This article examines the experience and transformation of the late Yuan Huizhou scholar Zhao Pang (1319–1369) during the transition from the Yuan dynasty to the Ming. In contrast to his reputation as a reclusive scholar devoted to his studies of the classics, and to later appraisals that viewed him as a Yuan “remnant,” Zhao actively engaged with the transition as it happened in his home region. Recovering this history from the writings in his collected works, this article reveals his attitude toward the powers that governed Huizhou in this period and shows both how his attitude remained consistent and how it changed. In place of the framework of loyalty and dynastic identity, this article proposes that local literati like Zhao Pang are better interpreted through local realities, and put in the context of the forms of literati writing and political participation that developed in the specific political system of the Yuan.

In the seventeenth century, Chinese philologists rejected imperial orthodoxy and sought to return to the ways of antiquity through textual criticism; they described their approach using a first century phrase: “Seeking Truth from Facts” (shishi qiushi, 實事求是). Two centuries later, Mao Zedong appropriated this phrase to encapsulate his approach towards revolutionary work, which privileged the first-hand investigation of local socioeconomic conditions. In between these episodes, shishi qiushi was found in automobile advertisements, missionary translations, and on the gates of Confucian academies. Since the 1700s, Chinese intellectuals have found shishi qiushi strangely alluring, and employed the phrase to describe their intellectual and moral commitments. To explain this longevity, this article provides a genealogy of shishi qiushi and argues that the phrase came to be associated with the epistemic values of reflexivity, expertise, and syncretism. These qualities became valued by Chinese intellectuals as they navigated a rapidly changing world.

A short reflection on the singular career of the legal historian Stanley Katz.

This article examines the role of illustrated lantern lectures in promoting Belgian cities and towns during the early twentieth century. Drawing on two original databases of lantern slides and a database of lantern lectures, it demonstrates how these lectures served not only tourism, but also broader social, political and cultural agendas. The projection lantern functioned as a powerful medium within an emerging circuit of education and entertainment, offering audiences an immersive experience. While previous scholarship has largely focused on colonial or exotic representations, this article highlights how familiar, domestic places in Belgium were also visually constructed and promoted. Through an analysis of content, context and the actors involved, the article reveals how lantern lectures contributed to shaping urban imagery, fostering civic pride and constructing local, regional and national identities. In doing so, it repositions the lantern as a key medium in the history of place representation and visual communication.

In a longue durée study of the European context from 1918 to the present day, this article critically assesses alternative modalities of self-determination proposed by two non-state, transnational actors – the Congress of European Nationalities (1925–1942) and the Federal Union of European Nationalities (established 1949). Situating the activism of these organizations within an international system that has prioritized state determination over the self-determination of peoples, the study charts their attempts to renegotiate dominant statist paradigms of minority protection and human rights, using ideals and frameworks of European integration as a guide. The analysis shows that although the rise of the European Union after 1945 created an environment far more propitious than the one that existed between the two World Wars, transnational activism has faced consistent limitations on its effectiveness, arising not just from the external machinations of states but also from internal divisions within the organizations concerned. In this respect, the study also sheds light on an enduring tension between collective and individual concepts of self-determination within contemporary Europe, demonstrated most recently by the Federal Union of European Nationalities’ failed European Citizens’ Initiative on a “Minority Safepack” during 2013–2021.

Common Law, the shining cornerstone of the English Justice system, becomes a muddy pool when trying to uncover the ways in which it arrived into the early Virginian, Maryland, and early Eastern Australian colonies. This is particularly true for the common law of felony attainder. Attaint—social and legal death without physical death—had lasting implications on the question of legal personhood for the convicts transported from England to these colonies between 1614 and 1840. This article revisits the work done by Bruce Kercher, adding new primary research from the American colonies to enrich and challenge Kercher’s arguments. Expanding the primary source material used in the analysis gives us a deeper and more nuanced understanding about how attainder was received and applied in the colonies—in particular, in the American colonies—and a deeper understanding of outside forces that influenced property rights beyond that of the question of attainder. This article provides nuance to how common law was understood and applied by those with and without formal legal training in early developing colonial societies.

