The First student conference on legal history – Iustoria 2020: “Law Codes and Women”, has been postponed for October 14th and 15th, 2020, due to the corona virus outbreak. Due to a high interest in the conference, we are re-opening the call for papers for new participants!

The choice of this year’s subject stems from an anniversary – this year marks the 175th anniversary of the Serbian Civil Code (1844), and one of the most heavily debated issues during its creation was precisely the regulation of the position of women: a woman’s right to inherit, her role in the family, the legal capacity of a married woman… Without a doubt, dilemmas such as these were present in the minds of other creators of civil codes pertaining to the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century – however, this is but a small portion of the issues that fall under the realm of this conference. What was the status of women as perpetrators – or victims – of crimes in criminal codes? What was the procedural status of women as parties in lawsuits or as witnesses? Did commercial codes contain special rules for women merchants? When we move further into the past, the very presence of norms that are concerned with the status of women in the legal codes of the Antiquity and the Middle Ages tells us a lot about their position in society, and many laws contain specific and original institutions that deserve scholarly attention. In recent history we could divert our attention to women as lawmakers, and analyse their influence on modern codes of law. We are looking forward to proposals related to these and many other issues pertaining to the main subject!

Apart from the presentations given by their colleagues, the students at the conference will have an opportunity to attend keynote lectures given by renowned experts – more details on this will be available in the final version of the programme.

As a general rule, the participants who do not reside in Belgrade are expected to cover the travelling and accomodation expenses by themselves. Exceptionally, there is a possibility of securing accomodations either at the student dorms or with student host families for those students who are unable to finance their stay at Belgrade. These arrangements will depend on the number of available spots.

The final versions of the papers presented at the conference, with final changes and corrections submitted within a reasonable time after the conference, will be submitted for publication in the new student journal for legal history – Vesnik pravne istorije  / Herald of Legal History!

All students of graduate and post-graduate studies pertaining to law or other humanities are eligible to apply for the conference. The applications should contain basic personal information (name and surname, faculty, department, level and year of study), along with an abstract containing anywhere between 500 and 1000 words. Applications can be submitted and papers presented in either English or Serbian.

In order to avoid overlapping, please consult the current version of the programme and the abstracts of the papers accepted in the first round of submissions before applying. Both are available at link at the bottom.

The applications should be e-mailed to iustoria@ius.bg.ac.rs by the 31st of May, 2020. The students will be informed whether or not their application has been accepted within 10 days of submission. An updated programme for the conference will be announced by the 1st of July. Drafts of the chosen papers need to be sent by the 15th of August. For any additional information you may enquire at the same e-mail address, or consult the official Facebook page of the conference – https://www.facebook.com/iustoria

Please keep in mind that, should we receive a significant number of newly applied papers, the conference will be extended for a third day – October 16th.

Iustoria 2020 – “Law Codes and Women” – Provisional Programme and Abstracts