VUB Contextual Research in Law

  The MICOLL ERC project organised the international conference entitled “Have the Gods Fallen? An Interdisciplinary Reconsideration of Lex Mercatoria and Commercial Revolution”, which took place in Venice from 17 to 20 June 2026, between the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani (DSCV) and Venice International University (VIU – Isola di San Servolo).  The event, held under the direction of Prof. Stefania Gialdroni (University of Padua), formed part of the final-stage activities of the ERC Consolidator Grant MICOLL (2021–2027), dedicated to the historical development of commercial law and language between the eleventh and seventeenth centuries. The discussions focused on the plurality of legal practices, the circulation of commercial vocabularies, and the role of linguistic and institutional fragmentation in shaping medieval and early modern commerce.  Within this framework, the Venice meeting contributed to the broader MICOLL research agenda on the mobility of legal concep...

    (image source:  Sciences Po ) On  27 May 2026 , Prof.  Laurent De Sutter  will host a lecture by dr. Amina Hassani (Sciences Po Law School). Abstract: Large corporations suing states for hindering their profits by adopting social or environmental legislation: this is the scene that plays out daily in the private tribunals of investment arbitration (or ISDS, "Investor-State Dispute Settlement"), the cornerstone of globalized capitalism. Forged in the heart of declining empires to preserve, "through the magic of law," the plundering of resources in decolonized countries, this justice of capital has relentlessly extended its reach through international agreements and free trade treaties. In its tribunals, cases affecting the vast majority are decided in secret… to the benefit of multinationals and the "lawyers" who keep the machine running. Amina Hassani brings together all the pieces of the puzzle and shows how arbitration erodes the sovereignty of state...

  (image source: Università di Padova) Dr. Stefano Cattelan will present on Venetian neutrality in eighteenth-century diplomacy at the University of Padova on 22 May 2026. Read more here .

  (source: University of Florence ) Dr. Stefano Cattelan will present his recent monograph Mare Clausum: The Formation of the Law of the Sea in Pre-modern State Practice and Legal Doctrine (c. 1350–1650)  at the University of Florence on 19 May 2026. More information here .

  (image source: CRHiDI ) Abstract: This conference revisits the history of the law of the sea through the lens of "claimed seas" — that is, the recurrent attempts by political authorities to assert jurisdiction, dominion, or special prerogatives over maritime spaces. Rather than presenting the early modern period as a linear triumph of mare liberum and the freedom of the seas, the lecture explores the enduring tension between claims to maritime dominion and arguments for free navigation from the late Middle Ages to the end of the eighteenth century. Drawing on examples from the Mediterranean, Northern Europe, and wider oceanic worlds, it will examine how legal categories such as jurisdictio, dominium, occupation, prescription, and neutrality were mobilised in diplomatic practice and political thought. Particular attention will be paid to the interaction between doctrine and state practice, as well as to the role of smaller powers in shaping evolving conceptions of maritime o...

  (image source: Sciences Po ) On 27 May 2026 , Prof. Laurent De Sutter will host a lecture by dr. Amina Hassani (Sciences Po Law School). More information on the speaker 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 of th...

Speculative Legal Theory and World (Dis-)order José Antonio Magalhães is a juridico-political theorist and currently a research fellow at ICI-Berlin .    Abstract: The world we thought we lived in, built on eras of diplomacy among human and non-human peoples, seems to be falling apart in the sway of technological acceleration, ecological collapse and geopolitical turmoil. In times of cosmic stability, the work of the jurist became either technical, analytic, interpretive, critical or deconstructive, taking for granted fundamental juridical concepts as well as the world-order they maintain. When, however, worlds themselves are up for grabs, jurists are called upon to create or find the concepts necessary for unforeseen world-arrangements. That implies a mode of jurisprudence different in nature from the ones mentioned above, one in which we cannot take for granted that we know what law is. We call it speculative legal theory. We will explore some basic definitions of SLT as o...

  (image source: Maastricht University; click on image to enlarge) Dr. Stefano Cattelan (Postdoctoral Researcher, FWO Junior Fundamental Research Project  In the Shadow of the Great Powers: Freedom of the Sea and Neutrality in the Long Eighteenth Century , will present his forthcoming monograph (Brill, series Legal History Library/Studies in the History of International Law) at the Maastricht Foundations of Law Colloquia. This takes place in-person (below), but also on Zoom (cf. QR-code above).