In the 1990s, the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) emerged as the primary international forum for managing the interface between biodiversity and biotechnology. Three legally binding protocols to the Convention were concluded, all aiming to regulate bio-innovation. Despite the rapid pace of biotechnological innovation, however, and its implications for biodiversity and equity, CBD policy outcomes have recently shifted towards lower stringency in substance and weaker institutionalization in process. To confirm this trend, we examine decisions adopted by the CBD Conferences of the Parties in 2022 and 2024. We focus on outcomes on three key agenda items: (i) digital sequence information on genetic resources, (ii) risk assessment of living modified organisms, and (iii) synthetic biology. We analyze shifts towards lower stringency in the light of scholarship on legalization and de-legalization, including the softening of international law. We conclude by assessing the implications for the CBD, and for global biotechnology governance more generally.

French diachrony offers two textbook examples for negation studies: the evolution of ne…pas illustrating the Jespersen’s Cycle (Dahl, 1979) and the evolution of polarity-neutral items into negative indefinites (NIs), sometimes termed the Quantifier Cycle (Willis et al., 2013) and often exemplified by personne.

However, a significant disparity exists between the detailed research on ne…pas and the vagueness surrounding personne’s as NI origins. While its medieval origin is accepted, the dating of first attestations and definitive grammaticalization varies (Déprez, 2011; Vachon, 2012; GGHF, 2020), and predominant noun use and data scarcity hinder firm conclusions (Déprez, 2011; Larrivée & Kallel, 2020). Consequently, assumptions about personne’s development as an NI rely heavily on parallels with rien and aucun, lacking support from quantified data.

Through a corpus study of personne in Medieval and early Pre-Classical French (9th–16th centuries), focusing on its evolution into an NI, this article reveals a unique trajectory for personne, further demonstrating the variety characterizing the macro-construction of French NIs (Hansen in GGHF, 2020). Methodologically, the communicative immediacy-distance theory (Koch & Oësterreicher, 1985) and the “represented speech” perspective (Marchello-Nizia, 2012) prove relevant for tracing innovation in written diachronic corpora.

This article argues that the global Business and Human Rights movement demonstrates a push towards a human-rights type of sustainable corporation, reconciling economic development and human rights. It explains the necessity for and significance of a definition of a sustainable corporation at the intersection of traditional international human rights and sustainable development instruments. It argues, inter alia, that an internationally recognised definition of a sustainable corporation can settle fundamental questions and create a minimal framework for meaningful discourse on corporate accountability for human rights, climate change and the environment. It identifies difficulties of defining a sustainable corporation such as the integration problem. It suggests ‘direct human rights obligation’ as a minimally sufficient normative criterion for the definitional correctness of a sustainable corporation. The suggested definition of sustainable corporation requires taking a normative position which makes the term ‘essentially contested’ resulting in discursive and behavioural norm contestation in the search for definitional determinacy and consensus within the divide between international and domestic law.

Indigenous activists have increasingly asserted claims of ecocide in various international legal venues. While acting separately from each other, they reflect common concerns regarding destruction of the environment, particularly with respect to the impacts of environmental damage upon Indigenous communities. In doing so, they connect Indigenous interests in the environment to discourses over ecocide. The present analysis considers the appropriateness of ecocide discourse for Indigenous peoples in the light of the latter’s diverse interests in the environment. Specifically, the analysis seeks to explore the bases for Indigenous normative concerns regarding ecocide, both with respect to its meaning and its inclusion in international criminal law. The analysis draws upon Indigenous studies literature to develop a heuristic framework for organizing Indigenous perspectives, through which it is possible to clarify Indigenous arguments on ecocide. In doing so, the analysis furthers engagement with Indigenous approaches to ecocide in ways that assist descriptive understanding and prescriptive reflections addressing Indigenous concerns.