This issue of Comparative Legal History marks the tenth anniversary of the European Society for Comparative Legal History (ESCLH). The Society was founded on 5 December 2009 in The Hague, and ESCLH held its first biannual conference in the following year in Valencia. The ESCLH started to publish this journal in 2013, and other activities – such as blogs, doctoral courses and publications – have been continuously added to the list. In this issue, the first President of the ESCLH, Aniceto Masferrer, describes how, during the past decade, a dream of a few activists grew into an important international organization, which unites comparative legal historians worldwide.
The present issue includes two stimulating articles on themes which both once again show legal history’s growing global dimension. Shimon-Erez Blum’s article is about the role of ‘cause lawyers’ in Mandatory Palestine and adds to Comparative Legal History’s contribution to understanding the history of the legal profession. In another exciting article, Nadeera Rupesinghe writes about the oath in the eighteenth-century Dutch colonial Sri Lanka. She shows how a study of a seemingly mundane judicial institution can sometimes lead to gaining ‘deeper insights into the functioning of pluralistic and colonial law’. In addition to the articles, we have, as always, a rich selection of book reviews.
We hope you will join us for us another decade of growth and scholarship, and invite you to become a member if you are not already (see http://esclh.blogspot.fi/p/membership-information.html).