EMPIRES AND LAW: PRINCIPLES, PRACTICES 

UTRECHT 7-8-9 NOVEMBER 2008

Abstracts - in order of conference programme

Jill Harries (University of St Andrews, UK)

GOING OUTSIDE THE ORDER: ROMAN LAW FROM CITY-STATE TO EMPIRE
  This paper focuses on two elements of the transition of the Roman citizens’ law or ius civile from the context of the small city on the banks of the Tiber to its application in a so-called world empire. The first is the place of the citizen at the heart of ‘law’. The second is the impact of the legal interpreters or jurists on processes and perceptions of the transition from city-state to empire. In part I, the ius civile is discussed with reference to the first law-code of Rome, the Twelve Tables (c. 450 BCE); the importance of the separate status of the ius civile of the Romans; and potential problems of transition raised by this pride in distinctiveness and by the Rome-centred nature of Roman law as it evolved under the Roman Republic. Various modes of adaptation – judges’ decisions, the creation of parallel institutions, and the use of legal fictions, treating provincial land, for example ‘as if’ it were Roman – are outlined. The second part discusses the problems of interpretation that arise from the Rome-centredness of much juristic discourse; the survival of a special kind of adoption, adrogation, at Rome is cited as an example of the tenacity of ancient legal process in the capital. This provides background for discussion of the ‘order’, a term, which was juristic shorthand for the l egal processes and remedies provided by the Praetor’s Edict and a canonical group of public criminal statutes. It argues that what jurists called ‘extra ordinem’ was not ‘extraordinary’ in our sense but a means of explaining legal change in terms of the legal tradition. It is suggested that change was driven by court practice and what came to be ‘agreed’ as much as by imperial fiat. The third and final section makes some points of broader application. The validity of the ius civile did not depend on its constitutional context, and it proved remarkably resilient. Why? The emperor as an institution evolved out of the Roman Republic and emperors, even down to Justinian, were obliged to respond to a ‘republican ’ideology,which emphasised accessibility,account ability and respect on the part of all for the laws. Moreover, much imperial lawmaking was carried out in response to promptings from petitioners and judges; new law therefore evolved out of dialogue. And, though rendered largely invisible in Late Antiquity by their incorporation into the administration, the Roman jurists exploited their access to the emperor to continue their task of safeguarding the ius civile.

R. Kent Guy (University of Washington, US)

WHY DO EMPIRES KILL? (QING CHINA)
  One of the standard images of the oriental despot is of a monarch who creates a cringing and servile officialdom with constant threat of bodily punishment. The image is of course, the stuff of stereotype, but it has just enough truth that it can’t be completely dismissed. Conversely, recent writings on the Chinese empires have emphasized their rationality, at least in comparison with other early modern states, and the existence of civil law and vision of the public space. This image is also true enough, but just deceptive enough to require some correction. This paper proposes to consider the Chinese Empire’s relation to law by looking at how it punished its officials, when it employed a range of bureaucratic sanctions, and when it employed exile, corporal or even capital punishment. In particular, I will argue that the punishment of officials was governed by a framework of law, which was both rational and carefully graduated, but that this legal framework existed in a political order designed to preserve different imperatives than is the case in the West. Specifically, I will make this case by looking at one stratum of officials for which data on misdeeds and administrative punishments are readily available, the provincial governors of the eighteenth century Qianlong reign. For each governor who was punished there exists a fairly clear statement of the charges levied, and often an account of how these charges were considered and evaluated. Since biographies for many of these governors exist, it is possible to tell as well, what impact the conviction had on the officials’ subsequent career. This last issue was particularly important, since The Chinese empire often announced one set of punishments for public or political purposes, and quietly carry out another. It thus should become possible to assess in some detail the nature of the misdeed and the character of the punishment.

