Comparative Law News

(image source: THE)The University of Helsinki – among the best in the worldFounded in 1640, the University of Helsinki is one of the best multidisciplinary research universities in the world. The University of Helsinki is an international academic community of 40,000 students and staff members. It operates on four campuses in Helsinki and at 15 other locations. The high-quality research carried out by the university creates new knowledge for educating diverse specialists in various fields, and for utilisation in social decision-making and the business sector.The Faculty of Social Sciences is Finland’s leading research and education institution in the social sciences and also the most diverse in terms of its disciplines. In several research fields the Faculty belongs to the top 50 in the international rankings. The Faculty has a strong international profile both in research and teaching programmes. The number of academic staff stands at 350. Each year the faculty awards some 350 Bachelor’s degrees, 400 Master’s degrees, and more than 40 doctoral degrees. For more information on the Faculty of Social Sciences, please visit www.helsinki.fi/en/faculty-of-social-sciences.The Faculty of Social Sciences invites applications for the position ofTWO (2) POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCHERS, SPACES OF ROMAN REPUBLICANISMfor a three-year fixed term period from 1 June 2018 onwards (or as agreed) to contribute to the research project Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition (SpaceLaw, www.helsinki.fi/en/law-governance-and-space).The SpaceLaw research project is located at the Centre of European Studies of the University of Helsinki. It is funded by an ERC Consolidator Grant and led by Kaius Tuori.The project has two main research questions that explore the theme by the confrontation of ideas and their contexts in both the ancient Roman Republican tradition and its afterlife in the European tradition:
1) What is the relationship between the Republican ideals and administrative practices and how is their change visible in the spaces of administration from the Roman Republic to modern Republicanism?
2) How the changes in the context and space of administration reflect in the social topography, the public and private spheres of governance?
Administrative professionalization has conventionally been the hallmark of a modern state. Ever since Weber, the conceptual separation of the office and its holder has defined the European way of governance. This separation equally defined it from both its feudalistic predecessors and failed states prone to corruption and nepotism. The origin of this European tradition of the separation of public and private has been seen in the Roman Republican state with its strict responsibilities, term limits and defined powers of its magistracies. This separation was made concrete in the building of public spaces for political and administrative purposes, in settings whose magnificence and grandeur reflected the value that the society held them. In the European tradition, public spaces were a demonstration of public power. While the spatial settings as have been studied in relation to monarchical settings like courts, Republican administration has been neglected. The problem is that much of what is known about the Roman Republican administrative practice fits this image badly. For example, how is it possible to have professional administration if the magistrates are not paid and have no offices to work? The purpose of this project is to challenge that assumption and to propose a new model of the Roman governance through a novel re-evaluation of the ancient Roman administrative tradition and its links with the European heritage through the issue of administrative space. Spatial analysis allows the observer to break beyond the limits of the self-understanding of the sources and to approach fundamental connections between questions of power, law and governance.The project is divided into four subprojects (A-D) that examine the different facets of the research questions. These subprojects will serve as a primary individual project for one team member.Subproject A: The Emergence of the Republican Tradition explores how the Republican tradition of administration was shaped by its historic, spatial, economic, social and philosophical contexts by examining four case studies. How does the change in the interpretations of the tradition correspond with the changes in its spatial and immaterial context? The results of a survey of the corpus of the Roman Republican texts on the theory and practice of administration and administrative space will be compared with the other case studies of the Republicanist tradition.Subproject B: The Transformation of Administrative Space between Public and Private will produce a new inquiry into the administrative space in the city of Rome and compare it with examples from both classical world and the later historical tradition. The aim is to combine archaeological and historical data to trace the work of administrative magistracies and their contexts.Subproject C: The Legal Framework and the Administrative Process analyses how Roman jurists and other elite authors conceptualized the legal framework of the administrative state and the process of administration. How jurisprudence and legal practice conceptualized space in administration? What were the needs and requirements of space for legal administration and how do legal texts reflect space? The result will be an unorthodox interpretation of how the law created space and was created in spaces such as the Forum.Subproject D: The Social Topography of the Administrative Space. Drawing from the political and social history of the domestic and public spheres, the subproject will investigate administrative space as a space in between the political and the private domains and how their boundaries were demarcated? It will equally look at how people from different backgrounds and tasks operated in these spaces. Using tools of social topography, historical geography and prosopography, the subproject will produce a new theory of the overlapping areas of privacy, intimacy and sociability in relation to the “public” areas of politics, military or religious activities as well as the spatial dimension of administration intermingling with them all.The postdoctoral researchers may apply for all four subprojects. The applicant must indicate clearly in her or his application, to which subproject she/he is applying to. Multidisciplinary backgrounds in law, humanities and/or social sciences are expected of the team members. In subproject A, the focus would be in the intellectual history of Republicanism, while in B a specialization in archaeology, ancient history or art history would be needed. In subproject C, the task at hand would require a specialization in areas such as legal history or Roman law, but in D the possibilities are much wider in terms of a suitable background, including anthropologists and other social scientists.An appointee to the position must hold a doctoral degree in a relevant field of Ancient history, general history, archaeology, Roman law, or equivalent. Moreover, she or he is expected to have the ability to conduct independent scientific research and possess the teaching skills required for the position. The period following the completion of doctoral degree must not exceed five years, excluding family leave and equivalent periods of absence. An appointee must be able to provide a clear contribution to the theme of the research project and to its general development, together with full-time researchers, postdocs, visiting faculty, Ph.D. students, and graduate students working as research assistants. To fulfil the research requirements of the position, the applicant chosen is expected to be physically present on a regular basis and actively participate in the research and teaching activities of the research project. An appointee is expected to contribute develop her/his own and our common research agenda, and contribute to collective academic tasks such as teaching, seminars and joint academic papers. Conventionally, the teaching load is 5%, corresponding roughly with a course of 20 hours contact teaching.The salary shall be based on level 5 of the job requirement scheme for teaching and research staff in the salary system of Finnish universities. In addition, a salary component based on personal performance will be paid. The annual gross salary range will be approx. 41,000–50,000 euros, depending on the appointee’s qualifications and experience. In addition, occupational healthcare will be provided. The employment contract will include a probationary period of four months.Applicants are requested to enclose with their applications the following documents in English as a single pdf file:
1) A curriculum vitae (max 4 pages).
2) A numbered list of publications on which the applicant has marked in bold her or his five key publications to be considered during the review.
3) A research plan (max 4 pages) outlining how the applicant’s expertise could contribute to the research project.
4) A summary (max 2 pages) on the applicant’s scholarly activities including original research at an international level, international academic networks, local co-operation, success in obtaining research funding, experience in research management.For instructions, please see https://www.helsinki.fi/en/faculty-of-social-sciences/faculty/applying-f....Please submit your application through the University of Helsinki Recruitment System via the link Apply for job. Applicants who are employees of the University of Helsinki are requested to submit their application via the SAP HR portal, https://saphr.it.helsinki.fi/irj.Further information about the position and about the research project Law, Governance and Space: Questioning the Foundations of the Republican Tradition may be obtained (in Finnish and English) from Dr. Kaius Tuori (kaius.tuori@helsinki.fi). In case you need support with the recruitment system, please contact recruitment@helsinki.fi.(Source: Rechtshistorische Courant, UGent)More information here.

