these case solutions, various conclusions are reached, some of which challenge established orthodoxies in the field of comparative company law.
Organised Crime and the Law: A Comparative Analysis - Liz Campbell
Organised Crime and the Law presents an overview of the laws and policies adopted to address the phenomenon of organised crime in the United Kingdom and Ireland, assessing the changes to these justice systems, in terms of the prevention, investigation, prosecution and punishment of such criminality. While the notion of organised crime is a contested one, States’ legal responses treat it and its constituent offences as unproblematic in a definitional sense. This book advances a systematic doctrinal critique of these domestic criminal laws,laws of evidence and civil processes. Organised Crime and the Law focuses on the tension between due process and crime control, the demands of public protection and risk aversion, and other adaptations. In particular, it identifies parallels and points of divergence between the different jurisdictions in the UK and Ireland, bearing in mind the shared history of subversive threats and counter-terrorism policies. It also examines the extent to which policy transfer is evident in the UK and Ireland in terms of emulating the United States in reacting to organised crime.
European Competition Law Annual 2010: Merger Control in European and Global Perspective - Edited by Philip Lowe and Mel Marquis
Every year, top-level market regulators, academics and legal and economic practitioners contribute to the Annual Competition Workshop organised at the European University Institute in Florence. The Co-Directors of the Workshop are Philip Lowe, Mel Marquis and Giorgio Monti.
Workshop participants address and critically analyse a particular set of topical issues in the field of competition law and policy. The proceedings are published in Hart's European Competition Law Annual series.
This is the fifteenth in the ECLA series. It encompasses numerous chapters that examine the field of merger control from a variety of perspectives. In these chapters the contributors discuss legal and economic issues of substantive analysis, procedure, comity and best practices, as well as matters relating to the litigation of merger cases, particularly before the European Courts. The discussion also benefits from the perspectives of policy makers and experts from Canada, China, Japan, Korea, the United States and other jurisdictions and regions.
Contributors to the book include; John Boyce, Rachel Brandenburger, Jochen Burrichter, Maher Dabbah, Thomas Deisenhofer, Götz Drauz, Kirsten Edwards, Adam Fanaki, Calvin Goldman, Klaus Gugler, Barry Hawk, Scott Hemphill, Seonghoon Jeon, William Kovacic, Mel Marquis, Abel Mateus, Andreas Mundt, Lars-Hendrik Röller, Tadashi Shiraishi, Irwin Stelzer, James Venit, Sven Völcker, Vanessa Yanhua Zhang, Xinzhu Zhang

The latest Transnational Legal Theory (Hart Publishing) has been published.
It includes:
Constitutional Adjudication and the ‘Dimensions’ of Judicial Activism: Comparative Legal and Institutional Heuristics - Leonardo Pierdominici
The Emergence of Global Administrative Law and Transnational Regulation - Karl-Heinz Ladeur
Theorising Global Governance Inside Out: A Response to Professor Ladeur - Sujith Xavie

Ian Ramsay's 'SSRN and Law Journals - Rivals or Allies?' is now available:

The author identifies and evaluates the respective merits of publication in law journals and publication on the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) – the largest open access repository for legal scholarship. This evaluation leads to the conclusion that at this stage of the evolution of law journals and SSRN, there are advantages in authors publishing both in journals and on SSRN. However, publication on SSRN can have particular advantages for authors in smaller countries.

The article is, of course, accessible on SSRN here and will be published in the (2012) 40: 1 International Journal of Legal Information 134.

