From the department of Historical Regimes of Normativity at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory

Risk or Trust? The Legal Management of Diversity in Singapore
In early February 2025, Singapore’s parliament passed a new law aimed at promoting social cohesion between the various ethnic groups in the city-state’s highly diverse society. The “Maintenance of Racial Harmony Bill”, which targets any form of hatred and enmity between Singapore’s ethnic groups, has been criticised as a law that infringes on Singapore’s constitutional right to freedom of expression. This blog places the bill in the wider context of Singapore’s diversity management strategies. To what extent do these strategies embody diversity as a potential risk rather than trust in the peaceful coexistence of Singaporean citizens from different backgrounds?

Present Absentee: The Sulha as a Mechanism of Legal Pluralism in Israeli Law
Both Middle Eastern and Western legal systems have dealt with the role of Sulha, a traditional Shari’a-based process of conflict resolution. How does this socio-legal mechanism coexist with Israel’s modern liberal legal system today and in the past? This post discusses Sulha as an intriguing socio-legal cultural meeting point and an expression of legal pluralism.

Unwritten Histories: exploring colonial normativities in Africa through podcasting
This post follows our research trip to Maputo, where we explored the depths of colonial archives and sought out voices rarely captured in official records. Faced with the limits of written sources, we turned to oral histories, weaving these stories into Tramas Coloniais, our podcast that reimagines how African histories can be shared. It’s an invitation to rethink colonial legacies through voices and perspectives beyond the written pages.

Of Elements and Fragments. ‘Knowledge of Normativity’ and the Practice of International Law in the SMS Gazelle Incident, 1864
What does it mean to practice international law? And how can the concept ‘knowledge of normativity’ help us gain deeper insights into this field? This blog post explores the SMS ‘Gazelle’ incident of 1864, in which a Prussian warship captured three Danish ships in the Bohai Sea off China’s coast. It is an incident that came to be credited as the first application of international law by China; but there is more to tell of this story.
About Us
Legal History Insights is a blog about legal history, created by the researchers, guests and affiliated researchers of the department of Historical Regimes of Normativity at the Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory.