Publications

Although Raoul van Caenegem claimed otherwise, he had very strong views on what legal history should be. In his opinion, legal history belonged to the disciplinary field of history, not to law. The legal historian should not only chronicle past evolutions of the law, but also explain them. To this purpose, van Caenegem himself turned to sociology, trying to work with types and models in order to generalise. Van Caenegem rejected the idea of a ...

This article is about my encounter with Michael Stolleis and our interactions over the last fifteen years. I also discuss his project for a European history of law and his impulses in the history of international law, as well as his role as passer, master and federator of the worldwide communityof legal historians

This paper explores the reciprocal relationship between law and history, highlighting how historical beliefs influence political and legal decision-making. This interdependence is evident in the historical development of legal systems, the incorporation of historical discourse in legal texts, and the legal governance of historical matters. The paper illustrates the integration of historical dimensions and myths into constitutional imaginaries, ...

This article reviews some of the main debates on methodology in legal history since the Second World War, engages in a dialogue with the social sciences and finally discusses the digital turn in law and legal history, focusing on network analysis.

The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1713/1714) counts as a continent- and even world-spanning confrontation among the main European powers. Its long shadow hung over diplomacy for almost three decades until a new world conflagration arose in 1740. The war remains a subject of controversy in diplomatic history, and has been of paramount importance to contemporary eighteenth-century journalists, historians, philosophers and legal scholars. "La ...

This contribution is a synopsis of the methodological and theoretical issues encountered during my doctoral research on the use of legal argumentation by European Diplomacy in the early eighteenth century and after 1945. Tackling such a subject requires training in international law (of course), diplomatic history, international relations and legal history. Consequently, one tries to avoid both evident and hidden pitfalls and traps. A study of ...