Legal Transfer in the Common Law World: India
Professor Stefan Vogenauer, Dr Donal Coffey and Dr Jean-Philippe Dequen have just returned from a week-long trip to India. They all work in the Institute's new research field 'Legal Transfer in the Common Law World'.
The programme included a two-day international workshop, co-organised and hosted by NALSAR University of Law in Hyderabad. NALSAR, or oficially, the National Academy of Legal Studies and Research, is one of India's top law schools. This workshop, part of the bilateral 'Initiation Workshops' scheme promoted by the Max Planck Society, was an opportunity for Max Planck- and other German-based researchers to exchange views on South Asian legal history with their Indian counterparts. Dr Dequen presented a paper on 'Prerequisites to English Legal Transfers in India: the Tricky Question of Sovereignty Between the 17th and 19th Centuries'; Dr Coffey spoke on 'Crown and Commonwealth: Legal and Constitutional Questions Arising in the Commonwealth of Nations as a Result of India's Decision to Declare a Republic'.
On the following day, Professor Vogenauer gave a lecture on 'Legal Transfer in the Common Law World' at the German House in New Delhi. The lecture was organised by the German Embassy, as one of their 'Science Circle Lectures'. As it happens, the next lecture in this series will be held, on 10 January 2017, by Professor Dieter Grimm, former Justice of the German Constitutional Court, who began his academic career at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History.
Finally, the three members of the Institute participated in the three-day LASSNET conference in New Delhi. LASSNET, the Law and Social Sciences Research Network, is co-ordinated by the Centre for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Its conferences, normally held every other year, bring together scholars and practitioners engaged in research and teaching of issues of law in different social sciences in South Asian context. The 2016 conference offered, among others, a variety of panels on aspects of Indian legal history. Professor Vogenauer spoke on the closing panel which was dedicated to 'The Scholar's role in editing Journals, Blogs, and Paper Series' where he draw on his experience as an editor of the American Journal of Legal History and Rechtsgeschichte - Legal History, both of which have their editorial offices at the Institute.