What: Conference "Regimi giuridici delle transizioni" Where: Università degli Studi di Catania, Dipartimento Seminario Giuridico, Villa Cerami, Aula Magna When: 11 March 2013, 9:00 am
SPEAKERS: 
Jacopo Torrisi (Univ. Catania)  Il Tribunale Speciale per la Difesa dello Stato
Camilla Poesio (Univ. Ca' Foscari Venezia) Misura di prevenzione? Misura di sicurezza? Misura alternativa all’azione giudiziaria? Il confino fascista e la questione della pericolosità
Lutz Klinkhammer (Deutsches Historisches Institut in Rom - Istituto Storico Germanico di Roma) I tribunali speciali nella Germania nazista
Jörg Luther (Univ. Piemonte Orientale “A. Avogadro”) Le piccole costituzioni italiane tra il 1943 e il 1948
Alessia Di Stefano (Univ. Catania) Gli esiti dei provvedimenti della Repubblica Sociale Italiana nella nuova Repubblica Italiana
Cecilia Nubola (Istituto Storico Italo Germanico, Trento) Giustizia di transizione: il caso dei provvedimenti di grazia nei confronti dei “collaborazionisti” (1945-1955)
Michela Ponzani (Univ. Firenze) Giustizia di transizione e processi di ricostruzione identitaria nazionale, nel passaggio dalla Monarchia alla Repubblica
Roundtable with:  Paolo Cappellini (Univ. Firenze) and Giuseppe Speciale (Univ. Catania)

The new issue of the Journal of Constitutional History (Giornale di Storia Costituzionale), 24.2 (2012) is now available. This issue is devoted to: "The Commonwealth of Australia: Themes and Traditions in Australian Constitutional Law and History".  
CONTENTS: Introduction: The Commonwealth of Australia / Introduzione. Il Commonwealth australiano, 5 Augusto Zimmermann
Foundations ‘Una società di società’: Why Australia is a Federation / ‘Una società di società’: perché l’Australia è una federazione, 23 Nicholas Aroney
Why Australia Does Not Have, and Does Not Need, a National Bill of Rights / Perché l’Australia non ha, e non ha bisogno di avere, un Bill of Rights nazionale, 35 James Allan
Directions The External Affairs Power in Australia and in Germany: Different Solutions, Similar Outcome? / Il potere degli Affari esteri in Australia e in Germania: diverse soluzioni, analogo risultato?, 49 Jürgen Bröhmer
Engineers: The Case that Changed Australian Constitutional History / Engineers: il caso che cambiò la storia costituzionale australiana, 65 Michelle Evans
The Power of the Purse: An Examination of Fiscal Federalism in Australia / Il potere della borsa: un esame del federalismo fiscale in Australia, 81 Lorraine Finlay
The Australian Constitution and Expressive Reform / La Costituzione Australiana e la qualità espressiva della riforma, 95 Eric Ghosh
Interpreting the Australian Constitution: Express Provisions and Unexpressed General Principles / Interpretare la Costituzione Australiana: provvedimenti espressi e principi generali inespressi, 117 Jeffrey Goldsworthy
The Validity of Henry VIII Clauses in Australian Federal Legislation / La validità delle Clausole di Enrico VIII nella legislazione federale australiana, 133 Gabriël A. Moens, John Trone
Australian State Courts and Chapter III of the Commonwealth Constitution – Interpretation and Re-Interpretation and the Creation of Australian Constitutional “Orthodoxy” / I Tribunali di Stato australiani e il Capitolo III della Costituzione del Commonwealth – Interpretazione e re-interpretazione e la creazione della “Ortodossia” costituzionale australiana, 145 Sarah Murray
Authors / Autori, 159
Abstracts, 161

At the occasion of the International Francqui Chair held by Prof. H. Pihlajamäki (Helsinki), Ghent University organizes an international colloquium on the theme "Laymen as Judges in European Courts".

Prof. dr. Paul Van Cauwenberghe (rector, Ghent University) will hand over the University's medal on the first day of the event.

A complete list of speakers, as well as the time schedule, is available on the Ghent Legal History Institute's website. Prior registration with Mrs. Karin Pensaert is compulsory (Karin.Pensaert@UGent.be)

The Fondation Maison des Sciences de l’Homme offers postdoctoral fellowships to researchers in the social and human sciences for periods of nine months as part of its “Fernand Braudel-IFER” (International Fellowships for Experienced Researchers) programme. This programme is supported by the European Union (Action Marie Curie – COFUND – 7th PCRD). 