Engin Deniz Akarli (Brown University, US)

THE RULER AND LAW MAKING IN OTTOMAN-ISLAMIC LEGAL PRACTICE
  Empires were composite formations. They incorporated societies with different cultural and political traditions through various arrangements and levels of submission or accommodation. Changing conditions led to intermittent renegotiation and adjustment of these arrangements–particularly in the case of empires that endured several centuries. The law (in the sense of legal institutions and practices as well as rulings and regulations) played a crucial role in perpetuating an imperial order and sustaining the fluid social and political networks it comprised. A major challenge in this regard was to maintain the law’s claim to universality (hence consistency) along with its ability to accommodate differences in space and changes in time. One can argue that all major legal traditions, including the modern ones, face this challenge. However, pre-modern empires responded to it without the benefit of modern technologies and under socially more diverse circumstances than it is the case in modern integral (nation-) states. An examination of the ways in which the legal systems of the major pre-modern empires helped maintain a legitimate order in such pluralist environments should broaden our understanding of the place of law in human relationships. My paper focuses on the example of the Ottoman Empire from its origins in 1300 until 1839, when its legal system began to change in radically new ways. The Ottomans worked with the Islamic legal tradition but adapted it to their circumstances. I examine the practices that provided the system with a degree of consistency and predictability along with those that helped accommodate difference and change. Thus, centrally appointed judges oversaw the empire ’s relatively bureaucratic judiciary but with the aid of locally appointed deputies and assistants who remained in close contact with local conditions. The Islamic legal tradition allowed a significant degree of flexibility in the interpretation of norms but the Ottomans relied on the sovereign’s recognized authority to prefer one of the competing (learned) interpretations of the law to another in order to provide consistency and clarity in the implementation of the norms. Reliance on a standard set of legal texts and manuals in the training of judges and jurists in imperial colleges also helped provide a degree of consistency in legal practice and supervision. Relying on the authority that Islamic legal tradition allowed the sovereign; the Ottoman government also enacted its own laws and regulations pertaining to the management of public matters, such as taxation, land-tenure relations, certain aspects of criminal law, and the conduct of government personnel. Senior jurists, judges and bureaucrats trained in law prepared these regulations with a view to maintaining a degree of consistency within the overall legal system. However, “custom” served as a crucial reference in this legislative activity. Custom also helped justify the autonomies that various social collectivities (ranging from tribes, villages, urban quarters and guilds to large religious communities) enjoyed within the empire. The justification of “custom” as a source of right rested on its rootedness in the past but in practice it implied a “contractual consensus” among the people it involved. When this consensus broke down, its restoration or reformulation was incumbent upon the Ottoman courts, including the legal branch of the Imperial Council (which served as a high court), for they served as the place of appeal and final settlement of disputes between and within different social collectivities. The courts (at all levels) exercised this authority primarily to restore the consensus among the disputing parties by renegotiating its terms when need be. This emphasis on reconciliation as a means of maintaining social peace is one of the most distinctive aspects of Ottoman legal procedures and culture. The Ottoman legal system was largely successful in generating a sense of legitimacy and contributed to the longevity of Ottoman rule, but it had its flaws as well and did not always work as it was intended to do. Partly because of these flaws and partly because of reasons external to it, the legal system failed to alleviate certain tensions that undermined social peace. I touch upon these flaws and limitations as well in my paper.

Karl Härter (MPI für für europäische Rechtsgeschichte, Frankfurt, Germany)

THE 'PECULIAR LEGAL FRAMEWORK ’ OF THE HOLY ROMAN EMPIRE: IMPERIAL LAW, POLITICAL COMMUNICATION AND LEGAL PROCEDURE
  On the one hand the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation could be described as the pre-modern European Empire per se: it claimed to be the successor of the Roman Empire, its Emperor was considered as the only „Kaiser“ in Europe, it was anything but a „national“ state with defined boundaries,but comprised different regions,languages, religions and cultures from northern Italy to Denmark, from Belgium to Bohemia. On the other hand after the failure of the hegemonic policies of Charles V and the Thirty-Years War the Old Empire developed into a „monstro simile“ that lacked essential elements of an Empire: power, permanent military forces, expansion, colonies, taxes, an imperial capital etc. But with regard to the crucial function of law and political communication the Old Reich could well be described as a „new“ or „peculiar“ type of an Early Modern Empire mainly based on law (Recht). The imperial law (Reichsgesetze and Reichsrecht) was based on tradition, custom and negotiation between the Emperor and the imperial estates (Reichsstände) and as a legal framework left the members of the Old Empire enough „legal spaces“ for particular law/legislation (Partikularrecht) and their own court-systems. On the other hand imperial institutions like the Imperial Diet (Reichstag) and the Imperial Courts played a main role for the different members of the Empire to deal with (or solve) conflicts in a political public sphere or by legal procedure („Rechtsweg“). One effect was the emergence of juristic discourses and public law (öffentliches Recht)that tried to systematize and discuss the „constitutional nature“ of the Old Emp ire;another result was the so called process of „Verrechtlichung“ that brought enough stability for an Empire that lacked power. But the crucial role of law also hindered power politics and expansion. Throughout my paper I will argue that if law can be considered as an essential element of Empires, the Old Empire could be described as an early modern prototype of an Empire that functioned as a legal framework integrated different regions, languages, religions and cultures by providing options to deal with conflicts in a legal way as well as through the „constitutional“ imperial institutions for political communication and bargaining among its members. But with regard to the example of the Old Empire the conclusion could also be drawn that the growing import ance of law and legal procedure (the process of „Verrechtlichung“) fostered the decline of Empires which could or would not establish a „national legal system“.

