Uploaded June 2022 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Trust – as a legal concept and institution – has played an important role in the law of empire. This lecture will explore how colonial and imperial powers have justified their expansion and domination by assuming a trust responsibility, beginning with the origins of modern international law: the colonial encounter between the Spanish and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. His lecture will discuss how colonized peoples contested trust in the empire’s law, assessing ways in which they have shaped the very transnational legal ordering that aimed to control them.
Seth Davis is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. His research explores questions of sovereignty, responsibility, and redress as they arise in both public law and private law. His recent work addresses these questions in several contexts of transnational law and interactions, including colonialism and imperialism, migration and refugee law, and transnational fiduciary law.
This is the first keynote lecture for the conference, "The Global History and Global Governance of Europe’s Transoceanic Encounters: 2nd ETEE Conference on Europe’s Interactions with World Regions.” This conference is organized by the Institute of European Studies at UC Berkeley in partnership with KU Leuven, Seoul National University, University of Amsterdam, Kobe University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Nanyang Technological University, and UNESP. The Jean Monnet Network European Transoceanic Encounters and Exchanges (ETEE) aims at enhancing understanding and teaching about Europe’s place and role in today’s world by looking at its present and past transoceanic relations and connectivities.
Trust – as a legal concept and institution – has played an important role in the law of empire. This lecture will explore how colonial and imperial powers have justified their expansion and domination by assuming a trust responsibility, beginning with the origins of modern international law: the colonial encounter between the Spanish and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. His lecture will discuss how colonized peoples contested trust in the empire’s law, assessing ways in which they have shaped the very transnational legal ordering that aimed to control them.
Seth Davis is a Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. His research explores questions of sovereignty, responsibility, and redress as they arise in both public law and private law. His recent work addresses these questions in several contexts of transnational law and interactions, including colonialism and imperialism, migration and refugee law, and transnational fiduciary law.
This is the first keynote lecture for the conference, "The Global History and Global Governance of Europe’s Transoceanic Encounters: 2nd ETEE Conference on Europe’s Interactions with World Regions.” This conference is organized by the Institute of European Studies at UC Berkeley in partnership with KU Leuven, Seoul National University, University of Amsterdam, Kobe University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Nanyang Technological University, and UNESP. The Jean Monnet Network European Transoceanic Encounters and Exchanges (ETEE) aims at enhancing understanding and teaching about Europe’s place and role in today’s world by looking at its present and past transoceanic relations and connectivities.
