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Institutionalizing Extraterritoriality: The Mixed Court and the British Supreme Court in Shanghai

Pär Kristoffer Cassel

in Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan

This chapter follows the institutionalization of consular jurisdiction after the Opium War, with a special focus on the Mixed Court and British Supreme Court in Shanghai, which were established in ... More

This chapter follows the institutionalization of consular jurisdiction after the Opium War, with a special focus on the Mixed Court and British Supreme Court in Shanghai, which were established in the 1860s in order to resolve criminal and civil cases between Britons, Chinese, and other nationalities. A comparison of the Chinese version of treaty texts with other legal sources shows that Qing officials borrowed and adapted long standing Sino-Manchu legal concepts and institutions when they accepted and cooperated in the establishment of the Courts.Less

Expelling Extraterritoriality: Treaty Revision in Meiji Japan and Qing China, 1860–1912

Pär Kristoffer Cassel

in Grounds of Judgment: Extraterritoriality and Imperial Power in Nineteenth-Century China and Japan

This chapter examines how legal pluralism and extraterritoriality contributed to shape the public debate in China and Japan in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It contrasts official ... More

This chapter examines how legal pluralism and extraterritoriality contributed to shape the public debate in China and Japan in the last decades of the nineteenth century. It contrasts official Chinese and Japanese responses to a series of widely publicized consular courts cases and shows that the Japanese authorities were much more successful in mobilizing public opinion against extraterritoriality than the Qing Empire was. The chapter argues that one of the reasons for the Japanese success was the fact that the Japanese state had created a relatively unified citizenry by abolishing all traces of legal pluralism.Less

The Development of Relations between the Mixed Courts and the Executive Authority in Egypt (1875–1904)

Isabelle Lendrevie-Tournan

in Judges and Political Reform in Egypt

This chapter focuses on the beginning of the mixed courts (1875–1904). During this period, these new “Egyptian” mixed jurisdictions went through multiple crises, notably the debt of the Egyptian ... More

This chapter focuses on the beginning of the mixed courts (1875–1904). During this period, these new “Egyptian” mixed jurisdictions went through multiple crises, notably the debt of the Egyptian state in 1876 and the ‘Orabi Revolution in 1881, which provoked the 1882 British Occupation. This chapter shows how until 1904, the mixed courts resisted executive authority, at first from the khedive and then from the occupying British power. It next discusses the consequences of this judicial independence and then considers the conflicting relations between the executive authority and these mixed jurisdictions by examining lawsuits with political overtones that occurred starting in 1876, virtually from the beginning of these courts. These lawsuits raised a number of issues, including the viability of control by civil judges over administrative and legislative acts taken by the khedival government.Less

“Such an Asylum of Wretchedness”: Anti–Slave Trade Reception Centers, Hospitals, and Cemeteries

Manuel Barcia

in The Yellow Demon of Fever: Fighting Disease in the Nineteenth-Century Transatlantic Slave Trade

Creating safe havens for the Africans seized on board slave ships was from early on a necessity for all those involved in putting into practice abolitionist policies throughout the Atlantic. This ... More

Creating safe havens for the Africans seized on board slave ships was from early on a necessity for all those involved in putting into practice abolitionist policies throughout the Atlantic. This chapter examines the scope and limitations of the most important Atlantic reception centers, while exploring their impact on the places where they were located. It also considers a number of relevant issues related to the postcapture experiences of these Africans, including their mortality and morbidity figures for the period that followed their landing on or near these reception centers. Finally, it offers a discussion of the experiences of medical practitioners in charge of these centers and of the methods used by them to treat diseases.Less

A Prominent Family

Samir Simaika and Nevine Henein

in Marcus Simaika: Father of Coptic Archaeology

This chapter focuses on the education and careers of Marcus Simaika's siblings. According to Marcus, no fewer than three prime ministers were among the graduates of the Coptic Patriarchal School: ... More

This chapter focuses on the education and careers of Marcus Simaika's siblings. According to Marcus, no fewer than three prime ministers were among the graduates of the Coptic Patriarchal School: Boutros Pasha Ghali and Youssef Pasha Wahba, both Copts, and Yehia Pasha Ibrahim, a Muslim. A large number of ministers, heads of administrations, judges, and statesmen also graduated from this school. Marcus's two elder brothers, Abd al-Messih and Rizqallah, both graduated at the top of their class and were sent to the School of Law. They were later transferred to the Mixed Courts and then to the newly established Native Courts. Abdallah, the younger brother of Marcus, went to Montpellier to study law, while his youngest brother Attallah entered the Egyptian State Railways. His sister married her first cousin, Wassef Pasha Simaika.Less

The General Prosecutor between the Judicial and Executive Authorities

Abdallah Khalil

in Judges and Political Reform in Egypt

With the establishment of the mixed courts in 1875, Egypt became the first Arab country to incorporate the office of the general prosecutor into its legal system. Since then, that office has been ... More