Nancy Kollmann (Stanford University, US)

PUNISHMENT IN EARLY MODERN RUSSIA: BRANDING AND THE EXILE SYSTEM
  Branding criminals with semiotic markers of their criminal status or their crime has been practiced over many centuries in many societies, but the practice was particularly useful to early modern empires. Marking the bodies of criminals made it more possible for early modern states to identify the criminal and limit his or her mobility. This paper examines practices of branding in Russian criminal law and practice in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. It considers the relationship of branding and the judicial use of exile, explores the use of branding to confine criminals to their assigned point of exile (Siberia, the Urals, other points of forced labor), and analyzes the semiotic significance of the brands used. and how they changed over time.

Justyna Olko (Warsaw University, Poland)

AZTEC IMPERIAL LAW AND THE CONDUCT OF WAR
  My paper focuses on imperial law associated with the conduct of war in the Aztec empire. In this context law becomes an important means of state-building and territorial expansion, serving to promote and impose “civilized” customs, or justifying the punishment of rebellious vassals and those who are only potential subordinates or allies. I will also discuss duties and ritualized procedures performed by functionaries of justice, including executioners, as well as the role of imperial rulers as the source of ultimate justice and punishment.

Mayke de Jong (Utrecht University, Nl)

CAROLINGIAN CAPITULARIES: SYMBOLS OF ROYAL AUTHORITY AND SIGNS OF JUDICIAL PRACTICE.
  ‘Capitularies’ (capitularia – from capitula, chapters) are the most well-known offical political documents of the Carolingian period (c. 750-c.900). Although capitularies are heterogeneous, to say the least, these texts have most often been seen as a kind of legislation; the assumption was that capitularies originated during royal assemblies, as the result of the consultation by rulers of their magnates. the aristocracy, the so-called fideles (faithful men). This legalistic paradigm, most eloquently voiced by F.-L. Ganshof, went hand in hand with the idea that consensus fidelium (consent of the faithful men) mentioned in these texts were a sure sign of weakness in the ruler, who had an invariably antagonistic relation with his power-hungry aristocracy (Charlemagne could manage them, Louis the Pious could not). From the 1970s onwards, the legalistic paradigm has come in for much criticism, on the one hand from the German ‘new institutional history’ (Neue Verfassungsgeschichte) which denied any early medieval state formation (e.g. Hermann Nehlsen), and on the other from British historians who stressed the pragmatic/practical aspects of capitularies (Rosamond McKitterick) or the positive aspects of the collaboration between Carolingian rulers and their magnates for public order (Janet L. Nelson). This British perspective is radically different from the one still prevailing among German and German-oriented medievalists. Whereas the latter tend to deny the effectiveness of royal authority, and therefore perceive capitularies as mere ideological instruments used by kings and courtiers to bolster a weak royal authority (Jürgen Hannig), British historians, as well as their French colleagues, are more optimistic about the scope and effectiveness of early medieval state formation. Against this background, younger scholars are now freeing themselves from the traditional paradigms, concentrating on issues such manuscript tradition, precise contents, the context in which individual capitularies originated, their recipients and intended audience (Matthew Innes, Christina Pössel). In Germany (shades of the old theory that these texts represented ‘merely ideology’?) Hubert Mordek ’s pupils Arnold Bühler and Thomas Buck have stressed the religious nature of imporant capitularies and the participation of clerics in their drafting. The great variety of the material material turns out to be an important source of information concerning the ways in which the centre (the royal/imperial court) communicated with the localities and vice versa. The lowest common denominator of capitulary texts is the royal sponsorship of their publication and dissemination, says Christina Pössel (trained in Durham and Cambridge); those who helped to spread these texts – missi, counts, bishops, other magnates – shared in this royal authority, and they embodied it in the localities. When all was said and done, being entrusted with the ruler ’s voice on parchment singled the bearer out as a member of the true élite. The difference with the older legalistic paradigm is that capitularies are now seen as evidence of chains of communication between the court and the localities. Pertinent questions are asked about the specific group identity projected in capitularies, and about the reasons for disseminators and recipients to accept this identity as their own.

