The workshop Narrating Europe’s Pluralities: Unity, Diversity and Exceptionality organized by the Käte Hamburger Kolleg Münster “Einheit und Vielfalt im Recht” in September 2022 aimed to shed an interdisciplinary light on different narratives regarding Europe.
The welcome notes by the Kolleg’s directors and organizers addressed the phenomena of unity and pluralism within Europe. Setting an emphasis on the legal historical context, ULRIKE LUDWIG (Münster) brought up the antagonism of the common perspective on legal pluralism as deficit and transitional, whereas legal unity appears in good light often overseeing its limitation.
In using geography, identity and narratives as reference points, SEBASTIAN SPITRA (Vienna) gave his keynote on archaeology of European legal pluralism in remembrance of Michel Foucault. Starting from the example of the temple of Bel in Syria and its claims to different historical periods and cultures, Spitra pointed to some sort of cultural identification of Europe without reference to rigid geographical boundaries. He conceived the European space as a social construct, where law contributes to structure and frame space. Therefore, legal pluralism could be a tool to detect the emergence and change of spatial orders, as well as bring in a new perspective and language for describing hidden processes within traditional narratives. In testing legal pluralism as an analytic tool of writing histories of Europe, he preferred to use a broader view on legal pluralism as the existence of multiple normative systems within one society or geographical area, as well as within different societies, social groups, and geographical areas. Under the scope of identity, Spitra showed the hegemonic side of European legal pluralism in the context of restitution of cultural objects being acquired in colonial contexts. These claims encompass legal arguments and some sort of cultural identity. The main essence of today’s common legal justification by former European Empires for not restituting cultural property is that norms, customs, and values included in the cultural identity of people living in occupied or colonized territories are not formal law. However, there are indications that in colonial times these legal orders were in fact perceived by German constitutional scholars. Regarding narratives of the legal and political integration of Europe, Spitra demonstrated that this integration process could be seen as a success story of legal pluralism. Commonly, this process is seen as distinct and unrelated to the development of the global process of decolonization just at the same time, but Spitra revealed interesting hints for a connection within the Schuman Plan of 1950 concerning Africa as well as networks and biographies of key personalities of the European legal integration process. Thereby, he contributed a new perspective on the narrative of Europe’s legal and political integration. In his final remarks, Spitra concluded that Europe’s history cannot be described with a single narrative but instead with various plural narratives being interrelated, referential and sometimes hierarchic.
Followed up by the first session on uniting narratives regarding Europe’s ancient times, JACOB GILTAIJ (Amsterdam/Helsinki) and MARIAN HELM (Münster) introduced concepts concerning Roman law and legislation framing their own research. Giltaij presented how the principle of subsidiarity can illuminate the relation of universal and local law in Classical Roman law. Working with the Lex Irnitana and Gaius’ Institutes, he displayed the importance of the local law in the provinces, whereas the universal law and Roman agencies just step in for important cases. Helm used the frame of enabling consensus over private law for explaining the Early Roman Republic. The legislation of the Early Roman Republic can be characterized as a concession to the lower classes as well as being a compromise with the ruling families. The latter is often overseen by a strong focus to the magistrates and their actions. However, for Rome’s hegemony, the negotiation processes were especially relevant.
The second session, devoted to narratives of diversity and their interaction, brought together a large scope of research. The presentation of JAN HOFFROGGE (Münster) dealt with the depiction of the history of the European Union in European schoolbooks, showing no common European narrative. Instead, Hoffrogge found in the five analyzed schoolbooks of Wallonia, France, Flanders, Netherlands, and Baden-Württemberg a plurality in contextualization as well as in dealing with the origins and challenges of the European Union. Surprisingly, the only unitary understanding concerns the topic of migration as a current challenge for the European Union. Leaving schoolbook education, VILLE ERKKILÄ (Helsinki) introduced moral education within the German Democratic Republic (GDR). He presented different periods of continuity and change of law and morals, regarding common property in the socialist dictatorship. This way goes from an emphasis of legalism, with an accent to morality, to a legalistic reimposition of the administration of justice by socialist moral and socialist legal consciousness. Erkkilä concluded that GDR’s legal culture displays dynamics between law and society in an exceptional way. The final speaker of this session, VILLE SUURONEN (Tampere) gave some reflections on the Banality of Evil by Hannah Arendt and the uses of history. Starting with a comparison of Arendt’s portrayal of Eichmann with newer biographies, he concluded that these are mostly corresponding. In terms of the Nazi ideology, Suuronen suggested that there might be an influence of Arendt’s view on the later scholarship.
