CHAPTER: "Inaugurating a Dutch Napoleon? Conservative Criticism of the 1815 Constitution of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands" in Ulrike MÜSSIG (ed.), Reconsidering Constitutional Formation II: Decisive Constitutional Normativity. From Old Liberties to New Precedence [Studies in the History of Law and Justice, ed. Georges MARTYN and Mortimer SELERS; 12] (Heidelberg/New York: Springer, 2018), XII+ 417 p. ISBN 978-3-319-73037-0 (Open Access)

(image source: Springer)

Springer published the collective volume Reconsidering Constitutional Formation II: Decisive Constitutional Normativity. From Old Liberties to New Precedence (ed. Prof. U. Müssig (Passau)). This book contains (inter alia) papers presented at the ReConFort II-meeting held at the Academy Palace in Brussels in March 2016, at the invitation of the Committee for Legal History.

Book abstract:

This second volume of ReConFort, published open access, addresses the decisive role of constitutional normativity, and focuses on discourses concerning the legal role of constitutional norms. Taken together with ReConFort I (National Sovereignty), it calls for an innovative reassessment of constitutional history drawing on key categories to convey the legal nature of the constitution itself (national sovereignty, precedence, justiciability of power, judiciary as constituted power). In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, constitutional normativity began to complete the legal fixation of the entire political order. This juridification in one constitutional text resulted in a conceptual differentiation from ordinary law, which extends to alterability and justiciability. The early expressions of this ‘new order of the ages’ suggest an unprecedented and irremediable break with European legal tradition, be it with British colonial governance or the French ancien régime. In fact, while the shift to constitutions as a hierarchically ‘higher’ form of positive law was a revolutionary change, it also drew upon old liberties. The American constitutional discourse, which was itself heavily influenced by British common law, in turn served as an inspiration for a variety of constitutional experiments – from the French Revolution to Napoleon’s downfall, in the halls of the Frankfurt Assembly, on the road to a unified Italy, and in the later theoretical discourse of twentieth-century Austria. If the constitution states the legal rules for the law-making process, then its Kelsian primacy is mandatory. Also included in this volume are the French originals and English translations of two vital documents. The first – Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès’ Du Jury Constitutionnaire (1795) – highlights an early attempt to reconcile the democratic values of the French Revolution with the pragmatic need to legally protect the Revolution. The second – the 1812 draft of the Constitution of the Kingdom of Poland – presents the ‘constitutional propaganda’ of the Russian Tsar Alexander I to bargain for the support of the Lithuanian and Polish nobility. These documents open new avenues of research into Europe’s constitutional history: one replete with diverse contexts and national experiences, but above all an overarching motif of constitutional decisiveness that served to complete the juridification of sovereignty. (www.reconfort.eu) 

Paper abstract:

The 1815 constitution of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands established a deferential control on the sovereign power to declare war and conclude treaties. Following articles 57 and 58, international
agreements could be concluded and ratified by the monarch, save for peacetime cessions of territory. The constitutional committee’s debates treat the matter rather hastily. William I (1772–1843)’s role at the establishment of the Kingdom of the United Netherlands had been so decisive, that the advent of a less qualified successor seemed inconceivable. The monarch personified the common interest. Foreign policy, the privileged terrain of princes and diplomats, was judged unsuitable for domestic political bickering.
Finally, the Estates Generals’ budgetary powers were seen as an indirect brake on potential royal martial ardours. The incidental objections formulated by Jan Jozef Raepsaet, a Southern conservative publicist, show the more structural deficiencies of the constitution as a pact between the monarch and the nation. Leaning both on feudal law and law of nations doctrine, Raepsaet demonstrated how William I had been dressed in Napoleon’s clothes. The King had a nearly unchecked competence in foreign affairs, beyond the usual Old Regime safeguards, contrary to Enlightenment criticism of autocratic rule. John Gilissen aptly labeled William I as a “monocrat”. Vattel or Pufendorf’s opinion on the ruler as a mere usufructuary seemed to have evaporated. Raepsaet’s arguments on the inconsistent nature of Art. 57 and 58 are echoed in the 1831 Belgian constitution’s Art. 67—subjecting most treaties to parliamentary consent—as well in Thorbecke’s criticism of the document.

The book can be downloaded for free (open access) on the Springer website.

See also Google Books:

INTERVIEW: Het banlieue-plan van Macron (Radio 1, 22 Mei 2018)

(bron: radioviainternet.be)

Ik was te gast op De Wereld Vandaag (Ruth Joos) over het banlieue-plan van Emmanuel Macron.

Herbeluister hier.

