Research axes

The aim of this axis is to study the interweaving of institutional and procedural norms and practices, as well as the resulting normative and jurisdictional pluralism, from the Middle Ages to the present day, from a national, international and comparative perspective. In the perspective of the old conception of "police and justice" as an indissociable whole, the axis aims at studying the institutional and doctrinal articulations of justice upstream and downstream of public governance. The research conducted by the team focuses on three areas of study, namely the history of justice, the functioning of learned law (ius commune) and its relationship with individual rights, and public and private international law.

In the first area, the aim is to analyse the application of law and procedure by the jurisdictions of the Ancien Régime in all their diversity, but mainly on the basis of the example of the former Parliament of Flanders and the Sovereign Councils of New France and Louisiana. This work on the Ancien Régime jurisdictions can be based on the 'Parleflandre' database. Research also extends to administrative justice at the time of the Revolution, medical liability and legal expertise in civil matters in modern and contemporary times, and justice in the former French colonies or protectorates (notably Algeria and Tunisia).

The second area of study is the analysis of learned law, including the legacy of Roman law and its application in the late medieval and modern periods. This research is not only based on the study of written sources of legal doctrine and practice, but also examines the transposition of legal language into figurative language in illuminated manuscripts (in collaboration with the Ius illuminatum project team at the University of Lisbon).

The third area of study is the analysis of the formation of a doctrine of international law from the late Middle Ages to the modern period in order to achieve a better understanding of the way in which political-legal pluralism has been rationalised in the Western legal tradition. This research intersects with the two areas mentioned above insofar as the application of law and procedure is examined both in the forms of dispute resolution provided for in public international law (such as arbitration) and in the conflicts of law and jurisdiction implied by private and criminal international law; in addition, a specific interest is taken in the contribution of scholarly law (which, by definition, transcends national boundaries) to the development of an international law doctrine.

The objective of this area is to establish a new field of research and to develop international partnerships in order to better restore the original dimension of a law that has always been a privileged vector of internationalisation of exchanges. The research focus is on the practical dimension of the development of business law, as well as its scholarly, normative and litigation dimensions.

One of the flagship projects at the heart of this axis is entitled PHEDRA (For a European history of business law). It is intended to grasp the long-term dynamics in the evolution of business law - both in its normative and discursive aspects - that have invested the whole continent, leaving homogeneous furrows that have considerably influenced the development of contemporary legal cultures, which call for a deep and wide-ranging confrontation that cannot ignore historical ruptures and geographical diversities.

The most appropriate strategic perspective for this purpose, given the existing collaborations in this framework, is the constitution, in the medium term, of an International Research Network (IRN, ex GDRI).

For the past twenty years, the Centre d'histoire judiciaire has been exploring the emergence and evolution of social law, beyond the strict national framework, by examining, from the perspective of the history of law and justice, the nascent industrial legislation and the first social insurance schemes [Histoire, justice et travail, 2003].

Located at the crossroads of Europe, in a territory that can boast a particularly rich labour history, the laboratory benefits from a geographical situation that favours access to the numerous resources preserved in the collections of the departmental archives (of the Nord and Pas-de-Calais), the national archives (National Archives of the World of Work, located in Roubaix), or even foreign archives (repositories of the numerous border industrial basins). This positioning facilitates relations with the many specialists in Lille in the field of positive law, as shown by the permanent links between the CHJ and the CRDP's Equipe de Recherche en Droit Social (EREDS), a law laboratory at the University of Lille, as well as with the IST, the Lille Institute of Labour Sciences, and the IRÉO, the Institut Régional d'Éducation Ouvrière, a training body under the supervision of the Hauts-de-France Regional Council.

At the national level, collaborations have existed for a long time with French universities that have invested in the field of the history of social law, which has led several researchers from Lille to participate in the HDTCOL research project - History of Labour Law in the Colonies - directed by Jean-Pierre Le Crom and carried out in partnership with the Universities of Nantes, Lyon 3, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Reunion, Basel and the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme Ange Guépin. This project, which was extended to certain overseas areas under European domination, examined the history of these territories from the original angle of labour law and social protection and its application [hdtcol.univ-nantes.fr/about - La Chicotte et le pécule. Les travailleurs à l'épreuve du droit colonial français (XIXe siècle-XXe siècle), Rennes, 2020].

