Contemporary History of Law: Special Focus Peace as a Global Legal Project

Please note that the lecture from Wednesday, 12. March 2025 is rescheduled on Thursday, 06. March 2025 from 08:00 to 09:45 and will take place in room KOL-F-101.

Please note that the lecture from Wednesday, 09. April 2025 is rescheduled on Thursday, 03. April 2025 from 08:00 to 09:45 and will take place in room KOL-F-101.

Lecture in the Master of Law programs: UZH Course Catalogue

The lecture will take place on site and streaming (zoom) will be offered.

Please not that there will not be any podcasts this semester.
 

The special focus of this semester’s course will be on the analysis of the creation of the modern idea of peace and the universal implication for the construction of a peaceful world society in a legal historical perspective. The course particularly draws attention towards the time from the 18th to the 20th century, scrutinizing the general theories of the modern state and the creation of the international law system. The complex and contradictory relations between violence and law, war and law, race and law, and finally the (in)equality of men under the law will be also addressed. The course will outline the legal consequences of these aforementioned entanglements, interactions and collisions. It will analyse how these consequences relate to the nature and construction of the social order from a legal historical perspective.

Reading of primary sources combined with a critical reconstruction of law and examining the works of jurists in their historical context will form part of the course.

After the successful completion of this course students can understand the social and cultural mechanisms of law in their historical contexts; to comprehend and critically explain the ways how law structures state systems and operates within international systems and therefore; to understand, discuss and explain how some concepts become «legal», and to analyse their fundamental influence on the social order from a historical perspective.

Sources and reading materials will be uploaded together with the slides. Please find slides, sources and reading materials on:

OLAT