BOOK: Stefano CATTELAN & Frederik DHONDT (eds.), Small Power Neutrality and the Law of The Sea in the Long Eighteenth Century (ca. 1650–1800). Law as Argument in the Pelagic Arena [History of European Political and Constitutional Thought, eds. Mark SOMOS, Erica BENNER & Laszlo KONTLER] (Leiden/Boston: Brill, 2025), ISBN 978-90-04-72442-6, €133,56

(image source: Brill)

Abstract:

This volume by both younger and more established specialists of legal, maritime, diplomatic, and political history covers the nuanced interplay of neutrality and the law of the sea within Western, Central, and Eastern Europe, emphasising the opening up of the world in the early modern period (i.e. Africa, North America, and the Caribbean). The various faces of neutrality, both in law and politics, appear through commercial, administrative, and geopolitical practical cases and in the writings of famous legal writers. By linking up different sets of knowledge, a kaleidoscope of power configurations and arguments guides the reader through the labyrinth of trade, sea power, and negotiations. 

Contributors:

Stefano Cattelan, Frederik Dhondt, John Freeman, Nora Naguib Leerberg, Christian Pfister-Langanay, Leos Müller, Stephen C. Neff, and Victor Wilson.

Read more here: DOI 10.1163/9789004728974.

CHAPTER: "Territory and Jurisdiction in Old Regime Europe", in: Randall LESAFFER (ed.), The Cambridge History of International Law, vol. VI/2: International Law in Old Regime Europe (1660-1775) [The Cambridge History of International Law, ed. Randall LESAFFER] (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), pp. 421-465, ISBN 9781108757355

 

(image source: Cambridge University press)

Abstract:

This chapter is a survey of the legal languages used to govern territory, sovereignty and the right of a ruler within a polity. Debates were heavily dominated by feudal and private law-concepts. Sovereigns maintained the diversity of privileges in the territories ruled in the setting of a composite monarchy. Claims and titles could or could not entail consequences for sovereignty. Reservations and exceptions to full internal sovereignty were not uncommon. Succession quarrels (often causes of war), could be solved by treaty, often in conflict with domestic constitutional rules and principles. Mixed polities (Poland-Lithuania, Holy Roman Empire) offered a broad range of argumentative topoi to either confirm or combat overlordship. Internal German questions could quickly escalate to the field of the law of nations through the game of alliances and guarantees. Although republican forms of monarchy and republican oligarchies were on the decline in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, their legal agency was not contested. In extra-European dominions of European sovereigns, the chain of reasoning was significantly lighter, as feudal arguments rarely came into play. Conversely, the agency of subaltern actors in establishing boundaries, or the treatment of native Americans as either allies or subjects provide original avenues of research.

Read the chapter here: DOI 10.1017/9781108757355.016. 

BLOG: "Vrijheid, gelijkheid, onverkiesbaarheid ?" (Nederland Rechtsstaat, 4 APR 2025)

Ik schreef een bijdrage voor Nederland Rechtsstaat, op uitnodiging van Prof. Maurice Adams (Tilburg). Meer informatie hier.

MEDIA: Podcast "de Dag" (NPO)

Ik was te gast op de podcast "de Dag" (NPO, Elisabeth Steinz), over de veroordeling van Marine Le Pen. De podcast kan hier worden herbeluisterd.

MEDIA: interview bij "de tafel van Gert" (Play4/GoPlay)

Ik was op 1 april te gast bij "de Tafel van Gert" (Play4/GoPlay) om toelichting te geven bij de deining rond de veroordeling van Marine Le Pen.

De aflevering kan hier worden herbekeken.

MEDIA: Interviews De Morgen, RTL Nieuws, de Volkskrant, de Tijd

Ik sprak gisteren met De Morgen, de Volkskrant en RTL Nieuws (Nederland) over de veroordeling van Marine Le Pen. Op woensdag sprak ik met de Tijd.

MEDIA: interviews De Morgen, de Volkskrant

Ik werd door Tine Peeters (De Morgen) geïnterviewd over het blad Charlie Hebdo (zaterdag 4 januari, hier), alsook door Iñaki Oñorbe Genovesi (de Volkskrant) over het heengaan van Jean-Marie Le Pen (woensdag 8 januari, hier).

MEDIA: Interview voor Demorgen.be (4 DEC 2024)

Ik sprak met Steven Elias (De Morgen, website) over de uitkomst van de Motion de censure van het NFP tegen de regering-Barnier. Meer informatie hier.