Projects

This research project revolves around the role played by political economy in the legitimization of public international law in Belgium in the 19th century, as well as the formalization of an epistemic community of economists and jurists. This research ultimately aims to identify the value systems (denominational, philosophical, ideological) that were used by this community. At the beginning of the 19th century, political economy was ...

The FWO research project “Debt or Sin?” starts from the hypothesis that the current moral confusion regarding debt and credit started already long before the present European debt crisis, or, for that matter, the rise of classical economics in the 18th century. It assumes that the principle that debts must be repaid and promises honored was elevated by moral theologians and jurists into a fundamental principle for organizing market ...

Forcible reprisals constitute a crucial, inherent part of the tradition of use of force in Western international law. A distinction needs to be made between historic reprisals (13th-18th centuries) and modern reprisals, which emerged around the turn of the 19th century. Whereas modern forcible reprisals entail the use of force by a state against another state in retaliation of a prior violation of an international right, historic forcible ...

This doctoral research project aims to study the vast body of scholarly writings on the figure of the judge that emerged in the 17th century Spanish Netherlands and Spain. It will focus specifically on the notions contributing to the professional ethics or deontology that were understood to be part of the office of the judge at the time. Proposed research questions will be: what conclusions can be drawn about the scale of this ...