VUB Contextual Research in Law

       (image source:  Wikimedia Commons ) Abstract: Rules shape nearly every aspect of our lives—from how we work and drive to how we greet each other and mark life’s milestones. We may resent some and crave others, but no culture can exist without them. To understand why rules matter, one must trace their history beyond their purely juridical ecology of production: from legal codes and cookbooks to military manuals and traffic regulations. Surprisingly, across centuries and contexts, their forms remain remarkably few. During this seminar, Lorraine Daston will explore the three enduring forms of rules—the algorithms that calculate, the laws that govern, and the models that teach. She will show how rules evolve, how they stiffen or soften, and how once-irritating regulations become daily habits. Far from being mere constraints, rules are also resources—tools that reveal as much about human imagination as they do about order. On the author: Lorraine Daston is one...

  (image source: Brill ) dr. Raphaël Cahen 's co-edited volume Relations internationales et droit(s)  (Paris: Pedone, 2024) was reviewed for the Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international  (Brill) by prof. Eliana Augusti (Salento). Read the advance article here: DOI  10.1163/15718050-bja10138 .

(image source: CHJ )   dr. Stefano Cattelan participates in the conference Territoire(s). Notion, limites, extensions , organised by the Centre d'Histoire Judiciaire  in Lille. More information here .

       (image source:  Wikimedia Commons ) Abstract: Rules shape nearly every aspect of our lives—from how we work and drive to how we greet each other and mark life’s milestones. We may resent some and crave others, but no culture can exist without them. To understand why rules matter, one must trace their history beyond their purely juridical ecology of production: from legal codes and cookbooks to military manuals and traffic regulations. Surprisingly, across centuries and contexts, their forms remain remarkably few. During this seminar, Lorraine Daston will explore the three enduring forms of rules—the algorithms that calculate, the laws that govern, and the models that teach. She will show how rules evolve, how they stiffen or soften, and how once-irritating regulations become daily habits. Far from being mere constraints, rules are also resources—tools that reveal as much about human imagination as they do about order. On the author: Lorraine Daston is one...

  The  EUTopia Connected Learning Community Legal History  is delighted to welcome Prof. dr.  Miloš Vec  (Universität Wien) for its annual opening lecture on Friday 14 November 2025. Within the framework of this year's theme The End of War, Prof. Vec will address the following topic: After 1919 and after 1945: How two World Wars shaped German Thinking on International Law More information on the EUTopia CoLeCo Legal History's  blog . 

  (image source: MPILHLT ) Prof.  Dave De ruysscher  presents tomorrow at the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory in Frankfurt am Main. Abstract: For a long time, the history of commercial law in the later Middle Ages and early modern period was categorized in terms of a spontaneous emergence of norms (consuetudo mercatorum, lex mercatoria). Over the past decades, the influence of jurists and urban administrators has been emphasized more. However, what is lacking is an explanatory framework that captures the coming into being of rules relating to mercantile contracts and situations, as well as their canonization. The dichotomies of local versus transnational, customary versus official, mercantile versus juristic and merchant versus state fall short when the focus is on these problems. Challenges that impede with this exercise have to do with the relationship between law and the economy and the contribution of different social groups to the ...