It is curious how a small email, a simple “hello,” or a genuine ask can sometimes catapult a curious conversation, and sporadically even a new camaraderie. Voilà, such is life!
This happened to me recently.
I was recently working on my PhD chapter dealing with the interwar copyright discourse, and one name kept popping up: Dr Julius Kopsch. Naturally, I found myself wondering: who, pray, is this copyright curiou? Only later did I discover that Kopsch was a prominent figure in German copyright during the interwar years—and, dare I say, no stranger to controversy! (More on those controversies anon…)
Inquisitive (or perhaps simply procrastinating from my main task of actually writing the chapter?), I began ferreting out the name and happened upon the wonderful website of Tobias Broeker, a collector and preserver of manuscripts and scores, particularly from the twentieth century.
And then came the little surprise.
Tobias, as it turns out, holds part of Kopsch’s estate. Not merely musical manuscripts, but a rather curious collection of letters and documents covering Kopsch’s activities throughout his life. Id est, his concert programmes, his work as a conductor, documents relating to his copyright activities at the Genossenschaft Deutscher Tonsetzer and beyond, his work with the Ärzte- und Juristenorchester, and the Richard Strauss Gesellschaft. If intrigued, here’s the full finding aid to see other Kopsch’s niceties it entails.
Well … if you know, you know. For someone interested in the history of copyright—or simply in the strange joy of leafing through dusty documents, dying papers, and hazy handwritten notes—this was an invitation too tempting to resist!
So, curiosity piqued and hope duly mustered, I wrote to Tobias and asked if I might see the copyright-related material.
Lo and behold! Not only was his response prompt and positive, but Tobias digitised the materials almost immediately. The very next day, he shared the digitised archive with me.
May his tribe increase! Tobias has made the copyright-related documents available here.
Though I am yet to pore over the file in its entirety, I have already fed it into NotebookLM (a very useful tool created by Google that can come in handy for such research). For the documents are in German, and, alas, this blogger is yet to acquire that particular linguistic superpower.
NotebookLM described the documents as follows. But do have a look through the archive yourself, should it pique your interest:
“A significant portion of the material examines the advocacy for extending copyright protection from 30 to 50 years, highlighted by the writings and activism of Wenzel Goldbaum. The archive includes various legal articles, correspondence, and manuscripts that track the evolution of intellectual property rights through the Nazi era and into the post-war reconstruction of German law. These sources emphasise the vital role of the Genossenschaft Deutsche Tonsetzer (GDT) in protecting the economic and moral interests of composers like Richard Strauss. Additionally, the texts provide a comparative analysis between German and Italian copyright reforms, reflecting a broader European shift toward systematic legal protection for creators. Together, the collection serves as a historical record of the struggle to secure fair compensation and artistic freedom for intellectual workers.“
If you like to transcend copyright contours ….
If you have an interest in the arts, music, cultural history, or enjoy savouring the sheer serendipity of archives, Tobias’s website is well worth a wander. There are some wonderful things tucked away there.
For instance, Tobias has a long-term objective of “helping to bring unknown or forgotten compositions on stage.” In keeping with that mission, his website has a rather delightful page titled “Research Effects,” where he lists “the most prominent effects I had on the creation or performance of compositions.”
’Tis a good reminder that we can quietly shape the afterlife of forgotten works—perhaps before we forget that there was something to be forgotten in the first place.
I have already thanked Tobias, and can only wish him the very best in his endeavours. His generosity has certainly made this little archival detour all the more rewarding.
And a final word for those willing or wishing to tread a similar path, I’d say: sometimes the most productive research tool is simply asking. Of course, this presupposes that you have done your homework first!
(This post was first published at IPRMENTLAW – another blog I have been associated with for the last few years.)