  (Source: GRN.global )  "Emerging Normativities: Creative Complicity at the New Governance Frontier"  Introduction This talk looks closer at political experimentation and jurisdictional design at what is increasingly referred to as the new governance frontier. Leaving aside the historicity every presumed “newness” carries within, contemporary phenomena such as climate change (and its differential materialization), raging political and military conflicts, growing mistrust in  in representational governments, and the return to authoritarian regimes are indeed radically shifting the physical and social conditions of existence on planet Earth, opening up frontier spaces in which the question of what it means to govern and being governed is renegotiated. As Rassmusen and Lund pointedly argue, frontier dynamics dissolve existing social orders—property systems, political jurisdictions, rights, and social contracts. Intensifying these dynamics is digital technology, particu...

(image source: University of the Underground ) Prof. Laurent De Sutter organises the CORE Seminar in Legal Theory. For the next session, Michele Spanò will be our guest. On the speaker: Michele Spano is Associate Professor of Law at Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). He is interested in the ways in which law deals with collective entities. His researches focus on class action lawsuits and consider, both historically and theoretically, how the logical and practical hegemony of individualism in private law is being reframed and contested through and by the emergence of common or collective actors, interests, goods and rights. His most recent book is Fare il molteplice. Il diritto privato alla prova del comune (Rosenberg & Sellier, 2022). Talk description: The "General Theory of Law and Marxism" (1924), the most famous work by the Soviet jurist E. B. Pašukanis, celebrates its centenary this year. I am dedicating my research seminar at EHESS and a manuscrip...

  On Tuesday 30 January 2024, drs. João Tiago Freitas Mendes (FCT/VUB), doctoral candidate under supervision of prof. dr. Laurent De Sutter, will present his ongoing work on legal sociability . João has been a visiting researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Legal Theory and Legal History in the Fall semsester of 2023. More information on João here . The session will take place in room B 4.08 (VUB Humanities, Sciences and Engineering Campus, Building B) at 12:30 and will last until 14:00 at the latest. RSVP with rodrick dot van dot der dot smissen at vub dot be.

(image source: CDI ULB ) Abstract: A few months ago, Sociologies du droit was published by Dalloz. In this book, Olivier Corten aims to present sociologies of law, considered in a plural way and drawn from classic or contemporary works. The presentation is structured around eight tensions that characterise contemporary legal discourse. Is the sociology of law an original science or an offshoot of legal theory or philosophy? The legal establishment of facts: reflection or construction of a truth? The interpretation of law: discovery or creation of meaning?
Is the law freedom or constraint? The legal order, unity or plurality? Law as a vehicle for social solidarity: community or society? 
Formalisation or deformalisation of the law? Legality or legitimacy? Compared with the existing literature  also draws its originality from the use of illustrations drawn from popular culture (cinema, TV series, literature, etc.), not only for teaching purposes but also to show their role in certain...

    To the Left of Law Introduction At the crossroads between sociology and history, the work of Liora Israël shows that the period which extends from May 68 to the arrival of the left in power in France in 1981 is a pivotal moment in relations between law and politics. It addresses trajectories of lawyers and magistrates, a selection of major trials and the history of the birth of judicial unionism, as well as debates on the organization of law firms and the many controversies relating to the social role of prisons, mobilizations in favor of immigrants or for the legalization of abortion. All these questions, at the heart of every critical reflection on law as ideology in the service of dominant interests at the time, have constituted as many milestones in the formation of a "left of law", whose heritage continues to mark contemporary French society. By focusing on the role of lawyers and justice thanks to unpublished interviews and many archives, this work aims at renewing ...

Lawyers, Guns and Money : Exception, Crisis and the Antinomies of Legal Modernity   Introduction This intervention deals with the need for examining historically emergency in the context of modernity. In a first part I shall examine the limitations of the current discourse in constitutional law and human rights law on emergency, by emphasising its lack of a historical gaze. Second, I turn to contemporary theory and philosophy – especially to Giorgio Agamben’s concept of ‘exception’ and Slavoj Zizek’s concept of ‘impossible object’, in order to offer a possible theoretical alternative to this conundrum. Identifying the exception as the ‘crack’ within the symbolic frame of modern legality, I turn to three theoretical models of dealing with its presence: Kelsen’s identity thesis, Schmitt’s exception and Pashukanis’ legal form, each in its own way avoiding to grasp the disruptive effects of exception. In a final part, I shall bring to three historical examples of how law, sovereign pow...

