Category Archives: Legal History
‘The horrors of copyright from Dracula to Nosferatu’
Abraham ‘Bram’ Stoker (1847-1912) was an Irish author, best known for writing the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. Stoker drew extensively from Transylvanian folklore and history for the novel, and he gave the title character the name Dracula because he thought it meant ‘devil’ in Romanian. The novel was published in the United Kingdom in […]
‘Legal Histories in Unexpected Places: 29 November 2024’
The Open University is organising what looks to be a most interesting conference under the above title on Friday, 29 November 2024. The programme is as follows … (more) [John Cairns, The Edinburgh Legal History Blog, 25 October 2024]
‘How the EU Can Avoid Green Colonialism’
Twenty years after its publication, the Manifesto for Social Justice in Contract Law’s call to ‘align the general principles of social justice that govern the market order with standards designed to protect public goods such as a healthy environment’ continues to resonate. The traditional definition of social justice – focused on the fair and equal […]
Chathuni Jayathilaka, ‘A Tale of Too Many Doctrines: Supervening Impossibility and the Sale of Goods’
ABSTRACT Contracts for the sale of goods contain three default rules addressing the problem of supervening impossibility: sections 7 and 20 of the Sale of Goods Act 1979 and the doctrine of frustration. This article uses a legal historical method to examine why this is the case and what the relationship between these rules is. […]
Call for Papers: 8th ESCLH Biennial Conference, ‘Back to the Past and Building the Future’ (University of Szeged, 2-4 July 2025)
The theme of the conference is to call attention to the development of legal institutions that are related to and serve as the foundation of modern/contemporary state and law. We mainly expect papers based on the examination of primary sources, since the main aim of the conference is to draw attention to the importance and […]
Masayuki Tamaruya, ‘Trust Law and Colonialism’
ABSTRACT This chapter examines the evolution of trust law through the lens of colonialism, tracing its roots from the English Court of Chancery to its adoption in diverse jurisdictions worldwide. While trust law has been shaped by various factors such as legal traditions, judicial attitudes, and economic conditions, colonial history has played a significant yet […]
‘Conference: “Rethinking Property: Decentralized Histories of Land Tenure (16th-19th centuries)” – IberLAND project (Messina: Faculty of Law, University of Messina, 3-4 October 2024)’
The IberLAND project is pleased to announce the upcoming conference, ‘Rethinking Property: Decentralized Histories of Land Tenure (16th–19th centuries)’, taking place from October 3rd to 4th, 2024, at the Faculty of Law, University of Messina (Italy), co-organized with its Law Department. This event aims to explore the complex evolution of land tenure and property concepts […]
‘Deserted wives, dastardly husbands, dodgy metaphors’
At this time of year, the thoughts of a historically-minded tutor of Land Law turn to the nature of equity. Yes, it is time to inflict upon a new cohort of second year students the distinction between legal and equitable rules, to skate over the development and demise of conciliar jurisdictions and get them to […]
Vacca and Bartow, ‘Copyright Law: Never Bet Against the House … or Senate’
ABSTRACT Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg heard and decided many copyright law cases during her tenure on the Supreme Court and DC Circuit benches, many of great importance. Surprisingly, given her progressive approach towards social justice issues, she did not predictably side with the underdog in copyright disputes. This chapter undertakes a holistic evaluation of Ginsburg’s […]
Carlo Bersani, ‘Persona, Homo, Res: Building a Boundary in Early Modern European Legal Thought’
ABSTRACT According to Roman law the same human being, the servus, can be understood as res mancipi or as persona, being part of the different kinds of persons described in Justinian’s Institutiones. But in the third decade of the 18th century, it would be written that ‘Certissimum ergo iuris axioma est: quicunque nullo statu gaudet, […]