Bonjour,
Comment ça va? (Well … my French exhausts itself almost immediately after this … Alas)
But speaking of things unmistakably French, here’s something I wanted to share and briefly talk about: the 1852 French decree…
‘Twas a decree that would go on to undergird the path of international copyright law and, in many ways, foreshadow the beginnings of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 1886 (the first international copyright treaty). Yet it offered nothing new, 19th-century scholars argued.
You may ask: why do I wake a sleeping decree?
Well … so it happened that a few weeks ago, I was leafing through some literature appertaining to early phases of international copyright discourse and noticed that the famed French Decree of 1852 survives in a rather inaccessible form.
The PSCO website’s scanned pages proved the easiest portal to it, though it may require the patience of a legal archaeologist. (A huge shout-out to the projectPrimary Sources on Copyright (PSOC) 1450-1900for making a lot of primary recipes available with required context and commentary)
Another way to find it here on pages 259–260 of J. B. Duvergier’s 1852 published Collectioncomplètedeslois,décrets,ordonnances,règlements,etavisduConseil d’État:publiéesurleséditionsofficiellesduLouvre;del’Imprimerienationale,parBaudouin;etduBulletindeslois,de1788à1824inclusivement,parordrechronologique… :suivied’unetablealphabétiqueetraisonnéedesmatières. Tis available on the Gallica BnF website.
As I could not find an easily readable text version anywhere, I thought it worthwhile to reproduce the decree here in full both in the original French and in an English translation (using DeepSeek). But whilst dusting off the archival record, I realise that contrary to the exalted status with which this decree is anointed in mainstream discourse, some nineteenth-century commentators greeted it with a more nuanced, and even sceptical, eye. They praised it for its moral might, but they also problematized its much-bandied novelty and moral authority.
‘Twas this forgotten, or perhaps the under-discussed debate, rather than the decree alone, that I wish to discuss in this post. In what follows below, before reproducing the decree verbatim, I share a few reflections on these neglected debates, which seldom find a place in the mainstream telling of international copyright history.
What Nineteenth-Century Scholars Made of It
Long before the age of harmonisation, diplomacy and TRIPS-era sermonizing trade sanctions, France pulled off something rather audacious in 1852 — a decree extending copyright protection to foreign authors without demanding reciprocity in return.
As the accompanying report by Minister of Justice Jacques-Pierre Abbatucci noted, it was an inconsistency and “contrary to universal justice” to protect a foreigner’s physical property in France while leaving their intellectual creations vulnerable to piracy.
At first glance, one may call this move typical of universalist-civilisation logic of the time. But beneath this generosity lay a pragmatic altruism, as some scholars said. By unilaterally protecting foreign works, France positioned itself advantageously in the emerging landscape of bilateral copyright negotiations, securing both cultural prestige and diplomatic leverage.
Alcide Darras, in his commentary, Études théoriques et pratiques de droit international privé. Des droits intellectuels (1887), (page 83), characterised it as marking a shift from mercantilism to universal justice. Reflecting on the decree’s impact, he remarked, in his commentary, that after the Decree of 28 March 1852, the international legal landscape changed entirely. Through this unilateral act of generosity, Darras declared (which I translated),
“France was then able to negotiate not merely as an industrial nation haggling over a tariff with trading nations, but as the sovereign of a moral empire, inviting — and, so to speak, compelling — Europe to sign with her a second declaration of the rights of the intellect.”
And the original French text reads: “Immédiatement après le décret du 28 mars, tout changea de face. Cela devait être; car la France put négocier alors non plus comme nation industrielle marchandant un tarif à des peuples marchands, mais comme souveraine d’un empire moral, conviant, forçant pour ainsi dire, l’Europe à signer avec elle une seconde déclaration des droits de l’intelligence.”
Darras adduced evidence to prove his point (page 83). He noted that while France had managed to secure only four copyright conventions between 1841 and 1852 (when it relied on commercial reciprocity), the moral authority gained from the 1852 Decree allowed it to obtain fifty-seven treaties by 1865. Another 1890 commentary by Lucien Bastide named L’Union internationale pour la protection des œuvres littéraires et artistiques noted that between 1852 and 1857, twenty agreements were entered into (see footnote at page 53).