(image source: Famously Dead)
The Legal History Blog signalled two new papers by Daniel J. Hulsebosch (NYU School of Law):

From Imperial to International Law: Protecting Foreign Expectations in the Early United Statesand appears in UCLA Law Review Discourse 65 (2018): 4-18:
This Essay argues that several principles associated with modern international investment law and dispute resolution arose in the wake of the American Revolution, as the revolutionaries and Britons sought to restructure trade relations, previously regulated by imperial law, under new treaties and the law of nations. They negotiated such problems as the currency in which international debts would be paid; the ability of foreign creditors pursue domestic collection remedies; whether creditors had to exhaust those remedies before their nation could resort to international arbitration; and the form of state-state arbitration of private disputes. The specific setting of these negotiations — the aftermath of a colonial settler revolution — narrowed the compass of disagreement, compared to many later postcolonial negotiations. In addition, the negotiations assumed that the exhaustion of national remedies remained the standard method of resolving private debt disputes. Notwithstanding these important differences, the principles and institutions developed after an imperial civil war influenced the development of international investment law. The second is Being Seen Like a State: How Americans (and Britons) Built the Constitutional Infrastructure of a Developing Nation, which appears in the William & Mary Law Review 59 (2018): 1239-1319:
This Article develops the argument that the Federal Constitution of 1787 was conceptualized, drafted, and put into operation not only for American citizens but also for foreign audiences. In a world without supranational governing institutions, a constitution — at least, the Federal Constitution — might serve to promote peaceable international relations based on reciprocal trade and open credit. That at least was the Enlightenment-inflected hope. Did it work? If early Americans engaged in constitution-making in large part to demonstrate their capacity for self-government, self discipline, and commercial openness to foreign audiences, did anyone notice? Or was it all, regardless of diplomatic purposes and consistent with the conventional account of the American Founding, just an intramural affair? This Article argues that many foreigners did notice, not least because some of them had participated in the process of reform. Although no foreigners intervened directly in drafting or ratification, international demands, incentives, and reactions shaped the way that leading American Framers pursued constitution making. After a “foreign ratification debate” that stretched into the first years of the Washington Administration, Britain normalized diplomatic relations with the United States and substantial capital investment followed. In 1791, the British Board of Trade approvingly analyzed the Constitution in a report designed to guide the Privy Council as it drafted instructions for its first official envoy to the United States. Within fifteen years, Britons were the largest holders of foreign investment in the United States, including state and federal “domestic debt,” or the restructured wartime certificates and loans that had floated the Revolution. In sum, Britons ultimately financed much of the project of American independence, and contemporaries believed that these credit relations would reduce, without eliminating, the prospect of renewed war.

