ARTICLE: “John Gilissen and the Teaching of Legal History in Brussels” [Teaching Legal History – History of Legal Teaching, ed. Łukasz Jan KORPOROWICZ] (Acta Universitatis Lodziensis. Folia Iuridica 99 (2022), 19-50) (OPEN ACCESS)

 

(Image source: Uni Lodz)

Abstract:

John Gilissen (1912–1988) was a high-profile legal academic at the Université libre de Bruxelles (°1834) and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (°1969). Personal – albeit fragmentary – archival records deposited with these universities permit to reconstruct his teaching (both ex cathedra-courses for big groups and intensive tutorials), impressive global scientific network and insatiable scientific curiosity. Gilissen is the author of standard works on many aspects of domestic legal history (both public and private), and acquired renown as the secretary-general of the Société Jean Bodin pour l’histoire comparative des institutions. His influential position as a public prosecutor, law professor and legal historian generates a unique insider’s perspective on the confessional, linguistic and constitutional transformation of the country from World War One to the First Reform of the State. The current law curriculum at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel still bears marks of Gilissen’s comparative approach to the history of civil law and his interest in the contemporary relevance of institutional history.

Read more here (DOI 10.18778/0208-6069.99.03).

EUTOPIA: Student reports Connected Learning Community Legal History: Minority Rights on Peak Event (CY Paris, 18-19 FEB 2022)

The students of the EUTopia Connected Learning Community Legal History:Minority Rights will report on the Peak Event where lecturers and students from the five partner institutions (UPF Barcelona, CY Paris, Ljubljana, VUB and Warwick) gathered physically on 18 and 19 February. 

Read more on the EUTopia CoLeCo Legal History:Minority Rights blog. 

LEZINGENREEKS: L'année de la France à la VUB 2018-2019

(bron afbeelding: CORE)

In het kader van l'Année de la France à la VUB 2018-2019, een initiatief van de Franse ambassade te Brussel en het rectoraat van de Vrije Universiteit Brussel, organiseert de onderzoeksgroep Contextual Research in Law (CORE) drie lezingen door Franse collega's:

- Prof. dr. Charles-Edouard Levillain (Paris-Diderot): 22 maart, 12:30 (Senaat): Les révolutions anglaises au XVIIe siècle
- Prof. dr. Lucien Bély (Paris-Sorbonne): 2 april, 14:00 (Senaat): L'Etat Royal en France au XVIIe siècle
- Prof. dr. Jean-Louis Halpérin (Ecole normale supérieure): 3 april, 17:00, L'état des juristes en Allemagne, XIXe-XXe siècles. Essai d'une sociologie historique des juristes (Academiënpaleis, met de steun van het Comité Rechtsgeschiedenis van de Koninklijke Vlaamse Academie van België voor Wetenschappen en Kunsten)

Toegang is gratis (binnen de limiet van de voorziene plaatsen), maar voorafgaand registreren is om veiligheidsredenen vereist. Contacteer drs. Wouter De Rycke (assistent; Wouter.De.Rycke@vub.be).

Deze lezingen kaderen in het initiatief WeKonekt Brussels, waarbij ULB en VUB de studenten naar het stadscentrum van Brussel brengen voor een andere leerervaring dan op de campus.

(meer informatie: CORE website)

NEW CORE WORKING PAPER: The Treaties of Utrecht and Norm Hierarchy [Les traités d'Utrecht et la hiérarchie des normes]

The CORE Working Paper series published a text of mine (in French) on the Treaties of Utrecht and Norm Hierarchy, examining into detail the question of Philip V of Spain's renunciation to the French throne.

Abstract:

The act of registration of the lettres patentes of Louis XIV on 15 March 1713, which renounced Philip V’s right to the throne of France and also the rights of the dukes of Berry and Orléans to the throne of Spain, is usually presented as a violation of the fundamental law of indisposability of the Crown. Even with internal implications for France and ensuing contemporary debate that was framed in those terms, it is nonetheless important to highlight its practical juristic logic with regard to international relations. Renunciations marked a vital element in the equilibrium of European state relations and they allowed to avoid excessive concentration of power. The Regency’s diplomacy sought to extend the solutions contained within the Utrecht treaties (11 April 1713) to other cases of potential war, in Italy. As a result, the mentioned registration of renunciation touched upon two conflicts of norms instead of one. On the one hand, the monarch’s lettres patentes conflicted with the lois fondamentales. On the other hand, the law of treaties was at odds with the internal laws of France. Not only the negotiations leading up to the peace treaties, but also the subsequent interpretation of those treaties demonstrate an alternative, apocryphal but coherent, juristic discourse, the understanding of which is indispensable for a proper analysis of their global implications.

The text is an earlier, extended version (written as a Visiting Fellow at the Graduate Institute in Geneva, 2014-2015) of a paper forthcoming in a collective work directed by Nicolas Laurent-Bonne (Clermont-Ferrand) and Xavier Prévost (Bordeaux), Penser l'ordre juridique médiéval et moderne (Lextenso, later on this year). The final version, which will also consider complementary sources, can thus be found there.

See also SSRN: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2790983.