Nimrod Hurvitz (Ben Gurion University, Israel)

THE CONTRIBUTION OF EARLY ISLAMIC RULERS TO ADJUDICATION AND LEGISLATION
  Both Muslim sources and modern Islamic scholarship tend to pay little attention to the contribution of the caliphs to the articulation of Islamic legal doctrine as well as their role in adjudication. This paper aims to address this lacuna by investigating the manner that Umayyad and Abbasid rulers contributed to adjudication and legislation. The first part of this paper will describe the special courts that the rulers set up (named mazalim), in which the rulers themselves or their delegates presided. The mazalim courts did not operate in accordance to the prevalent procedures of shar`i law. The second part of the paper will examine the doctrinal basis of the mazalim courts and how this institution was discussed in Islamic legal literature. Based on this case study, the third part of the paper will suggest a general framework for the study of the contribution of rulers to Islamic law.

Ruth Macrides (University of Birmingham, UK)

TRIAL BY ORDEAL IN BYZANTIUM
  In the early thirteenth century, at a time soon after judicial ordeal was outlawed in the west at the Lateran council of 1215,the first case histories of unilateral ordeal,‘trial by red-hot iron’, appear in the acts of two Byzantine provincial bishops. In the middle of the century, at the trial for treason of the future emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, a duel is undertaken as a means of proof and application of the red-hot iron is suggested. This latter case has attracted the greatest attention among historians of Byzantium because of the status of the defendant. The question of the source and date of introduction of the unilateral and bilateral ordeals to Byzantium with its tradition of Roman law and legal practices has also exercised historians. In this instance, as in others in which a seemingly new practice appears for the first time in the thirteenth century, a western, Latin, origin is imputed. Indeed, the sources that refer to cases of judicial ordeal and also the recor ds of the court proceedings label the practice as ‘barbarian’ and outside Roman tradition. As cases of ordeal are concentrated in the thirteenth century, a time of decentralisation following the Fourth Crusade and the establishment of a Latin empire on former Byzantine lands, historians of Byzantium have argued that the appearance of the ordeal in cases of adultery, treason and sorcery has to do with the lack of a central secular authority. Their argument is strengthened by the example of ecclesiastical judges who handle cases which previously appeared before civil judges. This paper will question the late introduction of the ordeal to Byzantium, its Latin origin and its incompatibility with central authority and the procedures of Roman law.

Barend Ter Haar (Leiden University, NL)

DIVINE VIOLENCE IN ORDER TO SUPPORT HUMAN VALUES: THE CASEBOOK OF AN EMPEROR GUAN TEMPLE IN HUNAN PROVINCE IN 1851-1852
  I investigate a collection of anecdotal tales based on the cases of one or two spirit mediums for an Emperor Guan temple in Hunan in the years 1851-1852, at the eve of the devastating rebellion of the Heavenly Kingdom of Great Peace. Each tale tells of a moral issue involving concrete and plausible human actors. They are punished already during their present lives by divine forces, usually in a very visible and violent way. This retribution forces many of them to repent, and to confess to their evil deeds. Various details indicate that these stories had a broad audience. It is clear that these stories, in ways very similar to penal sanctions, were only partly successful in enforcing norms and values. On the other hand they minimally indicate what some local people (the community of these spirit mediums as seen by the record keepers) thought were important norms and values. Very likely they did work to some extent, since we know that local society in Hunan was relatively stable.