(image source: Stanford Law School)
Legal Histories of Policing and SurveillanceApril 20, 2018Sponsored by the Stanford Center for Law and History and Stanford Humanities CenterLocation: Stanford Humanities Center8:30 - 9 AM: BreakfastSurveillance Technologies and Legal Culture, 9 - 10:30 AM

• David Sklansky (Chair), Stanford Law School• Binyamin Blum, Hastings Law School• Lawrence Friedman, Stanford Law School• Mitra Sharafi, University of Wisconsin Law School

10:30 - 10:45 AM: Mid-morning breakPolicing Intimate and Family Life, 10:45 AM - 12:30 PM

• Estelle Freedman (Chair), Stanford History Department• Michael Grossberg, Indiana University History Department and Law School• Samuel Huneke, Stanford History Department• Elizabeth Katz, Stanford Law School• Naama Maor, University of Chicago History Department

12:30 - 1:30: LunchBroadening the State's Criminal Oversight Power, 1:30 - 3:15

• George Fisher (Chair), Stanford Law School• Malcolm Feeley, Berkeley Law School• Elizabeth Hinton, Harvard University History and African and African American Studies Departments• Jacqueline Ross, University of Illinois College of Law• Jonathan Simon, Berkeley Law School

3:15 - 4 PM: Afternoon coffee breakKeynote, 4 - 5 PMMichael Willrich, Brandeis University History Department"Writ of Hocus Pocus": Anarchists and the U.S. Surveillance StateNOTE: Registration is on a first come, first served basis and seating is limited. Registration is required. Register here.
(source: Legal History Blog)

(Source: Hart Publishing)
Later this month, Hart Publishing will publish a book containing many contributions on contemporary critics of William Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-1769). The book can be pre-ordered with the publisher.
ABOUT
William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England (1765-69) is perhaps the most elegant and influential legal text in the history of the common law. By one estimate, Blackstone has been cited well over 10,000 times in American judicial opinions alone. Prominent in recent reassessment of Blackstone and his works, Wilfrid Prest also convened the Adelaide symposia which have now generated two collections of essays: Blackstone and his Commentaries: Biography, Law, History (2009), and Re-Interpreting Blackstone's Commentaries: A Seminal Text in National and International Contexts(2014).

This third collection focuses on Blackstone's critics and detractors. Leading scholars examine the initial reception of the Commentaries in the context of debates over law, religion and politics in eighteenth-century Britain and Ireland. Having shown Blackstone's volumes to be a contested work of the Enlightenment, the remaining chapters assess critical responses to Blackstone on family law, the status of women and legal education in Britain and America. While Blackstone and his Commentaries have been widely lauded and memorialised in marble, this volume highlights the extent to which they have also attracted censure, controversy and disparagement.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Rationalising the Common Law: Blackstone and His Predecessors
Michael Lobban
2. The 'Least Repulsive' Work on a 'Repulsive Subject': Jeremy Bentham on William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England 
Philip Schofield
3. Blackstone, Expositor and Censor of Law Both Made and Found
Jessie Allen
4. William Blackstone, Edward Gibbon and Thomas Winchester: The Case for an Oxford Enlightenment
Ian Doolittle
5. Rational Dissent and Blackstone's Commentaries 
Anthony Page
6. Blackstone, Parliamentary Sovereignty and his Irish Critics
Ultán Gillen
7. Blackstone, Family Law and the Exclusion of the Half Blood in Inheritance
Tim Stretton
8. Blackstone and Women
Carolyn Steedman
9. Professing Law in the Shadow of the Commentaries 
David Lieberman
10. Hammond's Blackstone and the Historical School of American Jurisprudence
David M Rabban
11. 'A Very Narrowing Effect Upon Our Profession': A Progressive Jurist Confronts Blackstone
John V Orth
12. Blackstone's Posthumous Reputation
Wilfrid Prest
For more information, see the publisher’s website

(Source: Oxford University Press)
Oxford University Press has recently published a book on the early history of the Indian Supreme Court.
ABOUT
This work seeks to determine the roles played by the paramount judiciary in the Indian polity between 1937 and 1964. The discussion starts with an examination of the Federal Court, the establishment of which in 1937 brought into existence Indias first central judicial institution. After a consideration of events leading to the creation of the Federal Court, the nature of its jurisdiction and representative decisions are analysed. Other matters considered include the relationship of the Federal Court with the Privy Council, and the unsuccessful efforts made to empower the Federal Court with a jurisdiction to hear civil appeals. In addition, the major part of this work is devoted to the present Supreme Court of India, which replaced the Federal Court in 1950. After discussing the general features of the new judicial establishment, attention is focused upon the nature of its review powers and the manner in which the Court can exercise these powers. Against the background of debates in the Constituent Assembly that reflect the attitudes of the Constitution-makers towards judicial review, the important decisions which provoked clashes between the judges and politicians have been analysed.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PrefaceIntroduction by Vikram Raghavan and Vasujith RamChapter 1: Evolution of the Federal Court of IndiaChapter 2: The Federal Court of India: 19371950Chapter 3: The New Judicial EstablishmentChapter 4: Jurisdiction and Powers of the Supreme CourtChapter 5: The Supreme Court in the Indian System of GovernmentChapter 6: Judicial Review in a Modern Democratic Welfare StateChapter 7: Summary and ConclusionsSelect BibliographyIndexAbout the Author

For more information, see Oxford OUP’s website.