The last session of the day targeted the exceptionality of the world of belief, and stretched over a political, a philosophical and a legal perspective. ZOЁ JAY (Helsinki) presented her early findings on the structural element of subsidiarity in the European human rights system. By analyzing the views of the judges of the European Court of Human Rights and the political actors, she found for both an emphasis on diversity. On the one hand, the judges conceive subsidiarity as a value, so that in case the national order fails, the European institutions step in as an overarching framework. On the other hand, political actors imagine subsidiarity more as a responsibility. This harmony is contrasted by an annoyance of subsidiarity by a lot of local people. MARIANNE SANDELIN (Helsinki) introduced Joseph de Maistre and his favor for pluralism facing the unifying tendencies of the Enlightenment. Commonly seen in relation to totalism and proto-fascism, Sandelin illustrated de Maistre’s ideas as questioning the Enlightenment and supporting local systems. In that way, he can be conceived as a nationalist with a religious background, not supporting any diversity within the national territories. Finally, she was building a bridge to today’s world where universalism and unity of Europe is still a current topic. KAROLINA STENLUND (Helsinki) contributed to the legal perspective by making the argument that legal pluralism in the European Union is only possible if the member states are regulating a subject at hand through the same “code words” framed by the European Union. As an example, she used the case of Sweden and Finland being criticized for not completely implementing a framework decision in criminal law due to a different traditional understanding of it as a political issue.
The next day started with the keynote by STEFANIA GIALDRONI (Padua), focusing on the enigma of the medieval Lex Mercatoria. In questioning this phenomenon under the narratives of unity, diversity, and exceptionality, Gialdroni concluded its fitting to the narrative of unity, simultaneously focusing on the plurality of local mercantile customs. Either Lex Mercatoria arose by a bottom-up development of mercantile customs, or a top-down development based on statues and contracts unified by the binding factor of Ius Commune. While the Italian sources show an existing fear of the merchants to end up in the hands of jurists and their unfitting Roman law, the German sources contain foreign words, tracing back to Roman Latin legal language. To answer the question concerning this evolution, Gialdroni introduced her current research project MICOLL [Migrating commercial law and language. Rethinking lex mercatoria (11th-17th century)]. This project analyzes the development of commercial law by the tool of historical linguistics, investigating medieval and early modern legal sources. A preliminary hypothesis was that the unifying development in commercial law is probably found in between the two extremes, with merchants having their own customs for dealing with problems and jurists stepping in for more complex cases.
The fourth session about narratives of unity and their controversial started with a presentation by KAIUS TUORI (Helsinki) about Roman law and its changing views in European pasts. Roman law narratives have been recurrently questioned by the scholarship, since the discipline has been considered as alien to current systems, judged immoral, against customs, or finally loved as progressive. Considering the discussions of the European narrative in legal history, Tuori asked, if there is a need for a new Roman law narrative formed as the ancient law of the Romans or the law of the European space. Interestingly, the following discussion was somehow shaped by an unease of the participants to give up the old Roman law narrative. BENJAMIN SEEBRÖKER (Münster) gave a talk about homicide rates in Europe and the popular narrative of a long-term decline. In sum, he stated that this narrative is largely simplified, as different practices in the methods of analyzing homicides led to different findings and the contextualization of found numbers was important in times with vague juridical boundaries. Therefore, Seebröker pleaded for a nuanced picture, recognizing its worse portability to the public opinion. The session closed with QUENTIN VERREYCKEN (Louvain) on the power to pardon in Europe, as a seemingly coherent state-related executive tool for correcting judicial decisions over the last decades. Especially in the medieval period, the power to pardon was not merely the unification of state power, but the plural negotiation process between all the parties at place.