While often celebrated as the first decree of its kind and the harbinger of modern international copyright law, these scholars have cast doubt on both its novelty and its significance. As Darras, for instance, notes in a footnote (p. 83)
“Even before the 1852 decree came to satisfy the notion of justice in France, its beneficial effects had already been foreseen. Mr Gochut had already remarked in 1839: ‘In matters that must be dealt with in full view of the people, generosity sometimes becomes a matter of tact. A fine example might perhaps have inspired all nations, even those that profit from abuse, whereas a strictly negotiated reciprocity will be accepted only by those states that stand to gain from it’ (Revue des deux-Mondes, Vol. I, (1839), p. 393) During the deliberations preceding the vote on the Franco-Portuguese convention, Mr Barthélémy Samt-Hilaire also said: ‘Once we have begun by declaring that counterfeiting in our country is an offence punishable by law, I believe we shall find it much easier to persuade governments to abolish it in their own countries’ (Moniteur, 30 June–1 July 1851, p. 1852.)”
The Decree that ‘Innovated Nothing’??
More arresting, Lucien Bastide, in his 1890 study of the Berne Convention, offers a characteristic claim that underscores the double-visioned account of the French decree of 28 March 1852. While he acknowledged it as a “monument of law” and a marking of a “new era” in French legal history, he also argued that, from a strictly theoretical lens, it was not a true innovation.
Bastide famously argued that the decree “innovated nothing in reality” and contended that the principle of protecting authors regardless of nationality or place of publication was already legally present in the revolutionary decrees of 1791 and 1793. The 1852 decree merely “sanctioned a situation already legally existing for more than half a century”. (see page 15)
The case of the Law of 19–24 July 1793—often called the “Declaration of the Rights of Genius” and hailed as the “Code of the Rights of Intelligence”—is notable here. The law conferred upon authors, composers, painters, and designers the exclusive right to sell, assign, and exploit their works throughout their lifetime.
Though it said nothing explicitly about foreign authors, to Bastide and Darras, this silence was eloquent… They rather insisted that the 1793 law spoke in a particular universal logic and revolutionary France recognised only frères de l’esprit (“brothers of the mind”).
This meaning, nationality was thus beyond the question. The Revolution had, after all, abolished the droit d’aubaine, the feudal doctrine that allowed the Crown to confiscate a foreigner’s property upon death. In this way, denying protection to foreign authors would amount to a kind of revival of that repudiated injustice, a form of legal spoliation dressed in different clothes.
From this logic, Darras deduced the “true principle” that copyright flowed from the sole fact of creation. As he said, “As soon as the work is born and has appeared to the day, the right to protection is born for the author”.
He believed that the 19th-century courts had “misunderstood” the original breadth of the revolutionary laws, making the 1852 decree necessary to restore those “true principles”. It is in this context that Bastide argued that the 1852 Decree “innovated nothing” but merely restored the spirit of old laws.
The decree found another prominent proponent in the publisher Louis Hachette, one of the principal architects behind the campaign for perpetual literary property. In a letter later cited by Philip Bertocci’s puissant piece, Hachette celebrated the decree’s recognition, “for the benefit of foreigners, in an absolute manner, without condition, of the right of literary property,” because it elevated the issue “to the level of all the great principles of natural law and human rights, instead of reducing it to the petty proportions of a commercial treaty.” In other words, copyright was no longer to be treated as a grubby bargain between trading nations (i.e., through the picnic pole of reciprocity), but as a matter of civilizational principle.
Concluding Thoughts: A French Kiss with Conditions?
It ought not be lost on readers that this French decree came simply out of universal justice. It coincides with France’s growing cultural and publishing dominance. And therein lies the rub: that international copyright was more than a matter of moral enlightenment (which apparently lent it the logic and language). It very much resulted from economic self-interest dominating publishing economies of Europe.
