Constructing “Private” Historical Justice in State-Building

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 305-341
Author(s):  
Manal Totry-Jubran
Keyword(s):  
Legal History ◽  
State Building ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Arab Population ◽  
Historical Justice ◽  
Jewish Settlement ◽  
History Of ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
The One

AbstractWealthy philanthropic individuals operating within private law have been largely absent from the historical justice narrative of states in transition and, consequently, from normative discussion regarding the justification of their actions under the auspices of the market. This Article seeks to fill this void by examining the “private” historical justice of Jewish state-building prior to the establishment of Israel. Specifically, it focuses on the legal history of Baron Edmond de Rothschild’s settlement project during the Ottoman and Mandate periods and investigates the project’s normative implications. The Baron was a fundamental actor in the design of the Palestinian/Israeli space, as he supported existing Jewish settlements and established new ones. He also built several public institutions that continue to exist to date. I argue that the Baron’s settlement project needs to be addressed from a multidimensional aspect with regard to different groups that were affected by it. On the one hand, his settlement project was just towards the Jewish settlement because it provided a shelter for Jewish immigrants who fled Europe, and it realized the Jews’ right of self-determination. On the other hand, his project resulted in the coercive displacement of an underprivileged local Arab population called the fellaheen and unjustly infringed on their territorial rights.

scholarly journals Review of Collective Liability in Islam: The ʿĀqila and Blood-Money Payments by Nurit Tsafrir

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 145-148
Author(s):  
Omar Anchassi
Keyword(s):  
State Formation ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Financial Burden ◽  
Individual Responsibility ◽  
Stressed Group ◽  
Group Loyalty ◽  
History Of ◽  
Blood Money ◽  
The One ◽  
Subsequent Modification

A man came before al-Hajjaj (d. 95/714) complaining that his house had been demolished and his stipend (ʿaṭāʾ) suspended because of the misdemeanours of a fellow tribesman. ‘That’s too bad’, the governor replied, ‘have you not heard the poet say: ‘…it might be that someone is seized for the sin of his tribesman/while the one who commits the deed escapes’?’ ‘God rectify the governor’, the man replied, ‘I have heard God say otherwise.’ ‘How so?’ al-Hajjajasked. The man recited: ‘“O Minister! He has an aged father, so take one of us in his place: we see you as one of the virtuous.” He [Joseph] said, “We seek refuge in God that we should seize someone other than him in whose possession our [stolen] goods were found; otherwise, we would be of the wrongdoers”’ (Q. 12:78–79). Al-Hajjajordered that the man’s house be rebuilt, his stipend restored, and that a crier announce ‘God has spoken the truth, and the poet has lied!’ As this anecdote stresses, and al-Hajjaj pointedly recognises, the principle of individual responsibility is crucial to Islam’s moral weltanschauung. It marks a significant departure from jāhilī ethics, which were tribal in character and stressed group loyalty to the detriment of all else: ‘Succour your brother, oppressor or oppressed’. Nurit Tsafrir’s brilliantly researched monograph on the institution of the ʿāqila, its adoption and subsequent modification under the Umayyads and the Hanafī School, sheds much needed light on this development, and on how the careful reading of legal and other sources can allow for the reconstruction of aspects of social and legal history. The ʿāqila is the group responsible for the payment of blood-money in cases of non-intentional homicide or injury. Jurists conceded that while its origins are indeed jāhilī, the Prophet confirmed (aqarra) this institution, rendering it properly Islamic. That those not responsible for offences should still bear the financial burden of compensation clearly reflects the tribal context of the Prophet’s mission, and seemingly contradicts, Tsafrir observes, the principle of individual responsibility, a tension jurists alternately recognised and explained away (2–3). The Hijaz had no history of state formation prior to Islam, and as generations of Islamicists have remarked, the resulting law of homicide resembles a civil more than it does a criminal wrong (8). According to the jurists, it in fact belongs to a composite category, since the perpetrator is required to atone for their sin irrespective of any compensation (15).

Carta sine litteris – kora középkori okirathasználat és historiográfia

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-58
Author(s):  
Tamás Nótári
Keyword(s):  
Legal History ◽  
Historical Reality ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One

In the work De Europa by Enea Silvio Piccolomini, book no 20, regarding the history of Carinthia, stands recorded the story of prince Ingo, who, according to the legend, contributed significantly by way of his wit to the spreading of Christianity. This study presents the circumstances in which the Conversio Bagoariorum et Carantanorum, which contains an earlier record of the legend, came into being, and it examines the possible existence in historical reality of prince Ingo and his princely title. In the following, the author analyses the possible meaning and the significance to legal history of the term carta sine litteris (a charter without letters), which appears in other sources of the legend but not in the one recounted by Enea Silvio Piccolomini. Finally, the author presents the literary precursors to the legend of prince Ingo and his role in the Conversio as well as the path the legend took until being recorded by Enea Silvio.

