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The Inter-American Human Rights System: notable achievements and enduring challenges
No full textIn the teaching, as well as in the historiography, of international human rights, regional human rights systems, with the partial exception of the European Court of Human Rights, remain marginalised. This is regrettable for a number of reasons; not least because the richness of regional experiences with human rights offers us a more nuanced understanding of the enduring attraction of human rights around the world (as well as a better sense of the diversity and contentious political struggles that characterise them), than that prevailing in the current literature proclaiming the endtimes of human rights (Hopgood 2013; Moyn 2012).
Nowhere can this be seen better than in the region of the Americas, where the Inter-American Human Rights System (IAHRS) emerged to play a vanguard role in the development of the modern international human rights regime. This short piece briefly reviews the current state of the IAHRS, and highlights its key achievements, as well as some of the many challenges it faces. It should be pointed out, from the outset, that any list of achievements and challenges inevitably depends on perspective, the specific yardstick adopted, and, in particular, the understanding of what could be reasonably expected from the IAHRS
Report for FLARE Group FLAG the Foreign Law Guide Update 2013
No full textFinal report on the FLAG Foreign Law Guide rebuild project compiled and written by Gerry Power (FLAG Update Project Manager) for the FLAG rebuild project at the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies. The report and appendices were accepted by the FLARE Foreign Law Research group at their meeting on 30th July 2014
Biographical Research and Institutional Archives: the Case of the Inns of Court
No full textThe Holy Grail for most biographical researchers is a large hoard of unpublished personal papers such as letters or diaries. In reality that quest will usually be in vain. Research must instead focus on institutional sources. Because of their long history and pervasive role in the English legal profession, the Inns of Court and their records are likely to be the starting point for many legal biographical research projects. They also very usefully illustrate what the biographical researcher is likely to gain (and unlikely to gain) from using institutional archives in general. The article goes on to describe the main classes of records held in the Inns’ archives and what they can yield
"Every picture tells a story": picturing judicial biography
No full textIn this article Leslie Moran turns to objects that are often marginal to legal biography and neglected by those engaging in legal biographical projects; pictures. Drawing upon his previous and current work on judicial portraits the article outlines three biographical dimensions of these legal images. The first explores the legal biography potential of what lies within the frame of a judicial portrait. The second focuses upon the biographical dimensions of the process of portrait making. The third draws upon the now well established insight that the meaning of the object, the judicial portrait, is not generated exclusively by, or confined to, what is to be found within the frame of the picture. This provides an opportunity to consider the role of pictures as a method for use by those engaging in legal biographical projects
La inclusión y la exclusión política y literaria: Josefa Acevedo de Gómez (1803-1861).
No full textEn el trabajo que sigue propongo demostrar que la memoria de la figura y obra de Josefa Acevedo está fuertemente imbricada con la memoria, o más bien desmemoria, histórica de Colombia, y el olvido de la entidad política e identidad colectiva llamada Nueva Granada. El nombre de Nueva Granada significó, por lo menos hasta el siglo XX, una ideología y programa política específica - el republicanismo democrático constitucional representado por Francisco de Paula Santander, que luchaba contra del centralismo de Bolívar, la Gran Colombia, y los conservadores. El reconocimiento de los méritos de la familia Acevedo, incluido Josefa, dependía por lo tanto de las fortunas del partido liberal
London pride in context: Treasures and the library treasures volume in Britain today
No full textThe treasures volume, showcasing rare, beautiful, or significant items, is proliferating in 21st century Britain.
This is despite the alternative of the World Wide Web to provide a cheaper, quicker, easier way for
libraries to publicize their choicest holdings. But what is the treasures volume really doing, and how
indicative are its contents of our most valuable items? This article is based upon the author’s experience of
selecting 60 items for the 2012 treasures volume, Senate House Library, University of London. It describes the
rationale behind the choices and contextualizes within the genre in the United Kingdom more widely,
looking at other treasures volumes and at web displays, to generalize about libraries’ presentations of
themselves. It notes emphasis on unique, distinctive, and relevant items and on institutional identity, and
interprets the modern treasures volume as a political document to justify libraries’ existence by highlighting
their distinguishing features
'The Oriental Jennings' An Archival Investigation into Sir Ivor Jennings’ Constitutional Legacy in South Asia
No full textThe article investigates the legacy of British constitutionalist Sir Ivor Jennings (1903-1965) in South Asia. In 1940, when Jennings moved to Sri Lanka, a new phase of prolific writing on the laws of the British Empire and Commonwealth began for him, together with a practical engagement with constitution-making experiences in decolonising nations across Asia and Africa. The archival material relating to Jennings’ work on postcolonial constitutional issues forms part of the collection of Jennings’ Private Papers held at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies in London. This article seeks to explain why this material has until now remained so under-researched
Alternative Visions of Legal Biography: An Abstract
No full textBiography is booming. William Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Steve Jobs and Billy Conolly, for example, have all been the subject of recent biographies that have sold and earned millions. General biographies, such as The Hare with Amber Eyes have sold over 400,000 copies, as have Celebrity biographies and autobiographies. While political biographies may not reach these dizzy heights, they remain popular, as is evidenced by John Campbell on Margaret Thatcher, Robert Caro on Lyndon Johnson, Katherine Frank’s Indira: The life of Indira Nehru Gandhi, Roy Jenkins on Churchill, Ben Pimlot on Harold Wilson and the Queen, and by the diaries of Harold Macmillan, Richard Crossman, Tony Benn and Chris Mullin (amongst others). Artists of diverse sorts, philosophers, historians and even economists have all attracted a steady stream of admirable biographies, from Bagehot and Beveridge to Warhol and Wittgenstein. At first blush, the contrast with legal biography (other than in the United States) could not be more striking. Under this optic, a few pearls glitter in the mud, such as Nichola Lacey on HLA Hart and R. Gwynedd Parry on David Hughes Parry (UK); Charles Herbert Curry on Sir Francis Forbes, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of New South Wales and Leonie Star on Julius Stone (Australia); and Philip Girard on Bora Laskin and David Ricardo Williams on Chief Justice Sir Lyman Poore Duff (Canada). However, many have been written by unabashed admirers, based on inadequate or undisclosed sources, and published by small obscure presses where they rapidly, and perhaps deservedly, fell out of print. According to this view, the history of legal biography is largely one of failure. It is principally a manifestation of the conservative tradition of legal history and legal scholarship. In this paper, I problematize the notion that the history of legal biography is largely a story of failure and conservatism. Some of the key methodological and theoretical perspectives underlying legal and other forms of biography are described and analysed. I point to long-standing and recent work that embodies visions of biography that suggest ways of expanding the repertoire of legal biography and socio-legal scholarship, and which provide important insights into “what does legal biography add?” My comments derive, in part, from the oral history of English legal education and scholarship that I commenced in 1986, and whose interviewees include LCB (Jim) Gower, HLA Hart, Tony Honore, Peter Stein and William Twining