‘Twas a combustible mixture of both (and many other factors I’d say).
It merits mention that the 1858 Brussels Congress on Literary and Artistic Property (arguably, the first international congresses that officially inaugurated the project for international copyright), an assembly of more than 300 delegates, “saluted with respect” the 1852 decree, proclaiming it the “expression of a fundamental truth” and the “living manifestation of a principle of justice too long stifled”. From thereon, it remained a crucial citation in other formative gatherings, especially the 1861 Antwerp Congress and the 1877 Antwerp Congress.
Enough commentary. Let the decree have the last word …
Report and decree on the counterfeiting of foreign works. (X, Bull. DX, n. 3869.)
Report to the Prince-President of the Republic.
Monseigneur, copyright, which consists of the temporary right to exclusive enjoyment of scientific, literary and artistic products, is enshrined in French legislation for the benefit of nationals, and even of foreigners, with respect to works published in France. But the foreigner, who can acquire and possess movable and immovable property under the protection of our laws, cannot prevent the exploitation of his works through counterfeiting on the otherwise so hospitable soil of France. This, Monseigneur, is a state of affairs which one may criticise not only for not being in harmony with the rules that our positive law constantly seeks to generalise, but even for being contrary to universal justice. You will have consecrated the application of a salutary principle, you will have assured the sciences, letters and arts a serious encouragement, if you protect their productions against usurpation wherever they may have seen the light of day, to whatever nation the author belongs. Only one condition seems legitimate to me: that the foreigner be subject, for the subsequent preservation of his right, to the same obligations as nationals. If you deign to approve the views I have just set forth, I will have the honour to submit to you the attached decree, which will have the effect of realising them. I am with the most profound respect, Monseigneur, your very humble and very devoted servant, the Keeper of the Seals, Minister Secretary of State for the Department of Justice, signed ABBATUCCI.
Decree.
Louis-Napoléon, President of the French Republic, on the report of the Keeper of the Seals, Minister Secretary of State for the Department of Justice; having seen the law of July 19, 1793, the decrees of 1 Germinal year 13 and February 5, 1810, the law of 25 Prairial year 3, and Articles 425, 426, 427 and 429 of the Penal Code, decrees:
Art. 1. Counterfeiting, on French territory, of works published abroad and mentioned in Article 425 of the Penal Code, constitutes an offence.
Art. 2. The same applies to the sale, export and dispatch of counterfeit works. The export and dispatch of such works is an offence of the same kind as the introduction onto French territory of works which, after having been printed in France, have been counterfeited abroad.
Art. 3. The offences provided for in the preceding articles shall be punished in accordance with Articles 427 and 429 of the Penal Code. Article 463 of the same Code may be applied.
Art. 4. Nevertheless, prosecution shall only be admitted subject to the fulfilment of the conditions required with respect to works published in France, notably by Article 6 of the law of July 19, 1793.
Art. 5. The Minister of Justice (Mr Abbatucci) is charged, etc.
I found something today, not that dazzling or dramatic (like I found before), but perhaps a useful little footnote at the very least.
While the postwar shift in U.S. copyright policy—from pirate nation to IP policeman—is hardly news, it is still striking to see it stated so plainly on record by Richard C. De Wolf, then Law Officer of the U.S. Copyright Office. There are, of course, other sources that point in the same direction, but having lit upon this one, I thought it worth flagging for further scrutiny. I came across the remark while leafing through the 1938 Proceedings of the American Society of International Law. There is nothing revolutionary here … but only the sort of archival soupçon that lends a scholarly piece a sharper, more serviceable footnote.
Source: Wallace McClure & Clement L. Bouvé, International Law of Copyright, 32 Proceedings of the American Society of International Law at Its Annual Meeting 44–62 (Apr. 28–30, 1938). https://www.jstor.org/stable/25656973
At page 56, De Wolf remarks:
The question is always coining up: Why is it that the United States, which has long been a party to other conventions for the protection of intellec tual and industrial property, should have so long remained outside the Con vention for the Protection of Literary Property.
