Mosaic of Global History of Law: Empires

The prevailing characterization of the seventeenth century English Atlantic Empire as one in which commercial interests are pre-dominated seems to be myopic. Gradually legal and political considerations, as much as economic considerations, shaped imperial policies throughout this period, and formed the basis for the development of England's imperial constitution. Analyzing the expansion and evolution of the Empire on the basis of law reveals why the Empire developed the way it did and how that form changed over time. Over the course of the late seventeenth century, the Lords of Trade sought to control the legal and political development of the Atlantic colonies. This book illustrates the concerted effort to create a centralized system of legal oversight through the regulation of colonial statutes and the circumscription of law-making power of colonial governments. Legal principles, more than mercantile interests or commercial policies, provided the primary framework through which relationships between metropolitan officials and colonial settlers were mediated. Legal actions have started to become critical vehicles for the consolidation of imperial authority over the colonial periphery. Imperial legal policies should be considered in connection with domestic politics as both undoubtedly influenced the shape of Restoration imperial policy. Although historians have tended to ignore the influence of domestic politics in the development of the Empire, the interplay between domestic and imperial legal politics demonstrates that imperial policies were often forged in relation and in response to political events and ideologies in Restoration England.

In the mid-nineteenth century the Ottoman Empire witnessed the emergence of an official criminal legal policy and procedures to preclude state officials from inflicting pain over civilians while executing their duties. In less than two decades, new penal codes and statutes clearly and explicitly banned state officials from resorting to infliction of pain against a civilian to exercise state authority, as method of criminal interrogation and as discretionary punishment. This book studies this historical case of criminal law transformation by focusing on the official Ottoman policy toward torture, explaining why this policy emerged at that moment and how it was implemented until the end of the Empire. While explaining this aspect of criminal law, the Ottoman criminal law system is clearly perceived as a system underwent a radical amendment hand in hand with the legal ban on torture. This gradual but drastic change of the philosophy of criminal law in the meaning and purpose of punishment shows finally a new global era of human dignity and respect with the increasing idea of personal sovereignty.