Submissions are open for the prestigious Max Planck-ASLH Dissertation Prize for European Legal History in a Global Perspective. Awarded by the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory (mpilhlt) in collaboration with the American Society for Legal History (ASLH), the prize honours outstanding dissertations that examine Europe’s legal past in its broader global context. This year’s prize will be awarded to a PhD or JSD recipient whose dissertation was completed in 2024 and advances the study of European legal history in a global framework. The recipient will spend three months at the mpilhlt in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, with full financial support, including a 2500 € monthly stipend, travel funding of up to 1500 €, and housing in an Institute apartment.

What if the Council of Trent wasn’t rigid, but adaptable? In Volume 23 of Global Perspectives on Legal History, Anna Clara Lehmann Martins uncovers how clerics, jurists, and bureaucrats in 19th-century Brazil used the Tridentinum not as dogma, but as a flexible tool. Drawing on rich archival sources from Brazil’s Council of State and the Vatican’s Congregation of the Council, she reveals a “fabric of the ordinary” where norms were shaped by multilevel governance and multinormativity. The work emerged from a cotutelle PhD between UFMG and the University of Münster, within the Max Planck Research Group led by Benedetta Albani.

Submissions are now open for a workshop on the Mixed Courts of Egypt, to be held on 23–24 February 2026 at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory. Organized by Dr Michel Erpelding and Aya Bejermi, the event invites reflection on an institution that stood at the crossroads of empire, international law, and everyday justice. Established through treaties between Egypt and 14 Western powers, the Mixed Courts operated for over seven decades with foreign judges and French-inspired legal codes. Their legacy stretches from Cairo to Strasbourg, and still prompts fresh questions today.