I think a little reflection answers that question. We have been, in regard to inventions, a creating or producing nation. Our inventions have gone abroad and our interest has been to see to it that an American inventor was protected in foreign countries without too much difficulty. On the other hand, until quite recently the United States has been a consuming country with regard to the creations of the mind in the narrower sense, that is, works of literature and art. Therefore, the interests of the exploiters of literary property have prevailed in this country over those of the producers. But now the shoe is going onto the other foot. Since the advent of American motion pictures and a certain type of popular music, Europe has come to be much more largely a consumer of American products of these kinds than it was in earlier times. Consequently we are beginning to think of the interests of our own creators of literature and art in foreign countries and we are asking the question why should we have to go to thirty or forty different foreign countries and perform formalities in those different countries in order to be sure that these works of ours are protected there.
Something seems inherently wrong and repugnant to logical thinking in the idea that a man, having written a book?and I presume among all of this audience there is no one who has not done it or has not thought of doing it? should have to go through a lot of burdensome formalities in order to have that work copyrighted in every different foreign country. Of course this was the aspect of the thing that was present in the minds of the people who for mulated the International Copyright Convention. Each country, of course, preferred to legislate for itself; each country had a certain national policy with regard to what should be done to protect copyrights and, of course, wanted to adhere to that with regard to the works of foreign authors.
But after a while the system broke down. An Englishman writing a book had to attend to formalities in twenty-five or thirty foreign countries, and a Frenchman likewise. The formalities became so burdensome that every body got together and said, “Here, we will all make some sacrifices. We will sacrifice our national inclinations so far as the citizens of other countries are concerned and, in return, they will sacrifice their inclinations so far as we are concerned, and we will all get together and wipe out the formalities. And the fact of the matter is that the system has worked, and I am sure they would not think of abandoning it. Yet, as Colonel Bouve has pointed out, each country is left with a wide latitude with respect to its own citizens and also with respect to the assertion of protection in the courts of the country.
It seems to me that the time has now come when the United States must take up this question seriously. In fact, it has been taken up seriously for some time past. When I first came to the Copyright Office thirty years ago I met Thorvald Solberg, who then and for many years afterwards was Register of Copyrights and whom you know as a persistent advocate of the adherence of the United States to the Copyright Convention. I am frank to say that I imbibed these views from him, and I hold them now. I think that really will be the next and greatest advance in the field of copyright law which is now open to the United States.
Okay. That’s it from my end today. See you in the next post.
A few months ago, while working at the British Library in the UK for my PhD research, Akshat suggested that I put together a short note, a quick guide, of sorts, on conducting archival research there. I must note at the outset that I remain a novice in this space, learning as I go, and understanding the rhythms of the British Library’s reading rooms. What follows, therefore, is not a definitive directive but a modest, even meandering reflection on my own experience.
1. Registration and Access: Access to the British Library begins with getting a Reader Pass. To do this, you must: Provide a valid identification document with proof of address. Importantly, anyone from anywhere in the world can register, provided they have a valid address and the required documentation. See here for more information.
2. Choosing the Reading Room: Once registered, the next step is to determine which Reading Room is most relevant to your work. The Library has several rooms, including Manuscripts, Newspapers, Rare Books, and the South Asian reading rooms, etcetera. Please note that materials related to your field may not always be limited to a single room. For example, even if you are working on copyright law, you may find useful material in the Newspaper section, Manuscripts, or South Asian collections. You can search them here. Personally, I usually begin with the South Asian collections, as much of my research relates to colonial and Indian copyright history.
3. Using the Online Catalogue and Requesting Materials: The British Library website and catalogue are central to the research process. You can find all the catalogues in our collection https://www.bl.uk/collection, which holds over 170 million items–something that grows bigger every day. Speaking of my my, here’s how I do it. I begin with broad search terms (for example: “British copyright law,” “Indian copyright,” or “international copyright”) on this Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue, but you can also check the Main Catalogue.
