Legal Histories Beyond the State: Work-in-Progress Seminar 3: 'The Grand Dichotomies: Sovereignty, the Public/Private Divide, and Company States'

Many scholars in the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (LCIL), the Centre for History and Economics (CHE), Cambridge Centre for Political Thought (CCPT), POLIS and the Law Faculty are engaged in work in which legal, international and global histories interact. To foster a scholarly community across these institutions, and to enrich the exchanges between law, history and IR on these themes, the CHE/LCIL/CCPT Global Legal Histories Project is inaugurating a regular work-in-progress (WIP) seminar for junior and early-career researchers.

Some sessions will be devoted to discussion of new, published work in the field, and others to the sharing of works-in-progress, whether draft articles, chapters or book prospectuses, with a core group of scholars from a variety of disciplines.

Over time, we hope to develop a community of scholars who engage in a sustained dialogue about each other’s research and also about broader methodological or thematic questions that cut across the fields of global, international and imperial histories, and histories of political thought, with legal dimensions. We also encourage work which otherwise bears on law and ordering across borders. Many of us focus primarily in the 18th–20th century, but earlier periods are also welcome.

If you are interested in receiving updates and term cards, please contact Dr Megan Donaldson (md718@cam.ac.uk)

Programme for the Easter term 2017

Starred sessions are being held outside the usual Weds 5.15pm time. As usual we will have formal proceedings for about an hour and 15 minutes at each session, and then all are welcome to stay for a glass of wine or tea/coffee. All sessions will be in the Old Library or Finley Library, Lauterpacht Centre for International Law.

Session 1 - Weds 3 May, 5.15pm - Dr Duncan Kelly (Reader in Political Thought), 'Histories of International Law and the First World War'

Session 2 - Weds 10 May, 3-4.15pm - Professor Eyal Benvenisti (Whewell Professor of International Law), 'Taming Democracy: Codifying the Laws of War to Restore the European Order, 1856-1874' (work-in-progress co-authored with Dr Doreen Lustig, Tel Aviv University)

Session 3 - Thurs 1 June, 3.30-4.45pm - Professor Jason Sharman (Sir Patrick Sheehy Professor of International Relations), 'The Grand Dichotomies: Sovereignty, the Public/Private Divide, and Company States'

Session 4 - Weds 7 June, 5.15-6.30pm - Professor Tim Harper (Professor of the History of Southeast Asia), on anarchists and their cross-border legal encounters in the 1920s (excerpts from a forthcoming manuscript).