Zheng Junli, Complicity and the Cultural History of Socialist China, 1949–1976

2006 ◽  
Vol 188 ◽  
pp. 1048-1069 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul G. Pickowicz
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
State Building ◽  
The Other ◽  
Great Leap Forward ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Party State ◽  
Mao Era

This article explores cultural producation during the Mao era (1949–76) by focusing on the evolving relationship between artists and the party-state. The emphasis is on state direction of art in the all-important film industry. From 1949, well-known bourgeois Republican-era artists willingly began the complicated, painful and sometimes deadly process of adjusting to Communist Party state building, nation building and political domination. The career of influential film director Zheng Junli is examined as a case study of creative and strategic accommodation to new circumstances on the one hand, and of complicity on the other. Zheng is seen in his dual and contradictory roles as both trusted, ever loyal insider and unreliable, even degenerate, outsider. His Mao-era films, especially the spectacular Great Leap Forward production of Lin Zexu, are analysed in terms of their political thrust and reception in the difficult-to-predict world of the People's Republic.

Queer Legal History: A Field Grows Up and Comes Out

2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (02) ◽  
pp. 537-559 ◽  
Author(s):  
Felicia Kornbluh
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Legal History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Military Law ◽  
The One ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The New Deal

This essay examines recent scholarship on the legal history of sexuality in the United States. It focuses on Margot Canaday's The Straight State: Sexuality and Citizenship in Modern America (2009) and Marc Stein's Sexual Injustice: Supreme Court Decisions from Griswold to Roe (2010). It also reviews recent work on the history of marriage, including Sarah Barringer Gordon's The Spirit of the Law: Religious Voices and the Constitution in Modern America (2010) and George Chauncey's Why Marriage? The History Shaping Today's Debate Over Gay Equality (2004), and the history of military law Defending America: Military Culture and the Cold‐War Court Martial (2005), by Elizabeth Lutes Hillman. The essay argues that this scholarship is significant because it offers a different view of sex and power than the one derived from the early writing of Michel Foucault. “Queer legal history” treats the liberalism of the 1960s‐1970s as sexually discriminatory as well as liberatory. It underlines the exclusions that were part of public policy under the federal G.I. Bill and the New Deal welfare state.

Ethnic Politics in Minority Dominant Regimes

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-63
Author(s):  
Miaad Hassan
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Identity ◽  
National Identity ◽  
Ethnic Conflict ◽  
Ethnic Politics ◽  
State Building ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Minority Government ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
Inclusive Governance

This article attempts to answer the question of why ethnic identity rather than national identity is more likely to be salient after an ethnic majority overcomes a dominant minority rule? Does an ethnic majority succeeding a dominant minority pursue an authentic representative government or does it reinvigorate its own ethnic identity through the pursuit of ethnic politics? Ethnic minority governance inevitably raises questions of legitimacy and inclusivity. Even in secular democracies, where courts protect citizen rights, democracy is far from perfect, but in countries that divide along ethnicity, religion, sector, or tribal loyalty, the history of all-inclusive governance is not encouraging. Typically, minority rule in non-democratic countries tends to despotism and autocracy. Therefore, the policies of dominant minority regimes scarcely differ from those of majoritarian governments, and outcomes can also vary dramatically. By comparing dominant minority rule in three cases—Iraq, Syria, and Bahrain1—I analyze how ethnic conflict is prevalent and prolonged in countries where ethnic minorities rule and how the outcome ultimately impacts state national identity. I maintain that ethnic identity issues and ethnic conflict do not resolve with majoritarian rule. In fact, if a majoritarian party assumes power after a dominant minority government, it will likely consolidate its own identity and pursue ethnic politics by way of an ethnocultural form of self-determination. Theoretically, this article contributes to the debate on the incompatibility of ethnicity and nationalism on the one hand, and with nation and state building on the other.

VLADIMIR JABOTINSKY AND POPULATION TRANSFERS BETWEEN EASTERN EUROPE AND PALESTINE

2018 ◽  
Vol 62 (2) ◽  
pp. 495-517 ◽  
Author(s):  
GIL S. RUBIN
Keyword(s):  
Eastern Europe ◽  
Minority Rights ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Arab Population ◽  
Jewish Refugees ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Right ◽  
Second World

AbstractDrawing on new archival findings, this article argues that shortly after the outbreak of the Second World War, Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder and leader of the right-wing Revisionist Zionist movement, had begun to advocate for the transfer of the Arab population from Palestine – an aspect of his thought previously unknown. Jabotinsky's support for population transfers runs counter to his lifelong political thought. Prior to the war, Jabotinsky was a staunch advocate of minority rights for Jews in Europe and for extensive autonomy for the Arab population in Palestine. This article argues that Jabotinsky's shift was a product of the war. Jabotinsky believed that millions of Jewish refugees would be prevented from returning to their pre-war homes in eastern Europe and would immigrateen masseto Palestine; to resettle these refugees, the Arab population, he argued, ‘would have to make room’. Attentively following debates on population transfers in Europe, Jabotinsky concluded that the era of minority rights had come to an end and envisioned an increasingly ethno-national Jewish state. By highlighting the eastern Europe context in Jabotinsky's thought, this article emphasizes the importance of studying the history of Zionism alongside the transformation of the nation-state in eastern Europe in the 1940s.

scholarly journals Capitalist nationalism and Zionist state-building, 1920s-1950s: Chocolate and diamonds in Mandate Palestine and Israel

