VUB Contextual Research in Law

  (image source: SHD ) Prof. Frederik Dhondt will intervene at the Société d'Histoire du Droit  in Paris on 10 December at 14:30 on the topic "La "foy des traitez"  et la liberté de la mer: menaces et intimidations autour de la Compagnie impériale des Indes à Ostende (1725-1730)". More information on the SHD website .

    (image source:  ASP ) dr.  Raphaël Cahen  will present the collective work  Les professeurs allemands en Belgique  (ASP, 2022, eds. R. CAHEN, J. DE BROUWER, F. DHONDT & M. JOTTRAND) at the conference  Enseigner le droit hors frontières nationales. 3e journée d’études «Enseignants de droit hors de métropole»,  organised in Aix-en-Provence on 30 September 2022. This conference is a  hybrid  event. More information  here .

Abstract: Partout autour de nous règne le danger. Il nous effraie lorsqu’il est trop précis et nous angoisse lorsqu’il nous échappe. Face à lui, nous ne réclamons qu’une chose : la sécurité. Pourtant, cette réclamation ne vient pas de nous. Nous n’en sommes que les porte-parole – les hérauts inquiets d’une réalité qui nous dépasse davantage que nous le croyons. Car le danger n’est pas un sentiment personnel. Ce qui angoisse ou fait peur est d’abord l’enjeu d’un vaste processus politique de définition, où ce qui se joue n’est rien moins que la possibilité d’une distinction entre le pensable et l’impensable. Dans une nouvelle enquête virtuose, mêlant musique et droit romain, philosophie et histoire de l’assurance, psychanalyse et théologie, Laurent de Sutter nous rappelle combien craindre le danger est se faire l’écho de la crainte d’un pouvoir pour qui la sécurité est la meilleure manière de se perpétuer. Ce n’est jamais nous que le danger effraie, mais ceux qui aimeraient gérer notre m...

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...

(image source: EUTopia ) EUTopia launches a call for postdoctoral fellowships with one of the partner institutions. One of the strategic axes (Welfare & Inclusion) allows proposals on legal research. Feel free to contact a CORE-supervisor. More information here .

   (image: dr. Bruyère) dr. Elisabeth Bruyère joined us as of 14 September to accompany the EUTopia Connected Learning Community: Legal History , which will work on "Labour Migration" in the academic year 2022-2023 with our partners of CY Paris, UPF Barcelona, Warwick, Ljubljana and Nova Lisboa.  dr. Bruyère studied in Liège and Glasgow. She obtained the degree of doctor of law at Ghent University in 2019  with a dissertation on François Laurent (supervisor: Prof. dr. Dirk Heirbaut), which will be published in the Iuris Scripta Historica  series of the Committee for Legal History of the Royal Flemish Academy for Arts and Sciences of Belgium. Discover more about her on her page .

The geopolitical background of the debates on international law in the mid-19th century Introduction In the 1840s, Europeans often expressed a deep mistrust of the international order that had been created in Europe after the Napoleonic Wars. This feeling resulted from the assertive and often illegal policies of the great powers which made a considerable number of people believe that the world was dominated by the strength of material power instead of written law. With this conviction, the questions of security, justice and international law became more and more debated in Europe. Some contemporaries desired to change the post- Napoleonic order by replacing it with a new one based on the principle of nationhood ensuring greater justice and a more stable peace among free European nations. During the same decade a similar debate on the political-legal coexistence with European countries spread in the United States. The goal of the paper is to reveal this important, but in historical and ...