This programme is also supported by the FMSH, the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (Direction des relations européennes et internationales et de la coopération), the Fritz Thyssen Foundation (Köln, Germany), Princeton University (USA), The Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS), the Ecole Centrale Paris, the Institut de recherche stratégique de l’Ecole militaire - ministère de la Défense (IRSEM), the Bruno Kessler foundation (Trento, Italy), the Labex Dynamite, Hastec, IEC, IPOPS, Med, OBVIL, OT-med, Resmed, Tepsis and TransferS. The programme is also carried out in collaboration with the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD). 
 
The Fernand Braudel-IFER programme breaks down into two sections 1.  The Fernand Braudel-IFER incoming programme is designed for residencies in France (for researchers who belong to a foreign research centre). This programme targets applicants from all countries. From March 2013 onwards, candidates must apply to specific fellowships, offered by several Research institutions and “Laboratories of excellence” (Labex), partners of the programme. For details on these institutions and the fellowships offered, see Call March 2013 and Short presentation of the partners. 
2.  The Fernand Braudel-IFER outgoing programme is designed for research stays in another European country (for researchers who belong to a French research centre). This programme targets researchers residing in France who would like to benefit from a research stay in another European country (EU Member State or associate). Since 2010, the Clemens Heller fellowships (Outgoing to Germany) have been integrated, while keeping their own identity, in the new programme “Fernand Braudel-IFER”. The Clemens Heller fellowships are not designed to fit in a specific research frame. Applicants design their own research project and choose themselves their host laboratory in Germany. From March 2013 onwards, applicants willing to go to another European country (besides Germany) apply only to targeted fellowships offered by institutions and research centers combinations (Labex).
For details on the institutions and fellowships offered, see Call March 2013.   Call for applications :   The Fernand Braudel-IFER programme offers postdoctoral fellowships to researchers in the social and human sciences (SHS) who wish to have an international research experience.

• The Fernand Braudel-IFER incoming programme is intended for foreign researchers who wish to benefit from a research stay in France.
• The Fernand Braudel-IFER outgoing programme is intended for researchers residing in France, whoo whish to benefit from a research stay in another European country (EU member states or affiliates). Candidates who wish to make a research stay in Germany should apply to the Fernand Braudel-IFER outgoing/Clemens Heller subprogramme.

These research stays are designed to enable researchers to:

• Carry out a research project in a host laboratory
• Integrate scientific networks in France and other European countries
• Build lasting partnerships between their home institution and the host institution

Applicable scientific disciplines
All social and human sciences are eligible. An interdisciplinary approach to research topics is encouraged. 
Duration of the fellowship
9 months. Fellowship holders must start their research stay maximum 6 months after the obtention of the grant.
Amount of the fellowship
The amount of the monthly stipend for room & board and living expenses is €2,000 (euros).
The cost of medical insurance is covered for the researchers hosted in France.
Travel expenses (return travel fare) between the researcher’s country of residence and France or between France and the host country will be covered, subject to prior approval.
Calendar:
Two calls for applications per year (deadlines for applications are 31 March and 30 September). Applications  should be submitted exclusively online, through the online application form available on top of this page.

Copernicus Center Press has published Jerzy Stelmach, Bartosz Brożek, Mateusz Hohol (eds), The many faces of normativity (2012). It is:

A collection of essays dealing with the issue of normativity from various academic and scientific perspectives. The Reader will learn how phenomena such as norms, morality and rule-following are described and explained in philosophy, biology, psychology, linguistics and neuroscience. In addition, a discussion of the naturalistic fallacy from the philosophical and ethical perspectives will be included.
The Table of Contents includes:

 Part One: Foundations of Normativity

Robert Audi
The Nature of Normativity and the Project of Naturalizing the Normative