Once you see a relevant document, you can either submit a request online using your account (you have to create one) or, in most cases, you can use this Request form to access the material. Accuracy is crucial when filling out the request form — particularly when selecting the correct “collection area” or designated reading room. See the image below for what I mean by the collection area. If this is entered incorrectly, the request may be rejected.
It takes around an hour to receive your requested material, so you must submit the request on time. For example, if you request it in the late evening around 3 PM, you may receive it by 4, but you cannot finish reading it, as you will need to return the material by 4.40 PM, as many reading rooms close at 5 PM.
Of course, you cannot make unlimited requests. As I was informed, you can make up to 10 requests per day. At any given time, you cannot have more than 30 items requested or in circulation. (But do confirm this …) If it’s your first time, don’t worry. The librarians are extremely helpful, especially if you know: the relevant years, the names of individuals, or the type of document you are searching for. Please know that while photography is generally permitted, in some cases, you may obtain permission from the reference staff, but this is not guaranteed.
Final words
Archival work itself can be demanding. Locating relevant sources is surely difficult, confusing, and even taxing. What I typically do is treat each document as a lead: once I see a name, a reference, a date, or a piece of correspondence, I follow it further. One file points to another, and gradually a network of connections and a story begin to emerge.
To give a concrete example: While researching the history of the Indian Copyright Act of 1847, I encountered references to Lord Hardinge, who was the Governor-General of India at the time. While I have yet to investigate this trail fully, a search of the catalogue for correspondence from 1846 to 1849 reveals that files containing his letters do exist. On my next visit, I plan to check the specific letters mentioned in the copyright file discussions. In doing so, I hope to trace the exchanges more closely and see the history(ies) surrounding the drafting of the Act.
In sum, the key is simply to begin ‘somewhere’ — with a topic, a name, a year, or a letter — and then follow the trail with care.
So the other day …. I fell, most unwillingly but quite happily, down a rather curious piece (though I confess I only truly read it now, as one does with the more tempting of intellectual distractions! Alas, life is such).
It was a piece from 1967 in the Duke Law Journal, a slender sixteen-page text … dressed in all the full regalia of the American law review tradition. I mean … the dense, deliberate, and detailedly footnoted text, as though the citations are contesting for attention with the text they adorn.
But there is something else as well that ignites my interest in this piece. For one, there is, I find, something rather beguiling about writing on Soviet copyright discourse. It remains strangely under-visited in English scholarship, or at least, not easily sighted in the usual mainstream historical scholarship. Perhaps it is hiding in some archives acloves, carrying the digital dust … awaiting more patient, more persistent pursuers. At times, I suspect I ought to search more earnestly; there is likely an entire cartography of thought yet unmapped.
Secondly, as I suggested above, I liked the citations of this piece, which detour into forgotten corners, pause for brief historical asides, and occasionally seem to breathe with a life of their own. One begins to feel (at least I did) that the author took greater pleasure in the footnotes than in the main text itself.
(Well … if one were ever inclined toward an IP trivia night, this is the sort of piece one would chip in, quietly and watch the room slowly realise that copyright discourse is far more entertaining than it had dared to assume.)
But I shall not linger in preamble any longer. Below follows the citation of the piece, and thereafter a fragment of its introduction
THE COPYRIGHT laws of a country have no extraterritorial application. Nevertheless, practically every nation in the world, by adherence to either bilateral or multilateral treaties or conventions, protects copyrights of foreign nationals. The Soviet Union alone among the major world powers has refused to recognise international copyright and does not adhere to any treaty or convention for the protection of copyrights. As a result, that country’s state-controlled publishing firms have, generally without seeking permission or paying royalties, printed whatever foreign works they felt were suitable for Soviet minds. During the period from 1917-1950, it has been estimated that one billion copies of books protected by foreign copyright were published in the Soviet Union. Among these were more than seventy-seven million copies of 2700 books by some 200 United States authors, including Jack London, Mark Twain, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, Erskine Caldwell, Sin-clair Lewis, John Steinbeck and Ernest Hemingway.” Numerous foreign scientific and technical publications, short stories, plays10 and miscellaneous articles¹¹ have also been published in the U.S.S.R. Thus, that country has been characterized as “the world’s most active literary pirate.”This article will consider various reasons for the Soviet Union’s position concerning international copyright. In addition, it will outline some attempts which have been made to change the Soviet view and evaluate future prospects for the solution of the problem.
