Student conference Iustoria 2022: “Law, Health and Medicine” held
The University of Belgrade Faculty of Law Department of Legal History organized the third international student conference on Legal History – Iustoria 2022: “Law, Health and Medicine”, from March 25th to 27th. At the beginning of the conference, the participants were greeted by Prof. Emeritus Sima Avramović, professor of Comparative Legal Tradition, Prof. Dr Milena Polojac, the head of the Department of Legal History and professor of Roman Law, and Prof. Dr Slobodan Savić, professor of Forensic Medicine at Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of Law, and a permanent court expert, also for Forensic Medicine.
All three days of the conference began with keynote lectures. On the first day, participants had the opportunity to hear Prof. Dr Markham Geller’s (University College London) lecture on Mesopotamian law: “If P then Q: The Legal Paradigm at the Heart of Mesopotamian Science”. The second day, Dr Katherine Watson of the Oxford Brookes University held her lecture “The Medical Contribution to Crime Investigation: Historical Roots, Historiographical Challenges”. Last but not least, Prof. Dr Zoran Mirković, the dean of the Faculty of Law, addressed the participants with his lecture “Safety measures against plague and other infectious diseases in Serbia during the first half of the 19th century” on the final day of the conference.
More than 30 participants were divided into 9 sessions, some of which were conducted in English and other in Serbian. Students had the opportunity to present their research on various aspects of the relationship between law and medicine, and they did so by covering numerous legal systems from the Antiquity, Middle Ages and Modern Era. Attendees had the oportunity to hear contributions on diverse topics, such as euthanasia and health services in ancient Greece, medical ethics in the Antiquity, organization and status of hospitals in medieval Serbia, the institution of quarantine in medieval maritime republics, forensic medicine in Kingdom of Yugoslavia, medical error and misuse of psychiatry in SFR Yugoslavia, compulsory polio vaccine in Belgium, legal framework on various techniques of assisted reproduction in Belarus and Czech Republic… All sessions were followed by dynamic discussions.
At the end, Ass. Prof. Dr Nina Kršljanin, the president of the Organizing Committee, closed the conference and invited everyone to join us again next year, when we will finally be able to organize the conference in person. Every participant will have an opportunity to publish their papers in the International academic student journal “Herald of Legal History“, issued by the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law since 2020.
