Presentation

In the last twenty years, the study of the history of international law and of international relations has witnessed something of a renaissance. The bicentenary of the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815) also led to several new publications on the Congress System and on the “security culture” that was established in the aftermath of Napoleon. Nevertheless, many lacunae remain, especially regarding the relationship between law(s) and international relations during the long nineteenth century and in the sociocultural history of international law as a discipline with its own actors, networks, venues, institutions and power circles. The aim of the present conference is to deepen our study of the interconnections between law(s) and international relations through the eyes of a plurality of actors (e.g., legal advisers, lawyers, judges, activists, publicists, journalists, editors), institutions (e.g., foreign offices, courts, universities, academies of science, associations, libraries) and works on comparative law.

Three focuses will be especially addressed by this conference. The first is the plurality of actors. We welcome proposals on legal advisers within governments, foreign offices and national or colonial administrations : on civil and administrative judges, admiralty courts and prize laws; and on lawyers, academics, peace activists, international thinkers, journalists and editors, including women as well as men. A prosopography of a group of actors is invited as well as individual biographies. The theme of the birth and professionalization of “international lawyers” will be studied as well as the various editors and the book market for international law.

Our second focus will be on institutions. We especially invite papers studying the treatment of law(s) in foreign offices in a comparative perspective. For example, in Great Britain, legal issues were dealt by the Queens Lawyers until 1872 and afterwards by the Legal Adviser of the Foreign Office. In France after 1835, it was the Comité consultatif du contentieux that dealt with legal issues. But what about the foreign offices of other countries ? Other institutions (similar to the Conseil d'état in France) may have also had their own “Foreign Office Committee.” How were these organized? Did they cooperate with the foreign office ? What role was played by scientific academies in the diffusion of international law ? By the universities? By popular libraries ?

Our third and final focus is on the study of comparative law and its link to the development of international law. The Société de législation comparée, founded in 1869, was full of members of the first generation of the Institut de Droit International, while many comparativists were, vice versa, members of the Institut de Droit International. Scientific journals such as the Revue historique de droit français et étranger and the Revue de droit international et de législation comparée dealt with both comparative and international law. Papers on the progressive autonomy of the discipline and on the networks of the founding members are especially welcome.

Program

Wednesday 15th september 2021

Hôtel Dupanloup

14:00 : Welcome coffee & registration

14:30 : Official opening
Sophie Gabillet, General secretary of LE STUDIUM Loire Valley Institute for Advanced Studies

14:40 : Introduction
Pierre Allorant, Walter Badier, POuvoirs, LEttres, Normes (POLEN) / CNRS, University of Orléans – FR & Raphaël Cahen, LE STUDIUM / Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow from : Brussels Free University  (VUB) - BE

15:00 : How to Write a History of Western International Law ? (Inaugural conference)
Miloš Vec, University of Vienna - AT

16:00 : Coffee Break

Session 1 - Women and international law

Chair : Raphaël Cahen

16:30 : Violence, Gender, Warfare : Origins of an International Legal Regime in the 19th Century
Anastasia Hammerschmied, University of Vienna - AT

16:55 : Women's Rights and the Rights of Man: Women's Status under Law as the Measure of Civilization in Political and Legal Discourse, 1869-1914
Sara Kimble, De Paul University  - USA

17:20 : A parallel legal world. Women formulating international law (1878-1914)
Marion Röwekamp, College of Mexico - MX

17:45 : Discussions

18:30 : Public lecture in French : Conquérir la paix : des Lumières à l'Union européenne
Stella Ghervas (tbc), Newcastle University - UK

20:00 : Wine & cheese cocktail (Hôtel Dupanloup)

Thursday 16 September 2021

Maison de l'avocat

9:30 : Welcome coffee

Session 2 - International law in practice : Actors

Chair : Annamaria Monti, Bocconi University - IT

10:00 : Alexandre Walewski, émissaire à Londres du Gouvernement insurrectionnel polonais : convaincre les puissances de faire régner l'ordre juridique de Vienne à Varsovie (1831-1832)
Bruno Martin-Gay, Université Paris-Saclais - FR

10:25 : Les voyages du jeune Alphonse Rivier
Philippe Rygiel, Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon - FR

10:50 : Comments by Prof. Gustaw Roszkowski on the changes in public international law
Paweł Fiktus, WSP (Wroslaw Poland) - PL