CONFERENCE: Permanent is not eternal ! The end of Belgian Neutrality between Law, Morals and Politics [JHIL Symposium: The Parisian Peace Treaties (1919,1920) and the Emergence of Modern International Law, eds. Jan LEMNITZER & Randall LESAFFER] (Tilburg: Tilburg Law School, 17 MAY 2018)

(image source: Tilburg University)

I presented a paper at the Journal of the History of International Law-symposium organised by Jan Lemnitzer (Southern Denmark) and Randall Lesaffer (Tilburg/KUL) on "The Parisian Peace Treaties (1919-1920) and the Emergence of Modern International Law", on 17 May 2018.

Paper abstract:

The violation of Belgian’s sovereignty by the German army in August 1914 and the atrocities committed in the ensuing first phase of the Great War[1] constitute a watershed in the country’s domestic history[2] and international position. Article VII of the Treaty of London (19 April 1839, 88 CTS 421) had installed a system of perpetual neutrality, guaranteed by five great powers. The nature of this system was hotly debated among international legal scholars. In the slipstream of the “Gentle Civilizer of Nations”[3], Belgian pre-World War I doctrine had become patriotic and excessively affirmative of the auxiliary and secondary nature of the international status imposed on the country.[4] During the Great War, King Albert I and the Belgian government in Sainte-Adresse considered the country as the innocent neutral victim of German aggression. In a strict reading of the 1907 Hague Conventions, the Belgian authorities claimed a neutral power did not lose its status as a belligerent and could thus remain aloof of the warring sides.[5]The Versailles Peace Treaty (art. 31) abolished the neutrality status. Belgium actively participated in the League of Nations, contributing to the Permanent Court of International Justice’s statute[6] or presiding of the General Assembly.[7] Yet, the Versailles Peace Conference had been a relative failure. Belgium claimed territorial compensation for its invasion and occupation.[8] If article VII of the Treaty of London had been abolished, the compromise underlying this agreement ought to be revised equally.
Belgian claims were directed at the Netherlands. The voluntary neutral Northern neighbour[9] had cut off access to the Port of Antwerp, [10] the réduit national, built by successive governments and designed for the national army’s structural resistance to invasion.[11] Moreover, Flemish separatists had disseminated propaganda from the Netherlands with the Hun’s help.[12]I propose to examine the Treaty of Versailles’ impact on Belgium’s international status. The Belgian Foreign Archives contain voluminous records of letters and memoranda in its thematic Classement B, section Indépendance-Neutralité-Défense Nationale. First, inevitably, those exchanged between Brussels and The Hague on the impact of the end of the World War on both the bilateral contentieux and the multilateral legal framework. Understandably, Dutch arguments tend to outright discard events between 1914 and 1918. Second, more interestingly, a record of possible scenarios envisaged during the First World War, whereby Belgium’s compensations could be found as well to the detriment of the German aggressor as to that of the controversially neutral Netherlands, or to the equally innocent Grand-Duchy of Luxemburg.
The combination of these records with the papers left by Louis Arendt (1843-1924), director of political affairs before World War I shed light on the intellectual argumentative perimeter within which the concept of Belgian neutrality ought to be interpreted. The violation of Belgian neutrality was envisaged as inevitable by the national authorities, who prepared emergency legislation, a physical move of all branches of government and the applicability of the law of occupation well ahead of August 1914.
If permanent neutrality were to be lost in a conflict among the guarantors, this would constitute a genuine advantage in the first place, and a recognition of the country’s equal status in international relations, freed from the yoke of its mothers-in-law. The burden imposed in 1839 was likened to the loss of territories historically pertaining to the Southern Netherlands, a result of unhappy circumstances in August 1831. Arguments against the perceived selfish Dutch attitude in 1914 pertained to classical law of nations controversies.
Preparing for the war, Arendt drafted syntheses of contemporary and “old” doctrine, eventually leading to a handwritten and yet unpublished treatise on international law, kept at the Belgian State Archives. Ten years later, successors seem equally untouched by the institutional revolution caused by the League of Nations.[13] Finally, when Belgium assumed a course of voluntary neutrality, often incorrectly labelled a “return to neutrality”, the state exercised nothing more or less than the most traditional prerogative of sovereign nations: the discretionary power to take part or abstain in an armed conflict between two external actors.[14]