(P. De Hert & S. Gutwirth, bron:  deDebatten.org ) Een studienamiddag waarin zes jonge beeldenstormers van alle Vlaamse universiteiten reageren op de door emeritus Serge Gutwirth geuite observaties in verband met het strafrecht. Met boekpresentatie: S. Gutwirth & P. De Hert m.m.v. M. Colette,  Strafrecht in dialoog. Vijftien vrienden & collega’s over prof. dr. Serge Gutwirth als penalist , Antwerpen, Intersentia, 2023. Praktische info Vrijdag 29 september, 13u15 tot 17u15   Vlaams-Nederlands Huis deBuren, Leopoldstraat 6, 1000 Brussel  Prijs: 39 euro, (PhD-)studenten en collega’s en vrienden van Serge Gutwirth gratis Meer informatie & inschrijven:  Maarten.Colette@vub.be Programma & meer informatie:  https://dedebatten.org/strafrecht-in-dialoog/

   Introduction The CORE seminar in Legal Theory will serve as a bridge between the different units of the department Interdisciplinary Studies of Law. It will bring forth the new trends in legal thinking burgeoning around the world, through presentations made by CORE members, or through the invitation of some of their key actors. The idea of the seminar is to provide for doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, as well as for permanent staff members, an opportunity to get updates on a rapidly evolving scene, whose mapping still remains elusive.   The program of the seminar will be set up according to suggestions from CORE members and will be managed by  Prof. Laurent de Sutter . Ideally, each session will be preceded by the circulation of a core (pun absolutely intended) text, allowing for a more fruitful discussion – with or without guest. Topics may include new developments in Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory, Feminist Jurisprudence, Law & Literatur...

The CORE seminar in Legal Theory will serve as a bridge between the different units of the department. It will bring forth the new trends in legal thinking burgeoning around the world, through presentations made by CORE members, or through the invitation of some of their key actors. The idea of the seminar is to provide for doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, as well as for permanent staff members, an opportunity to get updates on a rapidly evolving scene, whose mapping still remains elusive.   The program of the seminar will be set up according to suggestions from CORE members and will be managed by  Prof. Laurent de Sutter . Ideally, each session will be preceded by the circulation of a core (pun absolutely intended) text, allowing for a more fruitful discussion – with or without guest. Topics may include new developments in Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory, Feminist Jurisprudence, Law & Literature, Critique of Rights, Law & Economics (Critical or not...

While still somewhat niche, digital humanities (history) and empirical legal studies (law) have successfully established themselves as respectable fields of research. Yet, both Belgian law schools nor legal historians have picked up this trend. In this lecture, I explain how legal historical methods have evolved over the past decades and provide examples of how empirical methods may be applied in legal (historical) research. Although the concerns of lawyers are somewhat different  from legal historians, empirical or digital methods can be beneficial to both. The lecture is thus relevant for all researchers interested in empirical and digital methods. Florenz Volkaert   (°1995) studied law at Ghent University (2018, summa cum laude) and obtained an LL.M/MSc. in Law and Economics (2018-2019, receiving the award for best student in the program) from the Universität Hamburg, Erasmus University Rotterdam and the Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research as part of an Erasmus...

The CORE seminar in Legal Theory will serve as a bridge between the different units of the department. It will bring forth the new trends in legal thinking burgeoning around the world, through presentations made by CORE members, or through the invitation of some of their key actors. The idea of the seminar is to provide for doctoral and post-doctoral researchers, as well as for permanent staff members, an opportunity to get updates on a rapidly evolving scene, whose mapping still remains elusive. The program of the seminar will be set up according to suggestions from CORE members and will be managed by Prof. Laurent de Sutter . Ideally, each session will be preceded by the circulation of a core (pun absolutely intended) text, allowing for a more fruitful discussion – with or without guest. Topics may include new developments in Critical Legal Studies, Critical Race Theory, Feminist Jurisprudence, Law & Literature, Critique of Rights, Law & Economics (Critical or not), Empirical...