11:15 : Teaching International Law at King Leopold's Foreign Office : Léon Arendt's Droit des gens-course (1904)
Frederik Dhondt, Free University of Brussels (VUB) - BE

11:40 : Discussions

12:00 : Lunch (Hôtel Dupanloup)

Session 3 - Slave Trade, Slavery and international law

Chair : Miloš Vec, University of Vienna - AT

13:30 : The London West India Committee in the Law of Nations: Property in Men
Sean Morris, University of Helsinki - FI

13:55 : Revisiting international law's mainstream narrative about abolition of the slave trade : the writings of Mary Ann Shadd
Anne-Charlotte Martineau, Nanterre University - FR

14:20 : The Laws against Slave Trafficking in Prussia as a Case Study on International Relations and the Development of Human Rights
Saskia Geisler, Hagen University - DE

14:45 : Discussions

15:00 : Coffee break

Session 4 - “Western” international law and global encounters

Chair : Walter Badier, POuvoirs, LEttres, Normes (POLEN) / CNRS, University of Orléans - FR 

15:30 : Ibrahim Hakkı : An Eastern Tell-tale of Modern International Law ?
Zülâl Muslu, University of Vienna - AT

15:55 : Alphonse Royer (1803-1875), penseur méconnu de la codification ottomane
Jean-Romain Ferrand-Hus, Université de Rennes I - FR

16:20 : The Mimicry of International Law: Andrés Bello's “Principios de derecho internacional
Nina Keller-Kemmerer, Max Planck Institute Frankfurt - DE

16:45 : Discussions

17:30 : Guided visit of Orléans city center
(departure from the Maison de l'avocat)

19:30 : Social dinner (at Chez Eugène)

Friday 17 September 2021

Maison de l'avocat

8:30 : Welcome coffee

Session 5 - Comparative legislation and private international law

Chair : Frederik Dhondt, Free University of Brussels (VUB) - BE

9:00 : Leone Levi's proposal for an international commercial code for civilised nations : comparative law and codification in Victorian Britain
Victoria Barnes, Max Planck Institute Frankfurt - DE & Annamaria Monti, Bocconi University - IT

9:25 : Droit Egyptien et législations comparées
Yousra Chaaban, University Ain-Shams & Lyon III - EG

9:50 : Uncovering a Forgotten History : Private International Law as National Promise for Internationalism in the 19th Century
Sebastian Spitra, University of Vienna - AT

10:15 : Discussions

10:30 : Coffee break

Session 6 - International law in practice : Institutions

Chair : Dominique Messineo

11:00 : Pacific Swiss responses to international instability in the early nineteenth century Jean-Jacques de Sellon (1782-1839) and the Société de la paix de Genève (1830-1839)
Wouter De Rycke, Free University of Brussels (VUB) – BE

11:25 : L'Académie (française) des sciences morales et politiques et le droit international (1835-1914)
Raphaël Cahen, LE STUDIUM / Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow, from Brussels Free University (VUB) - BE

11:50 : Les relations internationales dans la jurisprudence du Conseil d'Etat (1815-1914)
Maxime Charité, Université Le Havre Normandie - FR

12:15 : Discussions

12:30 : Lunch (Maison de l'avocat)

Session 7 - International law in practice : Expertises and experts

Chair : Nina Keller-Kemmerer

14:00 : Intelligence, diplomacy and international relations. The Parish Report on the Revolutions in South America and the foundations of British recognition of insurgent states (1822)
Mariano M. Schlez, National University of the South - AR

14:25 : Just a Scrap of Paper ? Western Military Officers, Humanitarianism and the Shaping of International Humanitarian Law, 1864–1907
Jean-Michel Turcotte, Leibniz Institute for European History - DE

14:50 : The First Generation of International Economic Lawyers? Juridification and Professionalization in International Economic Diplomacy : A Prosopography and Discourse Network Analysis (1850-1914)
Florenz Volkaert, Ghent Legal History Institute - BE

15:15 : Inseparable Pairs ? Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Society of International Law, 1880-1914
Hirofumi Oguri, Okayama University - JP

15:40 : Discussions

16:00 : Coffee break

16:30 : Conclusion - André Gros, et la fonction de jurisconsulte du ministère des affaires étrangères
Pierre François Laval, Université d'Orléans - FR

16:55 : Questions and debates

17:30 : End of the conference

Registration : registration@lestudium-ias.fr 

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