---

[1] Isabel V Hull, A Scrap of Paper. Breaking and Making International Law during the Great War (Cornell UP 2014).[2] Sophie De Schaepdrijver, La Belgique et La Première Guerre Mondiale (PIE - Peter Lang 2004); Henri Pirenne, La Belgique et la guerre mondiale (Les Presses universitaires de France 1929).[3] Vincent Genin, ‘Un “Laboratoire Belge” Du Droit International (1869-1940)? Réseaux Internationaux, Expériences et Mémoires de Guerre Des Juristes Belges’ (Université de Liège 2017); Martti Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (Cambridge University Press 2001).[4] Frederik Dhondt, ‘Neutralité Irresponsable ? Les Glissements de La Doctrine Belge Au Dix-Neuvième Siècle’ (forthcoming); Ernest Nys, L’état Indépendant Du Congo et Le Droit International (Hayez 1903); Edouard Eugène François Descamps, Le Droit de La Paix et de La Guerre : Essai Sur l’évolution de La Neutralité et Sur La Constitution Du Pacigérat (A Rousseau 1898).[5] Jan Velaers, Albert I (Lannoo 2007).
[6] Vincent Genin, ‘Le Cas Des Experts Belges à La Cour Permanente de Justice Internationale, 1921-1930’ 18 Les Cahiers Sirice 61.[7] Paul-F Smets, Pierre Mertens and Pierre Goldschmidt, Paul Hymans 1865-1941 : Un Authentique Homme d’État (Editions Racine 2015).[8] Maria De Waele, Naar Een Groter België! De Belgische Territoriale Eisen Tijdens En Na de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Een Onderzoek Naar de Doeleinden, Besluitvorming, de Realisatiemiddelen En de Propagandavorming van de Buitenlandse Politiek (Universiteit Gent 1989).[9] Wim Klinkert, Samuël Kruizinga and Paul Moeyes, Nederland neutraal. De Eerste Wereldoorlog, 1914-1918 (Boom 2014).[10] Revue Générale de Droit International Public 1919, Chronique, 164.
[11] Belgian State Archives Brussels, Private Archives, Louis Arendt Papers, vol. 3.
[12] Lode Wils, ‘Gerretson, Geyl En Vos. Spanningen Tussen de Groot-Nederlandse Beweging En de Vlaams-Nationalistische’ [1982] Wetenschappelijke Tijdingen 95.[13] Lassa Oppenheim, ‘Le Caractère Essentiel de La Société Des Nations’ 26 Revue Générale de Droit International Public 234; Robert Kolb, Markus G Schmidt and Djacoba Andry Solofonirina Oliva Tehindrazanarivelo (eds), Commentaire Sur Le Pacte de La Société Des Nations (Bruylant 2014).[14] Eric Schnakenbourg, Entre la guerre et la paix. Neutralité et relations internationales, XVIIe-XVIIIe siècle (PURennes 2013).

More information here.

GUEST LECTURE: "Beyond Any Kind of Compromise ? The Enduring French Fifth Republic (1958-Present)" (Louvain-la-Neuve: UCLouvain, 16 MAY 2018)

(image source: Prof. dr. N. Simon/USL-UCLouvain-FNRS)

At the occasion of the publication of my manual Gestolde Macht. Historische en Vergelijkende Inleiding tot het Publiekrecht (ASP/VUBPress), I had the honour to give a guest lecture in the course Comparative Law at UCLouvain, at the invitation of Prof. dr. dr. Alain Wijffels (UCLouvain/KULeuven/Leiden/CNRS-Lille II) and Prof. dr. Xavier Rousseaux (UCLouvain-FNRS). 

Topic: Beyond any Kind of Compromise ? The Enduring French Fifth Republic (1958-present).

CONFERENCE: Journées internationales de la Société d'histoire du droit et des institutions des pays flamands, picards et wallons: construction et déconstruction des territoires, de l'Antiquité au Brexit (Arras, 11-12 mai 2018)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

Je participais aux Journées internationales de la Société d'histoire du droit et des institutions des pays flamands, picards et wallons: construction et déconstruction des territoires, de l'Antiquité au Brexit, organisées par l'Université d'Artois (Dr. Pascal Hepner).

Intitulé de ma communication: "Les intérêts présens des puissances de l’Europe de Jean Rousset de Missy (1733) : territoires, souveraineté et argumentation juridique pratique".

Résumé:

Je propose de mettre en valeur la richesse des sources juridiques utilisées dans cette œuvre de Jean Rousset de Missy, coéditeur de la première grande collection de référence de traités internationaux, le Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens (1726-1731, avec Jean Dumont de Carelskroon). Certes, Les intérêts présens des puissances de l’Europe emprunte beaucoup au Theatrum Historicum praetensium et controversiarum illustrium de Schweder ou encore aux travaux du juriste saxon Glafey. Rousset analyse dans un premier volume les querelles entre souverains, et présente une sélection de sources primaires dans le second. Cependant, l’apparition d’un recueil de référence en français sur les prétentions mutuelles des souverains européens (y compris les républiques comme Gênes ou Venise, la papauté) apportait bien plus qu’une seule description de tracts politiques. L’ouvrage ne se borne pas à réimprimer des arguments unilatéraux, mais procède à leur comparaison. Rousset fait référence aux traités de la doctrine, distingue le droit féodal, les successions, le droit de l’Empire, le droit des obligations, les traités, la coutume internationale et tente de réinterpréter des documents issus du passé à l’aune de la diplomatie de la Régence et de Louis XV. Cet ouvrage précieux et synthétique offre un panorama inégalé du droit international pratique du XVIIIe siècle, et offre un précieux complément aux traités savants, qui -par leur mission scientifique et intellectuelle- sont davantage de lege ferenda. Je propose de traiter d’abord la représentation de la question de la succession d’Espagne, récurrente dans l’analyse de Rousset et pierre angulaire de son raisonnement. Ensuite, je passerai à son analyse des prétentions des maisons de Savoie et des Bourbons d’Espagne, deux acteurs cruciaux des relations internationales après la paix d’Utrecht, qui n’avaient pas encore abandonné l’espoir de mettre la main sur nos précieux pays flamands, picards et wallons. Le sujet me semblait particulièrement adapté au thème central des journées, vu que Rousset traité d’à-peu-près tous les territoires européens.