With the establishment of the mixed courts in 1875, Egypt became the first Arab country to incorporate the office of the general prosecutor into its legal system. Since then, that office has been trapped between the executive and the judicial authority and has lacked real independence from the ministry of justice. This chapter traces the historical evolution of the role of the general prosecutor in Egypt and the office's relation to the executive power since its introduction. It clarifies the relevant laws and related developments of the office in an effort to reveal how the relationship has evolved, giving concrete examples of lack of independence. The 2006 amendment of Law 46/1972 only partially improved the independence of the Office of Public Prosecution from the executive authority. While the Office of Public Prosecution is considered part of the judiciary, it maintains close links with the executive power legally and politically.Less

Lawyerly Luxury of Easel Painting: Mahmoud Said

Alex Dika Seggerman

in Modernism on the Nile: Art in Egypt between the Islamic and the Contemporary

This chapter shifts focus from Cairo to Alexandria, away from the anticolonial nationalism of the former toward a deliberate cosmopolitanism observable in the latter. From the reign of Muhammad Ali ... More

This chapter shifts focus from Cairo to Alexandria, away from the anticolonial nationalism of the former toward a deliberate cosmopolitanism observable in the latter. From the reign of Muhammad Ali Pasha in 1805 until Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rise in 1952, Alexandria was a veritable second capital to Cairo, and in many ways it was better connected with the Mediterranean world. The informal infrastructure of arts education and exhibition in Alexandria led to a subtler form of Egyptian modernism. Alexandrian artists visualized the multinational atmosphere of their coastal city rather than portraying an outward Egyptian nationalism. In the vibrant oil paintings of the aristocratic lawyer Mahmoud Said (1897–1966), I locate a visual code that echoes the transnationalism of the Mixed Courts, Said’s employer and a pioneering legal institution that adjudicated contracts between the international business communities in Alexandria. I employ this comparison to argue that late Ottoman representations of race repurpose Orientalist idioms to position the author as superior to both colonial powers and local subjects. Through this repurposing, Said visualizes multiple Mediterranean image traditions implicit in Egyptian modernism.Less

The Formation and Emergence of the Peasant Question

in The Power of Representation: Publics, Peasants, and Islam in Egypt

This chapter examines various historical events that occurred in the nineteenth century and their consequences for Egypt over the course of the next century. It focuses on developments such as the ... More

This chapter examines various historical events that occurred in the nineteenth century and their consequences for Egypt over the course of the next century. It focuses on developments such as the introduction of new legal and administrative practices, the expansion of cotton production, and the emergence of a nascent public sphere, and how they affected the condition of peasants. Moreover, the chapter considers the pivotal role played by Islamic modernism in these events, and argues that Islamic modernism outlined the proper desires and aspirations for “civilized” Muslims while providing new models of familial and societal relationships as well as personal comportment. It first discusses monopoly, markets, and the growth of export agriculture in Egypt during the period, before turning to land tenure, tax collection and the mixed courts, the social cluster known as 'afandiya, reform and performative subjectivity, and the contributions of Jamal al-Din al-'Afghani and Muhammad 'Abduh to the Islamic reform movement.Less

From Crisis to Success: The Final Abolition of the Slave Trade

Jenny S. Martinez

in The Slave Trade and the Origins of International Human Rights Law

This chapter examines the factors that led to the abolition of the slave trade. The weaknesses in the mixed court system led the British government to replace it with a combination of military force ... More

This chapter examines the factors that led to the abolition of the slave trade. The weaknesses in the mixed court system led the British government to replace it with a combination of military force and domestic courts. The pressure brought by this shift in strategy led to changes in the domestic policies of Portugal and Brazil, that culminated in the ultimate suppression of the slave trade under the domestic laws of those countries. However, the last surviving branch of the transatlantic slave trade, the traffic to Cuba, was only eliminated when the British turned back to cooperative international legal action by concluding a treaty with the Americans. On April 25, 1862, the U.S. Senate unanimously ratified a treaty with Britain, which provided mutual rights of search and the trial of slave ships in mixed courts.Less

Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Legal History: International Law, Foreign Policy, and the Construction of a Legal Order

Luigi Nuzzo

in The Transformation of Foreign Policy: Drawing and Managing Boundaries from Antiquity to the Present

In order to examine the relationship between international law and foreign policy along with the way the nineteenth-century jurists used the concept of inside/outside as a conceptual couple in the ... More

In order to examine the relationship between international law and foreign policy along with the way the nineteenth-century jurists used the concept of inside/outside as a conceptual couple in the construction of an international order, this chapter develops on two different levels and pursues two different aims. On the first level, it deals with the process of transformation of international law into a “real” law freeing it from any connections with diplomacy or natural law. On the second level, the chapter moves from inside to outside, trying to understand how it was possible to construct a global international legal order and how the contact with non-Western subjects could be handled legally.Less