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-62
Author(s):  
David De Vries
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cultural Beliefs ◽  
State Building ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Key Factor ◽  
History Of ◽  
Essential Resource ◽  
Jewish Immigrants ◽  
North African Countries ◽  
The Impact

The nationalism of business is a crucial issue in the history of British-ruled Palestine (1917-1947) and post-1948 Israel. The importation of Jewish private capital into Palestine was a key factor in shaping the economic development of the Zionist settler project, and in creating an advantage over the Arab community. The Zionism of the Jewish firms was an essential aspect of the political consensus in the Jewish polity and its state-building aspirations. Moreover, the participation of companies in World War II, the war of 1948, and in the establishment of Israel was an essential resource that was mobilized for the Zionist economic expansion and triggered the absorption of Holocaust survivors and Jewish immigrants from Arab and North African countries. These national expressions of private firms harbour a complexity. They illustrate political and cultural beliefs, and an active affiliation to a national movement. At the same time, they are instrumental in the sense that firms benefitted materially and culturally from this association. Furthermore—and particularly relevant to states that have emerged from a colonial past—these practices do not evolve only from the businesses themselves but also from the impact of statist structures on the nationalism of firms. These aspects are discussed through the prism of chocolate manufacturing and the diamond-cutting industry.

scholarly journals THE COMPARATIVE LEGAL HISTORY OF LIMITATION AND PRESCRIPTION

Obiter ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eltjo Schrage
Keyword(s):  
Legal History ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Oliver Wendell Holmes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law ◽  
The One

Within both the civil law and the common law (as well as in mixed legal systems), there are means of acquiring and losing rights, or of freeing ourselves from obligations with the passage of time. The reason for this is at least twofold: on the one hand, for a claimant, a dispossessed owner or a creditor, limitation and prescription provide stimuli for bringing the action; on the other, this sanction upon the negligence of the claimant implies in many cases a windfall for the defendant. If a creditor is negligent in protecting his assets, the law at a certain stage no longer protects him or her. As Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said aptly some 100 years ago: “Sometimes it is said that, if a man neglects to enforce his rights, he cannot complain if, after a while, the law follows his example”.

7. Zionism in a Jewish state, 1948–1967

2016 ◽  
pp. 64-80
Author(s):  
Michael Stanislawski
Keyword(s):  
Real Life ◽  
Jewish State ◽  
Arab Population ◽  
Declaration Of Independence ◽  
The Real ◽  
History Of ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
State Of Israel

After the declaration of independence, the history of Zionism became entangled with the history of the new State of Israel. But Zionism as an ideology continued to evolve. Challenges for the new state under the leadership of David Ben-Gurion included: the local Arab population; immigration; differences between the Ashkenazic and Mizrachi Jews; schooling; and ongoing squabbles between the Labor Zionists and the Revisionists. Zionism had to face the real-life implications of its definition of the Jews as a nation and not a religion. The “Who is a Jew?” debate continued to erode the consensus of what it meant to be a Jew in a secular Jewish state.

scholarly journals Aleksandar Soloveov as an investigator of Baltazar Bogisic's heritage and of legal and historical documents from the 15th till the 19th century

2007 ◽  
pp. 71-89
Author(s):  
Aleksandar Miljkovic
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Legal History ◽  
Royal Academy ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
History Of ◽  
The One ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Unknown Manuscript

This paper discusses Aleksandar Solovyev?s research which he primarily carried out in Bogisic?s archive in Cavtat, as well as the research including other sources relevant for the legal history of our nation in the Dubrovnik region, in other coastal areas and in the countries in their immediate hinterland; all the documents belong to the period from the 15th till the 19th century. Although he discovered most of these documents in Bogisic?s archive, Solovyev got documents from other sources, too. Solovyev published the greatest part of these materials in the editions of The Serbian Royal Academy, but he also published some treatises and articles in the following magazines: Arhiv za pravne i drustvene nauke, Godisnjica Nikole Cupica and some others. Furthermore, the author particularly underlines the fact that Solovyev - in his introductory texts accompanying his publications - also did the scientific and critical analysis of the collected historical material. Studying Bogisic?s archive in Cavtat, Solovyev also got interested in the very personality of Baltazar Bogisic. In his articles in Arhiv za pravne i drustvene nauke, Solovyev particularly presented his discoveries about Bogisic?s archive, he also found an unknown manuscript of Bogisic?s, the one about a law project written for the rebels from Herzegovina when they rose against the Turks for the liberation of the Serbian nation in 1875. In his collaboration with the Herzegovian rebells, Bogisic expressed his Serbian patriotic feelings, too. As for his nationality, Bogisic felt to be a Serb (?a Serb catholic?, as he used to say), but also a member of the South Slavic nation. Thus Solovyev in one of his articles (in French) described Bogisic?s activity in the elaboration of the law projects for the newly liberated Bulgaria, which remained less known in our country. Discussing Bogisic?s patriotic activity, too, the author also presents other facts about his nationality. Although the results of Solovyev?s research work discussed in this paper were available to our scientific public, our scholars have not written about them so far.

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