Legal History Beyond Europe

When English law arrived in India, it met legal traditions of considerable age and complexity. The encounter changed both sides — yet it has long been studied from one direction only, with India as the receiving end of a story centred elsewhere.

The Centre for Legal History of India, newly established in the department of Professor Stefan Vogenauer and led by Dr Reeju Ray, proceeds from a different premise. The Indian subcontinent has distinct legal traditions in its own right, one that merits sustained attention on its own terms.

The Centre showcases the richness and breadth of Indian legal history, identifying areas of common ground while highlighting the diversity of legal traditions and interdisciplinary perspectives. It maintains formal collaborations with leading Indian law schools NLSIU Bangalore and NALSAR. Its aim is a multilateral research network connecting Frankfurt with scholars and institutions across India and beyond.

The Centre offers scholarships and guest residencies for doctoral and postdoctoral researchers on a rolling basis. Applications are welcome at any time.

Mission Statement

We provide a forum for reflecting on law.
We explore its theory and history in a comparative and global perspective.
We address societal challenges by contributing to a deeper understanding of law.

Multidisciplinary Theory of Law

Department Marietta Auer

Historical Regimes of Normativity

Department Thomas Duve

European and Comparative Legal History

Department Stefan Vogenauer

The Hidden Heritage of the European Union: The Legacy of the Law of the League of Nations

The hidden heritage of the European Union: the legacy of the law of the League of Nations

Max Planck Research Group | Michel Erpelding

Startseite

News

Tracing the footsteps of a Prussian Germanist and legal historian

March 17, 2026

In volume 351 of Studies in European Legal History , Reinhard Zimmermann offers a vivid portrait of the life, work and influence of Ernst Heymann (1870–1946): from the Prussian-trained Germanist and legal historian who in 1914 succeeded Heinrich Brunner to the most prestigious Legal History chair in the Germanist tradition at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-University in Berlin, to the director of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, which he headed from 1937 until his death in 1946 – having taken over from founding director Ernst Rabel, whom the National Socialists had forced to resign.

From market failure to a question of democracy: Rethinking digital power

March 05, 2026

Google, Amazon, Microsoft: three corporations that today control more infrastructure than most states can regulate. Anselm Küsters calls this behavioural power – and in his new book Small is beautiful 2.0, he has developed a counter-programme: open source, decentralised platforms, a theory of competition that takes democracy seriously as a protected good. Küsters completed his doctorate at our institute, conducts research at Humboldt University in Berlin and heads the Digitalisation Department at the Centre for European Policy (cep)

Franz Raffelsperger, Karte der Gefürsteten Grafschaft Tyrol mit Vorarlberg.
Erster Typometrischer Atlas, 3. Auﬂ . Wien 1843; Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek Tirol

Crime and punishment in western Austria in the first half of the 19th century

April 02, 2026

A new volume in our Policey series draws on neglected files of the Oberste Justizstelle to examine criminal justice under the Habsburg monarchy in the Vormärz period, tracing criminality and deviance in Tyrol and Vorarlberg alongside the stereotypical perceptions Viennese judges held of the "Italian part of Tyrol". Combining legal history with criminality studies and discourse analysis, it opens a window onto Austrian social history and everyday life in the early 19th century.