At the international level, links have also been forged with universities in North-Western Europe. A first research project is being carried out jointly with the University of Ghent (Belgium) on the implementation of social protection systems resulting from the reforms of the law of responsibility for accidents at work undertaken in Europe in the second half of the 19th century. If the perspective chosen was initially focused on Belgium, it is because of its geographical proximity and the porosity of its border to daily migratory flows with the territory of the North department. This raises the question of how the "foreigner" is taken into account in the emerging law and, more broadly, of his or her social protection. On the other hand, the two countries, like other European nations during the second half of the 19th century, undertook reforms that set up fairly similar systems, the application of which it proved useful to compare. This collaboration, which has resulted in two publications [La réparation des accidents du travail, pratiques et acteurs, Lille, 2016 and La réception des législations relatives aux accidents du travail, Lille, 2020] is currently being pursued through the construction of a digital portal whose aim is to make resources relating to the judicial treatment of accidents at work available to the scientific community [Acci-travail:https://acci-travail.nakalona.fr/].

More recently, a partnership with the University of Uppsala (Sweden) has made it possible to envisage the setting up of an international collaborative research space oriented towards the study of scientific exchange networks in the field of labour law, in particular associations and other international congresses prefiguring the International Labour Organisation. Prospective multidisciplinary seminars have made it possible to carry out exploratory work that should lead to the joint development of a scientific network in which social law historians from different countries in the European area would study the emergence and activity of international institutions constituted around labour-related issues. This extension to the European area aims to better understand, through the eyes of the legal historian, the intellectual movement that brought about a new law at the beginning of the 20th century, even before the creation of the International Labour Organisation, thus feeding the sources of a nascent 'social Europe' [ Around the centenary of the ILO, Lille, 2019].

The objective for the coming years is to take advantage of the experience acquired by the team in participating in research networks in the history of social law in order to consolidate and broaden the collaborations established with the various academic partners. It is a question of strengthening the partnership in terms of research promotion with the Institut Régional d'Éducation ouvrière. It is even more important to include historical reflection as an enlightening element in the public debate on the contemporary dynamics of the construction of labour law and social protection law in the 21st century, including their relationship with health issues.

The history of criminal law and procedure has been a major focus of the Centre for Judicial History since the first work carried out in this field by Professor Renée Martinage. In a dynamic of continuity, the objective is to continue and reinforce the research undertaken on this theme but also to broaden the approach to the historical and contemporary dimensions of the law of the execution of sentences. The history of prisons, which also has its place in the history of justice, opens up a variety of perspectives with regard to its norms as well as the practices observed.

The aim of this two-fold axis 4 is to encourage new ways of looking at cross-cutting issues concerning criminal procedure, punishment and its execution over the period from the 18th century to the present day. One of the great attractions of this axis is the opportunity it offers to link up with current penal and penitentiary issues.

The priority of the Centre d'Histoire Judiciaire will be to preserve and extend the collaborations and partnerships already established with other research laboratories, in particular CLAMOR (Centre pour les humanités numériques et l'histoire de la justice - UMS 3726), as well as with institutions attached to the Ministry of Justice such as the ÉNAP (École Nationale d'Administration Pénitentiaire, Agen) or the Ecole Nationale de la Protection Judiciaire de la Jeunesse (ENPJJ, Roubaix) with which contacts could be renewed for the organisation of scientific events. These collaborations will be valuable assets for carrying out research projects on penal and penitentiary norms and practices, such as the report entitled "Les longues peines" (Long sentences) carried out in conjunction with the University of Bordeaux and the ENAP and funded by the Mission de recherche Droit et Justice (report completed in April 2020). The international dimension will also remain at the heart of this axis 4, notably in the framework of international meetings organised on the theme of legal porosities, including in the penal field, observed between France and Italy (Universities of Benevento, Toulouse and Lille).

The comparative perspective has always been at the heart of the research conducted by the Centre for Judicial History. Very early on, it became interested in the diffusion and reception of the judicial model resulting from the Revolution, first in Europe and then in the French colonies and protectorates. In addition to this pioneering work on the 'grafting' or 'transplantation' of institutions and law (in particular the Napoleonic Codes), work was also carried out on cross-border exchanges (in the field of industrial accidents) and on the circulation of legal literature (The formation and transmission of Western legal culture).

This work on the comparative history of law and justice concerns all of the laboratory's areas, from judicial law to criminal law, from commercial law to social law. The main objective of this transversal axis is therefore to federate all the strengths and competences of the unit in order to enrich our knowledge of the history of justice through a resolutely comparative and multidisciplinary approach.

Since 2017, research on the dissemination and reception of legal culture has been carried out mainly in the framework of a close collaboration with the Instituto de Investigaciones Juridicas of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM). The proceedings of the international seminar organised each year, alternately in Mexico City and Lille, are published in a new journal: Estudios comparativos franco mexicanos de historia del derecho / Études comparatives franco-mexicaines en histoire du droit . In order to further strengthen our scientific partnership, the Centre d'Histoire Judiciaire and the Instituto de Investigaciones Juridicas have jointly submitted an International Research Project (IRP) which we hope will be recognised by the CNRS in 2020-2021. This project will focus on the comparative study of conflict resolution methods from the 16th century to the present day.