 Références

Jean d’Aspremont & Samantha Besson (dir), The Oxford Handbook of the Sources of International Law (Oxford: OUP, 2017). Lucien Bély, ‘Les droits, le droit et la diplomatie de Louis XIV’, dans : Nicolas Drocourt & Eric Schnakenbourg (dir.), Thémis en diplomatie : l’argument juridique dans la diplomatie française et anglaise après la Paix d’Utrecht (Rennes : PURennes, 2016), pp. 49-66. Marion Brétéché, Les compagnons de Mercure : journalisme et politique dans l’Europe de Louis XIV (Ceyzérieu : Champ Vallon, 2015). Frederik Dhondt, Balance of Power and Norm Hierarchy. Franco-British Diplomacy after the Peace of Utrecht (Leyde/Boston: Martinus Nijhoff/Brill, 2015). Frederik Dhondt, ‘Declarations of War and the Law of Nations after the Peace of Utrecht’, History of European Ideas XLII (2016), n° 1, 329-349. Frederik Dhondt, ‘From Contract to Treaty: The Legal Transformation of the Spanish Succession’, Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d’histoire du droit international XIII (2011), n°. 3, pp. 347-374. Frederik Dhondt, ‘La culture juridique pratique au congrès de Cambrai (1722-1725)’, Revue d’histoire diplomatique CXXVII (2013), n°. 3, pp. 271-292. Jean Du Mont de Carelskroon (dir)., Corps universel diplomatique du droit des gens (La Haye/Amsterdam : Husson & Levrier /Brunel, 1726-1731), 8 vol. Jean Rousset de Missy, Les intérêts présens des puissances de l’Europe, Fondez sur les Traitez conclus depuis la Paix d’Utrecht inclusivement, & sur les Preuves de leurs Préténtions particulieres (La Haye : Adrien Moetjens, 1733), 2 vol.

Programme complet du colloque ici.
Le résumé de ma contribution a été publié dans la Revue du Nord CLI (2019), pp. 199-203 (à lire sur Cairn).

COMMENTAAR: "Gemor tegen de overdrive van Macron" (De Morgen, 5 mei 2018)

(bron afbeelding: De Morgen)

Ik schreef een bijdrage in DeMorgen over het gemor tegen de hervormingen van onderwijs, arbeidsmarkt en spoor.

Eerste paragraaf:

Vandaag heeft een grote satirische optocht plaats om een jaar Macron te 'vieren'. Dit initiatief gaat uit van François Rufin, journalist, documentairemaker en parlementslid voor La France Insoumise. Zijn 5 meicomités worden gesteund door Attac, verenigingen die werken rond migrantenrechten en radicaal-linkse intellectuelen. In de coulissen keert zo de Nuit debout-beweging terug, die onder Hollande ontstond maar verdampte bij de verkiezingen. Het verzet tegen de hervormingen van Macron is niet zomaar een zaak van radicaal-links. Aan menige universiteit protesteert een deel van het professorenkorps mee met de studenten. Econoom Thomas Piketty kapittelde de dalende financiering van de Franse studenten. Verpleegsters worden door de president verweten een bron van extra schulden te zijn. 

Lees meer hier.

BOEKVOORSTELLING: vol. 112 in de collectie "Standen en Landen/Anciens Pays et Assemblées d'Etats"

(bron afbeelding: ASP)

De vereniging Standen en Landen/Anciens Pays et Assemblées d'États heeft het genoegen de voorstelling van haar 112de volume aan te kondigen: De Blijde Inkomsten van de Brabantse Hertogen, door dr. Valerie Vrancken (ARA/KULeuven).

De publicatiereeks Standen en Landen trapt daarmee af bij een nieuwe uitgever: Academic and Scientific Publishers. De Raad van Bestuur verheugt zich op deze nieuwe samenwerking.

(meer informatie hier)