Carine van Rhijn (Utrecht University, Nl)

HOW TO RULE AN EMPIRE: THE EPISCOPAL PERSPECTIVE (CAROLINGIAN)
  In the early medieval Carolingian empire (8th-10th century), bishops played a key role in governing the predominantly rural population. On the one hand, they were close to the ruler,whom they advised on matters of what we would nowadays call both ‘state’ and ‘church’, while on the other hand they were expected to implement high-level decisions within their own, often large, dioceses. Their position with, as it were, one foot at the court and one in local communities, made them ideal intermediaries between the corridors of power and the grass-roots levels of society. The question I will address in this paper, is what such ‘governing’ of dioceses consisted of in a world without post-Napoleonic law, monopolies of power or standardised regulations defining ‘good’ and ‘bad’. There was such a thing as codified law, but its precise meaning and function were controversial. For episcopal responsibilities, the more important vehicle by far was coercion via religion and the many tools that pastoral care provided for steering both clerical and lay behaviour. The Franks were a Christian people, eager to please (or at least not to upset) their very stern God, for which everyone’s good behaviour in Christian terms was believed to be a prerequisite. Hence, local pastoral care (via preaching, but also via confession and penance) was a very important vehicle for regulating the behaviour of the entire population. It was up to the local bishop to set local standards and devise increasingly detailed texts outlining the ‘ideal Christian Frank’ for their own diocese, in which high-level decisions were elaborated and adapted for local audiences.

Antonios Anastasopoulos (University of Crete, Greece)

NON-MUSLIMS AND OTTOMAN JUSTICE(-S?)
  The Ottoman Empire was a Muslim state with a sizeable non-Muslim population. The basic pillars of the Ottoman judicial system were the kad? courts, spread all over the Empire, and the sultanic council in Istanbul. However, the Ottomans allowed non-Muslim religious dignitaries – the patriarch and the metropolitans in the case of the Orthodox Christians – judicial authority in issues of family law. Furthermore, it seems that with time the ecclesiastical authorities of the non-Muslims informally widened the scope of their jurisdiction, while certain communities set up secular courts which administered justice.Thus,it may be argued that the sultan ’s non -Muslim subjects, who had access both to the kad? and their religious or secular courts, in principle had more options in selecting to which judicial authority they would have recourse than Muslims did. Non-Muslim justice and the recourse of non-Muslims to Ottoman justice have received a fair amount of attention by modern scholarship. The aim of my paper is thus, on the one hand, to discuss aspects of these issues, and, on the other, the literature about them. In this context I am particularly interested in the interaction between official state-appointed and non-Muslim judicial authorities, and in the ways that the latter legitimized themselves. Furthermore, I intend to discuss social and other constraints in the selection of courts by non-Muslims; in other terms, to what extent non-Muslims were able to manipulate their judicial affairs. Thirdly, I wish to consider whether the co-existence of formal and informal, Muslim and non-Muslim courts of law in the Ottoman Empire can tell us things about the structure of Ottoman society as well as about t he early modern imperial state’s (dis)interest in creating a unitary society as one of the bases of its power.

Caroline Humfress, (Birkbeck, University of London, UK)

“FORUM SHOPPING ” IN THE LATER ROMAN AND BYZANTINE EMPIRES
  Procedural rules in Roman and Byzantine Law allowed for the transfer of cases from one legal forum and/or jurisdiction to another; this paper seeks to analyze how these procedural principles were manipulated in practice, by litigants in concrete cases. The aim is to approach Roman and Byzantine law as social practice, demonstrating how legal ‘rules’ were handled and negotiated by practitioners in both the centre and periphery of Empires, rather than simply asking to what extent these rules were ‘applied’ (or otherwise) in the provinces.

Karen Turner (Holycross College, US)

RESISTANCE TO STATE LAW IN EARLY IMPERIAL CHINA
  Chinese state builders constructed a well-developed legal system that aimed to control human and material resources at least a century before the imperial state became a reality with the Qin conquest in 221 B.C. Elite rhetoric inscribed in records from the succeeding Han Dynasty (206 BC.E.-A.D. 25) blamed the early demise of the First Empire on its complex laws and harsh punishments, while the Han state maintained and amplified the laws of Qin. This paper takes a new look at early imperial legal culture by focusing on the strategies developed by ordinary people to manipulate, resist and evade official laws despite the state's efforts to thwart subversion and corruption. New materials on law unearthed in the past decades allow legal historians of China to move beyond and revisit accounts in the standard official histories. Studies of resistance in other cultures and contexts, such as the work of James Scott and G.P. Spivack, inform my reading of "hidden transcripts" embedded in the written sources. I hope to raise comparative issues by showing that elements of the rule of law did emerge in early China but that different notions about the purpose of the state, the role of punishments and the limits of participation in legal decisions help to explain China's divergence from the legal culture developed in Greek and Roman times in the West.

