On the occasion of Prof. Lauren Benton’s (Yale University) visit and conference to the Louvain Lab for Law, History and Society (LHS) at UCLouvain on 15 October 2025, a doctoral research seminar will be held, open to all PhD candidates in law, history, and legal history in Belgium.

This workshop will take the form of an encounter between Prof. Benton and early-career researchers, giving participants the opportunity to discuss their doctoral research on one of the following themes:

• History of law and justice, across all periods
• History of empires
• Global and comparative history
• Colonial history and the history of colonial law
• History of violence
• History of international law

Each participant is invited to give a 10-minute presentation in English on their doctoral research, followed by a discussion with Prof. Benton. Lauren Benton is Barton M. Biggs Professor of History and Professor of Law at Yale University. Her research focuses primarily on the global history of empires and the history of international law. Her most recent book is They Called It Peace: Worlds of Imperial Violence (Princeton University Press, 2024).

Session 1 – Law, Justice, and Colonial Governance

14h-14h15: Kocsis Tomás (Open Universiteit) – Military Emergency Law in the Netherlands East Indies

14h15-14h30: Matteo De Vuyst (UGent) – Negotiating Justice and (In)equality. Criminal Justice Trajectories in Nineteenth-Century Belgium, 1870-1910

14h30-14h45: Kato Desaever (KU Leuven) – Profit Over Principles: The Colonial Concession Regime in the Congo Free State (1885–1900)

14h45-15h: Ilaria Masseroni (KU Leuven) – Filling the Legal Void: Missionaries as Quasi-Legal Actors in Regulating Monogamous Unions in the Congo Free State (1885–1908)

15h-15h15: Brecht Kreynen (ULB/VUB) – The Rebel Soldier on trial. Military agency and its repression in colonial Congo (1885-1960)

15h15-15h45: Coffee break

Session 2 – Colonial Empires and International Law

15h45-16h: Sara Eftekhar Jahromi (UCLouvain) – A Web of Legal Anomalies: The Russo-Persian Treaties 19th century

16h-16h15: Emmanuel Leroux (Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas) – L’idée de fédéralisme européen. Les pérégrinations d’une théorie juridique hétéroclite (1815-1945)

16h15-16h30: Hervé Aganze Bahati (UCLouvain) – Les accords [post]coloniaux face à la validité du droit à l’autodétermination : réflexion à la lumière de l’avis consultatif de la CIJ

16h30-17h: Final discussions

15/10/2025

2:00PM-5:00PM

UCLouvain, campus Louvain-la-Neuve

Salle Dabin, Thomas More Building

Place Montesquieu 2, 1348 Louvain-la-Neuve

Contact : quentin.verreycken@uclouvain.be

Registration to the doctoral research seminar is mandatory via this form : https://forms.office.com/e/scA0wr5Bwf

Registration to the conference is mandatory via this form : https://forms.office.com/e/1AXRDKk5jN