Report on the third annual conference, 7–9 April 2025
The third annual conference of the Käte Hamburger Kolleg focused on a question fundamental to both legal history and contemporary law: what are the causes of plurality in law? The event took place at the Heereman’scher Hof at Königstraße 47 in Münster. Built in the 16th century and rebuilt after wartime destruction, it later served as an administrative court and has belonged to the University of Münster since 2011. Its legal past remains visible – Richterzimmer, the judges’ room, is still named as such – and the historic façade bears the Latin inscription Post Tenebras Spero Lucem (“After darkness, I hope for light”), a fitting motto for a conference committed to uncovering the structures and conditions behind plurality in law.
In his opening remarks, Peter Oestmann reflected on the Kolleg’s interdisciplinary mission and intellectual community, now entering its fifth year. He addressed the balancing act facing funded academic research in Germany – between thematic openness and institutional expectations. Defending the broad framing of “Legal Unity and Pluralism” as necessary for fostering creativity and disciplinary exchange, he cautioned that restricting diversity would impoverish rather than strengthen collaborative scholarship. A key idea running through the conference was that plurality in law is not merely the result of cultural or religious diversity. Rather, law itself may generate plurality through its multiple sources, authorities, and modes of emergence – from custom and contract to command. This conception rejects any simple opposition between homogeneity and legal multiplicity. Even societies with a single language, religion, or ethnicity can produce internally plural legal systems.
Over three days, scholars from a wide range of disciplines explored diverse historical and geographical contexts in which legal pluralism arises. The first section addressed social diversity and legal pluralism. Éva Jakab (Budapest) examined how the Roman Empire integrated Greek legal practices, such as syngraphai and hierographic acknowledgements of debt, alongside Roman norms. Cecilia Cristellon (Münster) discussed mixed-confessional marriages in early modern Europe, highlighting how religious plurality was navigated through custom and pragmatic compromise. Armando Guevara Gil (Lircay) presented the case of a 19th-century Peruvian nun Dominga Gutiérrez de Cossio seeking secularisation, caught between ecclesiastical and state jurisdictions. Iveta Leitane (Yale) analysed legal strategies for accommodating ethnic and religious minorities in interwar Latvia, focusing on the work of parliamentarian Max M. Laserson.
The second section turned to the role of political and religious demarcation in shaping legal pluralism. Clara Harder (Cologne) showed that terms like bastardus and spurius had shifting meanings, and that legal definitions of illegitimacy varied widely, with little consistent canon law before the 12th century. Ido Shahar (Haifa) compared how Germany, Italy, Israel, and the UK approach the integration of Muslim family law into secular legal systems, stressing the importance of balancing individual rights with communal autonomy. Ferdinando Mazzarella (Palermo) enquired into the failed legal rapprochement between Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, revealing tensions between totalitarian ideologies. Finally, Olaf Zenker (Halle-Wittenberg) analysed South Africa’s attempt to blend customary law with constitutional norms in the post-apartheid era, noting the persistence of inequality and calls for deeper decolonisation.
The third section focused on legal pluralism in Empires. Heikki Pihlajamäki (Helsinki) compared Dutch and Spanish colonial approaches to managing legal diversity through a combination of codified law, custom, and local practice. Hesi Siimets-Gross (Tartu) examined how the Baltic provinces retained local laws within the Russian Empire despite codification efforts. Raquel Gil Montero (Mendoza) analysed the fluid boundary between custom and coercion in colonial Bolivia’s labour relations, showing how legal pluralism was shaped by imperial demands and indigenous agency. Last but not least, Kevin Lenk (Münster) investigated how imperial powers cooperated in maritime security regimes between 1870 and 1935, highlighting legal inconsistencies and uncertainties faced by local actors.
In the concluding discussion, Matthias Bähr began by addressing the issue of cultural ambiguity – when differences provoke legal regulation and when they remain tolerated without codification. He underscored the importance of analysing intersecting demarcations such as religion, honour, and status. Peter Oestmann revisited the central question of the conference – what causes legal plurality – by pointing to international trade, migration, and multilingualism as possible drivers. He also noted the importance of scholarly debate around concepts like the lex mercatoria, and cautioned against assuming plurality always stems from cultural diversity alone. Ulrike Ludwig concluded by outlining five key insights: the need for context-specific definitions of legal pluralism; the comparative lens across and within societies; the role of conflict as a tool for managing plurality in law; the varying uses of “customary law” across regions; and conceptual history (“Begriffsgeschichte”) as a method for tracing legal transformation.
The Kolleg’s third annual conference highlighted the many ways in which plurality in law is shaped by overlapping social demarcations, political agendas, religious traditions, and imperial legacies. By bringing together case studies ranging from ancient Rome to postcolonial South Africa, it offered a nuanced picture of how legal diversity is not simply a reflection of external difference, but also a result of internal legal dynamics and historical transformation.
Sophia Mösch
About the Author
Dr Sophia Mösch is a historian and literary scholar. Since July 2021, she has been conducting research on political advice during the Carolingian, Macedonian and Seljuk reforms as a research associate at the Kolleg.
Cite as:
Sophia Mösch: “Causes of Plurality in Law. Report on the third annual conference, 7–9 April 2025”. EViR Blog, 06.05.2025, https://www.evir.uni-muenster.blog/en/annualconference2025.
Lizenz:
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Leave a Reply