Sophia Papaioannou (University of Athens, Greece)

THE AUGUSTAN FAMILY LEGISLATION AND ITS IMPACT ON POPULARIZING THE IDEA OF THE EMPIRE AS FAMILY AND VICE VERSA
  Family law was regulated with precision since the early days of the Republic, yet one of the things that Augustus set out to do once he stabilized his authority in Rome, involved the passage of two carefully thought, and more complex than usually presumed, legislative programs concerning the family (18 BCE - lex Julia de aduleteriis and 9 CE - lex Pappia Poppaea). Traditionally seen as part of his effort to encourage the Romans both to marry and to have more children (mothers of three or more children were given legal privileges like exemption from tutores; fathers were given benefits as well), Augustus was the first legislator to criminalize adultery, and make explicit via legislation certain social conventions that regulated against members of the senatorial class marrying slaves and freedpersons. Romans by and large hated Augustus' legislation and ignored it whenever they could. Augustus met resistance even in his own house, but his family legislation proved largely successful in the long term. In the present paper, we shall look into detail at the Augustan family legislation programme, and more specifically, at the incentives that inspired its formulation, the course of and politics behind its implementation, the resistance to it, and finally its implementation by the Roman aristocracy (the premier target audience of this legislation). Study of Selective cases will point out that Augustus' family legislation in reality proved much more appealing to follow that contemporary literary sources project.

Natalia Krolikowska (Warsaw University, Poland)

ISLAMIC AND MONGOL LEGAL TRADITIONS IN THE CRIMEAN KHANATE
  The judicial and legislative actions in the Crimean Khanate were limited by Islamic and Mongol legal traditions. Both of them were inherited from the Golden Horde. To make the situation even more complicated, in parallel with the Ottoman political dominance of the Khanate, its legal system was penetrated by the Ottoman one. The question arises: what happened when the norms differed or were contradictory to each other. The study will deal with one aspect of this question: whether such a complicated legal system put strains on the peaceful everyday life, and whether it let to serious problems. The sources provide us with the limited data concerning the differences in the prescriptions and norms of these legal systems. The purpose of the present paper is to discuss this evidence. The areas of law and the social origins of the persons appealing to contradictory legal traditions will be examined. Were the differences in the legal systems used by the khan, eminent officials and Crimean vassals in foreign and domestic affairs? The study also aims to answer the question, who was responsible for the eventual reconciliations of the sharia and the Ottoman practice with the Mongol law. The paper is mainly based on the Crimean chronicles and sicills from the 17th and 18th centuries. The foreign travelers’ and envoys’ accounts were also used.

Vincent Gabrielsen (University of Copenhagen, Denmark)

THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE ON TRIAL: LAW AND THE ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE, 478-404 BCE
  The Athenian empire lasted for seventy-three years (from 477 to 404 BCE), and ruled over a large number of tribute-paying communities, which, even though subjects, had the formal status of allies. There is scholarly consensus that, especially when compared to the Roman Empire, the operational logic of this empire remained throughout that of ‘more tribute and less military or political partnership’. Such ideological structures or institutions that might have allowed the membership/subjects to share in some of the political privileges of the imperial centre, the city-state of Athens, never attained sufficient strength, if they ever emerged. However, in one area does the degree of participation seem to have been relatively greater, that of law and the administration of justice. In this paper, I shall briefly discuss a few central aspects of the imperial jurisdiction, partly in order to give an outline description of its character and partly in order to demonstrate how it affected the relationship between Athens and her subjects. An important characteristic is that certain types of cases were to be tried not at the law-courts of the subjects/allies but at Athenian law-courts. This, it will be argued, sets imperial jurisdiction in an interesting light, since the laws according to which these cases were tried, and the law-courts at which they were tried, were those of the radical Athenian democracy.

Peter Haldén (University of Stockholm, Sweden)

CONTROLLING AND SHAPING TERRITORIAL POWERS: A COMPARISON OF IMPERIAL, INTERNATIONAL AND EU LAW
Throughout world history, empires and international systems are the two major ways of establishing order over large areas encompassing a number of different demarcated political units. In political science and history empires and the international system are often seen as opposite poles of the spectrum of possible political systems. In contrast, this paper departs from this a priori assumption of radical difference and instead explores the similarities and differences between empires and the international system from the viewpoint of legal regulation of relations between their component units. This analytical basis allows a novel analysis of the European Union. The EU is usually understood through a spectrum whose ends are ‘state’ and ‘state-system’. By substituting ‘state’ with ‘empire’, new light can be cast on this analytically elusive entity.