(This post continues a series where I share readings that I’ve found useful or, at the very least, intellectually stimulating. See here and here.)
Salam/Namaskar
The nineteenth century was somewhat a moment for international law. It was marked by a distinctive, I’d say, thought style in which organising international congresses to address perceived “social problems” became almost a thing. Intellectual property (IP) treaties were no exception. The late nineteenth century, as Bentley and Sherman claim, was a period of consolidation of IP laws and the beginnings of IP expertise as a specialised legal field. (Its a must-read book for IP history enthusiasts!)
I recently chanced upon two pieces that speak nicely to this broader historical moment, and I think our readers here may find them both useful and intriguing. Before pasting their abstracts below, let me briefly flag what they offer.
The first piece looks at the international congresses held between 1846 and 1914. ‘Tis a short yet sharp account of the early conference culture of internationalism—mapping not only the sheer proliferation of such meetings, but also the kinds of ideas, aspirations, and even anxieties that circulated within them. It can be a useful piece for someone willing to dig deeper into this topic. For those interested in IP like me, this can turn useful in tracing the genealogy of international copyright law.
Belgium, as is well known, emerges as a key site in this history. Brussels hosted a remarkable number of international copyright meetings, most notably the 1858 Congress, arguably the first serious attempt to forge the foundation of international copyright law, which would later become the Berne Convention. The second piece offers why Belgium came to organise so many international congresses in the first place. These congresses functioned as a form of soft power.
Read together, these pieces help situate international copyright law not merely as a doctrinal or treaty-based development, but as part of a wider nineteenth-century culture of conferencing, expertise-building, and international problem-solving—one where law, politics, and power were deeply intertwined.
Okay, here are the readings:
Christophe Verbruggen et al, Social Reform International Congresses and Organizations (1846–1914): From Sources to Data, Journal of Open Humanities Data (2022)
TIC-Collaborative was a collaborative digital humanities project that focused on transnational intellectual cooperation (TIC) in the long nineteenth century, in particular on transnational connections in the field of social reform. The dataset contains information on over 1650 international congresses and 450 organizations and conference series related to the social question. The project focussed on the Low Countries and a selection of reform areas.
The piece also provides a gripping graph showing how the congresses escalated after 1845, see page 4
“Social reform international congresses and organizations, 1846–1914”
DAVID AUBIN, Congress Mania in Brussels, 1846—1856: Soft Power, Transnational Experts, and Diplomatic Practices, 50(4) Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences (2020) pp. 340-363 (24 pages)
In 1853, the director of the Belgium Royal Observatory, Adolphe Quetelet, welcomed delegates from several countries to two consecutive meetings that have acquired considerable reputation as the first international congresses of, respectively, mete- orology and statistics. This paper examines the local context where several similar international congresses (on free trade, universal peace, prison reform, public hygiene, etc.) were organized in the same decade. It argues that the new Belgian state developed this new form of international conference in order to bolster its soft power in the Concert of Nations. It also discusses tensions between national interests and global beliefs in the efficiency of science, which arose from these congresses.
On a tangential (but highly recommended) note, do check out this beautifully penned piece by my dearest friend Shivam Kaushik, How India Learnt to Stop Complaining and Love Copyright. It pairs rather well with the themes discussed here.
Okay, that’s it for this post! See you in the next post.
