Roman Law Group: The hidden lever. Roman Law in Hersch Lauterpacht's doctrine of international law

Professor Maciej Jońca will be at Edinburgh Law School on Friday 13 November, talking about the Roman law that underpins the work of Hersch Lauterpacht. The session is hosted by the Roman Law Group, which sits within the school's Centre for Legal History.

Lauterpacht is one of the most significant British theorists of international law from the twentieth century, and the knighthood he received in 1956 helped cement his reputation as a champion of 'Victorian' legal values. His thinking was shaped by his studies in Lviv and Vienna during the first half of the century; by the time he arrived in the British Isles in 1923, he was intellectually fully formed. His first English study, Private Law Sources and Analogies of International Law, is deeply positivist and shows how many institutions the Romans devised for individuals were later expanded and applied to relations between states. In later works, he used Roman law as a point of reference to give international law a coherent structure.

The Roman Law Group is part of the Centre for Legal History at Edinburgh Law School, a research centre with a long tradition in the field. The Chair of Civil Law was founded in 1710, and civil law has been taught continuously since. The talk runs from 17:30 to 19:30 in Teaching Room 03 at Old College, and entry is free.