The next session on diversity within the framework of universal values so as divergent realities and integration began with a talk by KOSTADIN KARAVASILEV (Münster). He presented his anthropological work on the use of human rights to challenge legal incapacitation of people with mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities in Bulgaria. In an actual case from Bulgaria, Karavasilev observed lawyers preferring to use the human rights system for building up their case in favor of a person with mental issues because of the rigid socialistic influenced Bulgarian laws. This finding was framed under the term of legal plurality due to the clashing norm systems of Bulgaria and human rights. Next speaker, LENA KLOS (Münster) gave a presentation on narratives of dependence for the relationship of the Kingdom of Westphalia and the French Empire in Napoleonic times. After describing the common historical concepts of satellite kingdom and model state, she pointed to the consequences of these concepts, directing the focus away from the Kingdom of Westphalia towards the French Empire and leading in a strong top-down view. Instead of misleading narratives of complete subordination, Klos was pleading for a balanced view risking a deeper view into the peripheral zones of empires, like the Kingdom of Westphalia, and the communication processes of actors within.
Coming to the end of the workshop, the last session on exceptionality in relation to intersectional identities and narratives across boundaries was opened by CLARA HARDER (Cologne). Her talk was devoted to the medieval European marriage pattern, introducing two perspectives of its origin. A perspective emphasizing the unification of marriage law in the High Middle Ages is opposed by a perspective underlining the existence of the European marriage pattern already in the Early Middle Ages with a plural normative order. Harder was favoring a plural view on this phenomenon, noticing law and actual practices. The last presentation by TUUKKA BRUNILA (Turku), focused on narrating state sovereignty with a special emphasis of the last years’ pandemic. He conceived sovereignty as a normative concept, being historically influenced by a view of the monarch as an original, unifying, centralized form of power and in contrast to a republican concept. Looking at the empirical research within the pandemic years, he found out that even in a crisis the concept of sovereignty was not completely performed in most countries.
In short, the conference gave speakers as well as participants an interdisciplinary forum to discuss a variety of narratives related to Europe so that finally everyone hold its own part in Narrating Europe’s Pluralities.
Conference overview:
Ulrike Ludwig (Münster) / Emilia Mataix Ferrándiz (Leioa) / Zoë Jay (Helsinki): welcome notes
Sebastian Spitra (Vienna): keynote – an archaeology of european legal pluralism. geography, identity, narratives
Session 1: unity – what have the ancient ever done for us?
Jacob Giltaij (Amsterdam/Helsinki): separating the universal and the local. ideas of subsidiarity in classical roman law?
Marian Helm (Münster): enabling consensus. the legislation of the early roman republic
Session 2: diversity – narratives and interaction
Jan Hoffrogge (Münster): how is the history of the european union presented in european schoolbooks?
Ville Erkkilä (Helsinki): on continuity and change in a socialist dictatorship. a conceptual history of law and morals in the german democratic republic
Ville Suuronen (Tampere): reflections on the banality of evil and the uses of history
Session 3: exceptionality – the world of beliefs
Zoë Jay (Helsinki): competing visions of subsidiarity. diversity and responsibility in the european human rights system
Marianne Sandelin (Helsinki): the paradox of pluralism and universalism. joseph de maistre’s critique of the enlightenment
Karolina Stenlund (Helsinki): legal pluralism and the lack of a legislator’s will. the case of genocide denial
Stefania Gialdroni (Padua): keynote – unity, diversity or exceptionality? the enigma of the medieval lex mercatoria
Session 4: unity – narratives and their controversial origins
Kaius Tuori (Helsinki): roman law and the european pasts
Benjamin Seebröker (Münster): homicide rates in europe and the myth of a long-term decline
Quentin Verreycken (Louvain): the legal heritage of the power to pardon in europe. not one but many
Session 5: diversity – universal values, divergent realities and integration
Kostadin Karavasilev (Münster): using human rights to challenge legal incapacitation of people with mental illnesses and intellectual disabilities in Bulgaria
Lena Klos (Münster): narratives of dependence. kingdom of westphalia and the french empire
Session 6: exceptionality – intersectional identities and narratives across boundaries
Clara Harder (Cologne): from coercion to consent? medieval perspectives on the european marriage pattern
Tuukka Brunila (Turku): narrating state sovereignty