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

The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Indigenous Peoples seen from a legal historical perspective
How did indigenous communities in Latin America respond to the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples? Experts took a look at Bolivia, Brazil and Colombia from a legal historical point of view.

What was the theme of this year’s Summer Academy, “Using History in Law”, all about?
This year’s Summer Academy for Legal History took place in July 2022 and was oriented around the theme “Using History in Law”. The participants dealt with this topic from various perspectives and in a number of sessions throughout the two weeks.

Papers of Pacific Colonial Pasts: a visit to the national archives in Samoa
A researcher’s experience visiting an archive in Samoa with holdings from the German colonial period.

Producing Paper for Venice: The Valley of Papermills (Valle delle Cartiere)
One of the pleasures of being a legal historian concerned with topics from the Early Modern period is the possibility to get to handle and work with historical books, often originals printed in the 16th and 17th century. Too often, we tend to concentrate exclusively on the content of a book, not taking into account the wealth of information stemming from the materiality of the book: who printed it, how it was printed, and how the materials carrying all the precious content were produced. Between the 15th and 17th century, the largest part of paper for the many book prints

Challenges of a digital source edition project during a pandemic
How was archival work possible during the pandemic? To what extent are archives prepared for the digitization of their collections? These are the questions that the Working Time Project Group explores in this blog post and aims to stimulate discussions on the topic of the challenges and opportunities of digitizing sources.

Una estancia en tiempos ¿difíciles? El reporte de un becario “Doucet” 2022
Cada año el mpilhlt invita a jóvenes investigadoras e investigadores para hacer uso de la Biblioteca Doucet, una colleción de casi 5.000 libros en el área de Historia del Dereco Indiano. En 2022 el argentino Alejandro Chiliguay pasó tres meses en Frankfurt am Main.
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.