Jan Woleński
Some Analogies Between Normative and Epistemic Discourse

Jaap Hage
The Deontic Furniture of the World. An Analysis of the Basic Concepts that Embody Normativity

Anna Brożek
The Naturalistic Fallacy From the Methodological Point of View

Jerzy Stelmach
The Naturalistic and Antinaturalistic Fallacies in Normative Discourse

Part Two: Key Debates

Bartosz Brożek
The Normativity of Meaning

Aeddan Shaw
The Perspectivist Account of the Normativity of Meaning Debate
Mateusz Hohol
The Normativity of Mathematics. A Neurocognitive Approach
  Marcin Gorazda
Normativity According to Hayek

Marta Soniewicka
A Command Without a Commander – From the Paradigm of Normativity to the Paradigm of Responsibility

Part Three: Normativity and Natural Sciences

Edward Nęcka
Normativity: A Psychological Perspective

Marcin Siwek, Rafał Jaeschke, Dominika Dudek, Natalia Czyżowska
Moral Development, Normativity and Mental Disorders

Bartłomiej Kucharzyk
Is There a Normative Module? Some Remarks on the Wason Selection Task Experiments in the Field of Normative Reasoning

Wojciech Załuski
From Tit for Tat and Tribalism to the Golden Rule. Remarks on the Development of Moral Ideas

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The London School of Economics and Political Science offers Postdoctoral Fellows (up to five positions) on a Programme of Research on Inequality and Poverty in India. 
Fixed term for up to three years and to ideally commence in October 2013. 
Salary is not less than £32,469 pa inclusive (pro rata if part time)


The LSE Anthropology Department is pleased to invite applications to the above posts to be funded by the ESRC and the EU ERC. The positions offer an exciting opportunity to join an international research team working on inequality and poverty led by Dr Alpa Shah in collaboration with Dr Jens Lerche (SOAS), Dr Clarinda Still (Oxford), Professor Jonathan Parry (LSE) and Professor Barbara Harriss-White (Oxford). Successful candidates will benefit from engagement with a number of international experts as well as a number of in-house experts such as Mukulika Banerjee, Laura Bear, Stuart Corbridge and Deborah James. The aim is to develop perspectives of political economy within the discipline of anthropology by ethnographically investigating the persistence of poverty amongst adivasis and dalits in the belly of the Indian economic boom.



Background


Too often the way in which we theorise rural social transformation draws disproportionately on the agrarian transition as experienced in Western Europe. By focusing on the case of the poorest sections of society in contemporary India (eg adivasis and dalits), we seek to develop a comparative framework for the study of poverty that focuses on the interrelationship between economic and other aspects of the production of inequality (such as caste, ethnicity and religion). We will explain the processes through which poverty and processes of socio-economic marginalisation persist in India, and why and how they affect some groups more than others. Within the discipline of anthropology we seek to reinvigorate the significance of understanding the transformation in social relations and interactions between people which affect the ways in which they reproduce themselves, exploit and use each other; these are processes which create both poverty and welfare. The overall aim is for our ethnographically informed studies to contribute to a comparative project exploring changing patterns of inequality and poverty.


Details


Fellows will join a collaborative research training and writing programme with international expert advisors including Professor Jan Breman, Professor Ravi Srivastava, Professor K P Kannan, Professor Patricia Jeffery, Dr Isabelle Guérin, Dr Matthew McCartney and Dr Bengt Karlsson. They will join one of the leading Departments of Anthropology in the world, contribute to its distinguished and cutting-edge Friday morning weekly Research Seminar. In the first phase of the Fellowship, Fellows will actively participate in and contribute to a weekly research training programme based at the LSE. In the second phase of the Fellowship, they will spend at least 12 months undertaking a substantive piece of new field-research. In the final phase of the Fellowship, Fellows will participate in a weekly writing programme based at the LSE. Some aspects of the research will be developed collaboratively and conducted across the field sites of each Fellow for the programme to be comparative as a whole. However, it is fully expected that Fellows will develop their own independent research trajectories over the course of the Fellowship within the frame of the overall research programme. Candidates should ideally seek to work in rural central and eastern India (including Bihar, Eastern UP, West Bengal, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, and northern Andhra Pradesh) but applications for all parts of the country will be considered. In exceptional circumstances, candidates seeking to work reduced hours will be considered. Over the course of the Fellowship, successful candidates are expected to finalise their prior work for publication, begin to develop the new research undertaken into a monograph and single authored articles, as well as work on a series of collaborative articles with members of the team, and contribute to an impact plan.


