CfP: Natural Law in Action, 1625-1770
International conference of the Natural Law 1625-1850: An International Research Network in collaboration with Interdisciplinary Centre for European Enlightenment Studies, University of Halle-Wittenberg and University of Rostock
Venue: Konzil- und Professorenzimmer, Universität Rostock, Hauptgebäude, Universitätsplatz 1, 18055 Rostock
Time: 9-10 September 2027
Organisers: Mikkel Munthe Jensen, Mads Langballe Jensen, Martin Kühnel, Hillard von Thiessen
Funding: German Research Council (DFG)
Modern natural law is commonly understood as a driving force behind major innovations in moral philosophy, politics, and law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Consequently, a vast scholarship has examined natural law as a doctrine in the form of systematic theories based on academic works, textbooks, dissertations, and university teaching. The law of nature and nations was of historical significance, however, not least due to its practical importance as a tool for generations of learned educators and advisors, professional lawyers and civil servants, absolute rulers, and enlightened reformers. Natural law was wielded for various purposes and in different genres, ranging from legal opinions and proceedings over the justification of war and the negotiation of peace, as well as to the legitimation of political and ecclesiastical reforms.
This conference therefore shifts the perspective first by investigating the role of the professional natural lawyer in practical matters and second in asking how natural jurisprudence was used to achieve concrete political or legal change. By focusing on application rather than theory, the aim of the conference is to trace natural law where it did practical work in the years from 1625 to 1770. For example:
- Constitutional and political reforms
- Adjudicatory practice (such as Spruchtätigkeit) and legal proceedings
- Public polemics, for instance pamphlets, journals, and public controversies
- Religious debates and ecclesiastical reform
- Diplomacy, justification of war and negotiations of peace
- Colonial and imperial contestation, including by non-European actors
- The roles and professional personae of those putting natural law in action, such as advisor and polemicists
- The genres through which natural law was put in action
By examining these and other topics, the conference will show how the practical uses of natural law shaped a wide array of practical life (politics, law, commerce, religion), thereby uncovering the practices, rhetorical strategies, and institutional settings through which natural law acquired its contemporary and historical significance.
To highlight both geographical diversity and shared patterns, we invite contributions from across Europe and beyond. Please submit an abstract (maximum 300 words) to the conference organisers no later than 9. September 2026: mikkel.jensen@izea.uni-halle.de, mads-langballe.jensen@izea.uni-halle.de, martin.kuehnel@izea.uni-halle.de
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