[Via H-Law, we have the followng CFP sent out by Christopher Tomlins, the Chancellor's Professor of Law, at the School of Law, University of California, Irvine,]
Proposals are invited from ASLH members interested in joining an ASLH-sponsored panel at the European Society for Comparative Legal History's biennial meeting, to be held 8-9 July 2014 in Macerata, Italy, at the University of Macerata. (Conference proceedings will be in English.)
As part of its policy of international outreach, the ASLH has entered into an agreement with the ESCLH by which each association will sponsor a panel to take part in the other association's meeting on a biennial basis. In 2013 the ASLH will host an ESCLH panel at its Miami meeting. In turn, the ESCLH will host an ASLH panel at its Macerata meeting.
The theme of the ESCLH meeting is "Traditions and Changes." The meeting organizers elaborate on the theme [here], where additional information is available). Here is a compressed version of the conference call:
"The conference encourages scholars to use comparative-historical approaches for working on the complex concepts of 'tradition' and 'change', both separately and in correlation. What do we think tradition is? How is it made up, 'built' or 'invented'? How does it relate to concepts like recollection, historical store-room, juridical experience, legal culture, and/or legal system? What purpose does a tradition serve? Why and how is it used to promote or reject change and transformation? Is tradition a synonym of 'past,' and change a synonym of 'future.' or does a dialectic prevail which can, at times, unite or separate tradition and change? What role do jurists and doctrine carry in this field? We encourage reflection not only on 'tradition' and 'change' as categories, but also on how they are used. It is clear that power in general and public or private institutions in particular seek legitimacy though recourse to 'tradition,' or alternatively 'rationalization.' Note also the growing use of polyvalent categories like 'western legal tradition' (both in the singular and the plural) or 'common constitutional traditions.'"
Papers for the ASLH panel will be selected with the following criteria in mind: appropriateness to the conference theme; historiographical/substantive originality; thematic unity for a single panel; and capacity to engage with the host society's scholarly audience. Proposals on any area of comparative legal history that relates to the general theme of "Traditions and Changes" are welcome. Paper proposals submitted for the ASLH panel but not selected will be forwarded to the conference organizers for their consideration.
Participants in the ASLH panel are expected to seek funding support from their home institutions to meet the costs of conference attendance in the first instance. "Top-up" support (maximum $5000 for the panel as a whole) will be available from the ASLH for participants whose home institutions will not meet their full expenses. Proposals should consist of (1) a 250 word synopsis of the proposed paper, and (2) a US$ estimate of the prospective participant's expenses accompanied by a reliable estimate of the US$ funds available to the prospective participant to meet those expenses.
Proposals should be sent by email attachment to ctomlins@law.uci.edu. Deadline for receipt of proposals is 15 December 2013.
The Political Economy of Transnational Tax Reform
Just out from the Cambridge University Press is The Political Economy of Transnational Tax Reform: The Shoup Mission to Japan in Historical Context, edited by W. Elliot Brownlee, University of California, Santa Barbara, Eisaku Ide, Keio University, Tokyo, and Yasunori Fukagai, Yokohama National University, Japan. Cambridge explains:
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TOC after the jump.This volume of essays explores the history of the U.S. tax mission to Japan during the occupation following World War II. Under General MacArthur, economist Carl S. Shoup led the mission with the charge of framing a tax system for Japan designed to strengthen democracy and accelerate economic recovery. The volume examines the sources, conduct, and effects of the mission and situates the mission within the history of international financial and fiscal reform. The book begins by establishing the context of progressive social investigations of taxation, including Shoup's earlier tax missions to France and Cuba. It then goes on to explore the Japanese background to the Shoup mission and the process by which American and Japanese tax experts shaped their recommendations. The book then assesses and explains the mission's accomplishments in the context of the political economies of the United States and Japan. It concludes by analyzing the global implications of the mission, which became iconic among international tax reformers.
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Dubber on Ultima Ratio in Criminal Law
Markus D. Dubber, University of Toronto Law, has posted Ultima Ratio as Caveat Dominus: Legal Principles, Police Maxims, and the Critical Analysis of Law. Here is the abstract:
A comparative and historical analysis of the so-called ultima ratio principle reveals that, despite its Latinate veneer, it is neither ancient nor universal, but a recent addition to the German criminal law canon. Upon further inquiry, ultima ratio also turns out to be ill-defined, undermotivated, and toothless, a fundamental legal principle and distinctive feature of criminal law honored in its ubiquitous breach. In the end, the iron legal principle of ultima ratio may appear more like the flexible police maxim of caveat dominus. Its frequent invocation suggests the need to reconceive legal science as a critical analysis of law in general, and of law's supposed principles in particular.
