Legal Transfer and Legal Geography in the British Empire

Donal K. Coffey, Stefan Vogenauer (eds.)

Global Perspectives on Legal History 25
Frankfurt am Main: Max-Planck-Institut für Rechtsgeschichte und Rechtstheorie 2025. XVII, 328 S.
Online-Ausgabe: Open Access (PDF-Download, Lizenz: Creative Commons CC BY 4.0 International)
Druckausgabe: 20,27 € (Print on Demand bei ePubli)

ISSN 2196-9752
ISBN 978-3-944773-48-3
eISBN 978-3-944773-49-0

Quotation link of the online version: http://dx.doi.org/10.12946/gplh25

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The legal history of the British Empire is in its infancy. The research field Legal Transfer in the Common Law World in the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory under the Directorship of Prof Stefan Vogenauer has been engaged in scientific examination and analysis of this field. In 2021, the Third Legal Histories of Empires Conference was held in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth. A stream looking at the state of the art in Legal Transfer in the Common Law World was organized by Stefan Vogenauer and Donal Coffey, who have co-edited this volume which flows from that stream.

The book argues that a comparative approach can overcome jurisdictional and ahistorical biases still often present in the legal history of empires. In an imperial legal superstructure, such as the British Empire(s), models of legislative and interpretative methods were self-consciously adopted and adapted to different jurisdictions. Moreover, the process of decolonisation disclosed similarities and divergences in the legal development of these territories. Useful insights can be gleaned from a comparison across different methodologies which are concerned with a similar normative framework between and within societies, and their relationship to the natural world.

The volume has two parts. The first presents four case studies for legal transfers in chronological order. Philip Girard’s chapter traces the evolution of the law regulating employers’ liability for injured workers in Quebec. Matilde Cazzola’s work looks at the evolution of the ‘protective principle’ and its deployment through a comparative lens, with a particular focus on the United Kingdom and the Australian colonies in the 19th century. Scott A. Carrière looks at the evolution of law in colonial Newfoundland, and in particular at the relationship between contract law, charters, and Company States. In Hong Kong, Christopher Roberts and Hazel W. H. Leung analyse the evolution of vagrancy law.

The second part contains a number of contributions engaging with the burgeoning field of legal geography in the context of the Empire. This is based around the ‘Property [In]Justice’ ERC group in University College Dublin headed by Amy Strecker. It includes chapters on the Caribbean by Amanda Byer, Southern Africa by Sonya Cotton, Kenya by Raphael Ng’etich, and a chapter by Sinéad Mercier on Ireland.

The different areas of law covered – including inter alia public law, employment law, land law – demonstrate the vitality of the comparative method. 

Contents

IX         Table of Cases

XII        Table of Legislation

1          Donal K. Coffey and Stefan Vogenauer
             Preface

             Part I
             Legal Transfer in the Common Law World: From the Early Modern Period until the Present

7           Scott A. Carrière
             Law and Legalism in Corporate Newfoundland, 1583–1699

37        Matilde Cazzola
             Aboriginal Protection and parens patriae: Indigenous Youths, Juvenile Delinquents and the Reformatory Principle
             in Australia and England

73        Philip Girard
            On the Edge of Many Empires: Employers’ Liability in Quebec’s Industrial Age, 1880–1931

105      Christopher M. Roberts and Hazel W. H. Leung
            The Legacies of Vagrancy Law and the Reconstruction of the Criminal in Hong Kong, 1945–2022

             Part II
             Landscape, Law, and Spatial Justice in the former British Empire

139      Amy Strecker and Amanda Byer
             Introduction: Landscape, Law, and Spatial Justice in the former British Empire

151       Amanda Byer
              Reserving Space: Land, Nature, and Empire in the Development of
              Commonwealth Caribbean Environmental Law

187       Sonya Cotton
              Legislating “Community” in Southern Africa’s Plural Properties

239       Raphael Ng’etich
              Competing Notions of Land in Colonial Kenya and the Impact on Present-Day Land Governance

239       Sinéad Mercier
              A Haunting Absence: Tracing the Origins of International Energy Law from the Laboratory of Ireland

319       Index of Names

321       Index of Subjects

327       Contributors