maandag, november 26, 2018

CONFERENCE: Joseph-Marie Portalis, diplomate, magistrat et législateur (Paris: Court of Cassation/Council of State, 13-14 DEC 2018)

(image source: Blogger)

Prof. dr. Nicolas Laurent-Bonne (Université Clermont-Auvergne/Centre Michel de l'Hôpital) and Dr. Raphael Cahen (VUB/CORE) organise a conference on Joseph-Marie Portalis in the Parisian Court of Cassation and the Council of State.

Your humble servant will present a paper on the second day (14 December) entitled Portalis le jeune et le droit des gens.

Registration information for the conference can be found on the ESCLH Blog.

Update 14 Dec 2018: the full conference on 13 December in the Court of Cassation can be watched onYoutube:

Update 6 March 2019: the second day of the conference has been uploaded to vimeo by the Council of State. See below for my own intervention:

Portalis le jeune et le droit des gens : le retour de la morale dans le XIXe siècle positiviste ? from ConseilEtat on Vimeo.

dinsdag, november 20, 2018

WEBSITE: Publications/Lecture moved to VUB/CORE



My personal website has been moved to the CORE-website. An up-to-date list of publications and lectures, with -where possible- links to the open access-version.

URL: www.vub.ac.be/CORE/members/dhondt

Academic bibliographies:
- VUB PURE: here
- UGent bibliography: here
- Universiteit Antwerpen repository: here

Bibliometric websites:
- ResearcherID: here
- ORCID: here

Repositories:
- ResearchGate: here
- Academia.edu: here
- SSRN: here

vrijdag, november 09, 2018

COMMENTAAR: "Macron verslikt zich in Pétain" (De Morgen, 9 November 2018)

(bron afbeelding: Demorgen)

Ik schreef een bijdrage voor De Morgen over de polemiek rond de uitspraken van Emmanuel Macron over de rol van maarschalk Pétain in de Eerste Wereldoorlog.

Eerste paragraaf:
Frans president Emmanuel Macron werkte zich onverwacht in nesten met een polemiek rond Philippe Pétain, Frans bevelhebber uit Wereldoorlog I, maar ook staatshoofd van het collaborerende en antisemitische Vichy-regime (1940-1942). De populariteit van de president, die een elitair en technocratisch imago heeft, is tanende. Hervormingen zonder resultaten, het ontslag van de ontgoochelde ecologieminister Nicolas Hulot en ongelukkige uitspraken over werklozen zorgen voor veel ongenoegen, zoals dat van de gillets jaunes (kwade automobilisten).
Lees verder op de site van De Morgen.

maandag, november 05, 2018

ARTICLE: “’La mentalité de nos confrères à l’égard de ce qui fut jadis et sera demain’. The Neutralities of Belgium, the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo (1885-1914) seen through the Journal des Tribunaux" (with. S. VANDENBOGAERDE) [Special Issue Congo at War, eds. E. NGONGO, B. PIRET & N. TOUSIGNANT] Journal of Belgian history/Revue belge d’histoire contemporaine/Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis XLVIII (2018), nr. 1-2, pp. 134-162


Today, the Journal of Belgian History/Revue belge d'histoire contemporaine/Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis published its theme issue Congo at War, edited by Enika Ngongo, Bérengère Piret and Nathalie Tousignant (USL-B/UCLouvain).

The issue contains an article written together with Sebastiaan Vandenbogaerde (UGent/Legal History Institute-FWO) on the neutralities of Belgium, the Congo Free State and the Belgian Congo.

Abstract:
The violation of Belgium’s perpetual neutrality by Germany is a classic topos of diplomatic history in the European theatre of the Great War. The Treaty of London (19 April 1839) was torn up by Kaiser Wilhelm as a “Scrap of Paper”. Yet, what were the conception foundations of this sui generis institution of international law? To what extent could this status have been applicable to Congo? International law is not a shortlist of enforceable norms, but an arena wherein states seek legitimation for their political choices. The vagueness of treaty clauses, such as the Treaty of London (1839) or the Berlin Final Act (1885), was both a weakness and a guarantee for the argumentative comprehensiveness of the respective legal regimes. This can be illustrated at two distinct levels. First, Belgian scholars (Nys, Descamps) have been influential in international doctrine (Koskenniemi, Gentle Civilizer of Nations). Second, international affairs were a topos of controversy in the Journal des Tribunaux, the weekly legal periodical created by Edmond Picard and continued by Léon Hennebicq. The traditional sources of international law (treaties, doctrine, custom) reveal multiple positions on the neutrality status of both metropolis and colony. Arendt’s landmark treatise on Belgian neutrality (1845) has proven to be prophetic. The shaky foundations of perpetual neutrality reach back to the early modern period. Positivist stances such as those of Liszt (1913) and Oppenheim (1902) could position neutrality as an exception with regards to the standard narrative of state-made international law. This is an important caveat applied to pacifist literature. Further on, patriotic narratives in the Journal des Tribunaux were heavily influenced by foreign doctrine. Both diplomacy and domestic political culture were drenched in legal language, produced by and for the social world of lawyers.
More information soon on the journal's website.
Update 30 Aug 2019: the article has been published in open access here.