Requirements


Before commencing post, Fellows must have submitted a PhD. The PhD should be in Social
Anthropology or in a related discipline which has required them to undertake extensive long-term ethnographic field research in India. They should be able to work well in a team.


Applications Procedure


To apply for this post please go to www.lse.ac.uk/JobsatLSE and click on ‘Vacancies’ .


Candidates will be asked to submit the following:


1) A Covering letter
2) A CV
3) Two supporting documents:


· A sample of written work of chapter or article length
· A research statement of no more than four pages. This should include:
o 1-2 page summary of PhD thesis
o A short summary of 2 pages on how they might contribute to the overall comparative Programme. More than one possible direction may be proposed, at the discretion of the candidate. This document will form a basis for discussion if the applicant is shortlisted. It is anticipated that each individual study will to some extent be modified to optimize the coherence of the project as a whole.


4) Names of three academic references


Informal enquiries may be made to Dr Alpa Shah: a.m.shah@lse.ac.uk


Applications should be received by 4 April 2013.

Filling the Gaps: The Study of Judicial Creativity and Equity in Mixed Jurisdictions and Beyond
Catania, Italy - May 27-28, 2013

NOTE THAT THE CALL FOR ABSTRACTS HAS BEEN EXTENDED TO MARCH 8, 2013 (SEE BELOW)


The Protection Project at the John Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), in cooperation with the World Society of Mixed Jurisdiction Jurists (WSMJJ), and the Tulane University Law School Eason Weinmann Center for Comparative Law, invite the submission of papers for an international conference on "Filling the Gaps: The Study of Judicial Creativity and Equity in Mixed Jurisdictions and Beyond" scheduled take place in Catania, Italy on May 27-28, 2013: Our host for this conference is the Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche e sociali of the University of Catania.
The conference explores the sources, methods and approaches used by the courts in mixed jurisdictions when they face a lacuna in the law, ie when they arrive at a case of first impression without a legal rule.
The following questions are meant to be suggestive, not exhaustive.

• What differences exist in the approaches to gap-filling in mixed, civilian and common law systems?
• What differences in technique exist within the mixed jurisdictions themselves, eg between codified systems and uncodified systems?
• To what extent is the borrowing of common law solutions taken to be "equity" or gap-filling? Is this considered a legitimate form of equity?
• To what extent is "equity" understood as a civilian concept? Is it fully divorced from the "Equity" of the common law?
• How are gaps defined, revealed or recognized? Is their existence a precondition of equitable activity? Is there a taxonomy of gaps?
• Is there an established procedure, a Directory Provision, a hierarchy of sources to be consulted, or is the process of gap-filling left entirely to the discretion of the judge?
• To what extent is this form of judicial activity synonymous with the production of seminal and leading cases?
• Which substantive fields of the law are particularly fertile for gap-filling?

Papers that explore gap-filling in either single or multiple fields of private or public law are welcome.


We invite you to submit a 1-2 page abstract of your paper by email to the selection committee c/o Ms. Anna Koppel, Director of Research and Development, The Protection Project (akoppel1@jhu.edu) no later than March 8, 2013.


Authors of accepted abstracts will be notified by March 15, 2015, and invited to present their papers at the conference. The expenses of conference speakers will be covered by the organizers.


Conference proceedings will be jointly published by The Protection Project, the World Society of Mixed Jurisdictions Jurists, and the Eason Weinmann Center for Comparative Law.