First issue of Comparative Legal History
We recently announced the launch of Comparative Legal History, the journal of the European Society for Comparative Legal History. The first issue is now out. Full access is limited to subscribers, but here's a glimpse of the table of contents:
Editorial Articles
The Challenges of Comparative Legal History
David Ibbetson
American Responses to German Legal Scholarship: From the Civil War to World War I
David M Rabban
The Political Offence and the Safeguarding of the Nation State: Constitutional Ideals, French Legal Standards and Belgian Legal Practice (1830-1870)
Bram Delbecke
Sex, Crime and the Law: Russian and European Early Modern Legal Thought on Sex Crimes
Marianna Muravyeva
Review Article
Comparative and Economic Approaches to Law: A Tale of Wilful Misunderstanding?
Jaakko Husa
Book Reviews
Manlio Bellomo, Inediti della giurisprudenza medievale
Reviewed by Emanuele Conte
Alejandro Guzmán-Brito, Codificación del Derecho Civil e Interpretación de las Leyes: Las normas sobre interpretación de las leyes en los principales Códigos civiles europeo-occidentales y americanos emitidos hasta fines del siglo XIX
Reviewed by MC Mirow
Turan Kayaoglu, Legal Imperialism: Sovereignty and Extraterritoriality in Japan, the Ottoman Empire and China
Reviewed by Zülâl Muslu
Mia Korpiola (ed), Regional Variations in Matrimonial Law and Custom in Europe, 1150-1600
Reviewed by Richard Mc Mahon
MC Mirow, Florida's First Constitution, the Constitution of Cádiz: Introduction, Translation, and Text
Reviewed by Peter L Reich
Anthony Musson and Chantal Stebbings (eds), Making Legal History: Approaches and Methodologies
Reviewed by Adelyn LM Wilson
New Release: Murkens, "From Empire to Union: Conceptions of German Constitutional Law since 1871"
Oxford University Press has released From Empire to Union: Conceptions of German Constitutional Law since 1871, by Jo Eric Khushal Murkens (London School of Economics and Political Science). Here's a description from the Press:
Germany has long been at the centre of European debates surrounding the modern role of national constitutional law and its relationship with EU law. In 2009 the German constitutional court voted to uphold the constitutionality of the Lisbon Treaty, but its critical, restrictive decision sent shockwaves through the European legal community who saw potential threats to further European integration.The Table of Contents:
What explains Germany's uneasy relationship with the project of European legal integration? How have the concepts of sovereignty, state, people, and democracy come to dominate the Constitutional Court's thinking, despite not being defined in the Constitution itself? Despite its importance to the whole enterprise of the European Union, German constitutional thought has been poorly understood in the wider European literature. This book presents a historical account of German conceptions of constitutional law, providing the understanding necessary to see what is at stake in contemporary debates surrounding the constitution and the European Union.
Examining the modern development of German constitutional thought, this volume traces the key public law concepts of state, constitution, sovereignty, and democracy from their modern emergence in the 19th century through to the present day. It analyses the constitutional relationship between Germany and the EU from a sociological and historical perspective, looking at how German constitutional law has conflicted and compromised with EU law, and the difficulties this has raised.
Filling a significant gap in comparative constitutional law literature, this book provides an account of the major schools of German constitutional thought and their development. Against this backdrop it offers a fascinating insight into Germany's relationship with the European Union.
IntroductionMore information is available here.
Part I: Constitutional Law as a Discipline
1. The Emergence of Constitutional Law as a Positive Discipline
2. The Rejection of Constitutional Law as a Positive Discipline
Part II: Constitutional Law as a Method
3. Staatsrecht and Verfassungsrecht
4. External Application to the European Union
Part III: Constitutional Law as Political Jurisprudence
5. Sovereignty and Continuity
6. The Interpretation of the Basic Law by the Federal Constitutional Court
7. The Structure of the Federal Constitutional Court's Decisions in Maastricht and Lisbon
Conclusion
Appendix: Excerpts from the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany
