Prix du Livre Juridique awarded to Éléments d’histoire du droit international privé

On Saturday, October 7, Professor Bertrand Ancel’s Éléments d’histoire du droit international privé , already presented here, was awarded the Prix du livre juridique at the Salon du livre juridique du Conseil Constitutionnel.

As Professor Ancel said in his thank you speech, Éléments d’histoire du droit international privé is the fruit of more than fifteen years of teaching in the history of private international law. Bertrand Ancel was an associate in private law and criminal sciences, specializing in civil law, comparative private law and private international law, but was not prepared to teach legal history. He has devoted himself to the writing of these Éléments out of passion for an area whose knowledge embraces both Greco-Roman Antiquity and the Middle Ages and the contemporary world. Written on the eve of the twenty-first century, the book is an extension of the great works in French by Armand Lainé, Eduard Maurits Meijers and Max Gutzwiller prior to the Second World War, to which Elements of History of Private International Law pays tribute. Thus aggregated, Éléments give an innovative view of the history of private international law.

Provided with appendices and an extensive bibliography, this work of more than six hundred pages allows to read “l’inlassable réflexion doctrinale et les leçons d’une expérience sans cesse renouvelée des cas concrets”. It is dedicated especially to master’s students to whom this reflection offers a look at the positive data – essentially case law- and doctrinal constructions. Without history, it remains difficult to understand all the subtleties of private law: “la démarche historique restitue l’expérience” and “l’histoire est ici encore plus qu’ailleurs l’antidote du dogmatisme et l’indispensable auxiliaire de qui entreprend de connaître le droit international privé d’aujourd’hui”. The reader will also find the most important judicial decisions and the most significant doctrinal comments.

Source: Université Paris II (Panthéon-Assas)