Ordering Property: A Global History of Maritime Prize Law, 1498-1916

FAIN: FEL-288628-23

Nathan Perl-Rosenthal
University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA 90089-0012)

Research and writing leading to a global history of maritime prize law (1498-1916).

Ordering Property charts the global rise and fall of maritime prize law from 1498 through the aftermath of the American Civil War. Prize courts, which had jurisdiction over enemy property seized in wartime, became a principal forum for private property disputes between the subjects of different empires during the early modern era. This made them a key site for creating and enforcing law among polities. Prize courts created trans- and inter-imperial legal orders as a routine part of their work. Empires used prize jurisdiction to extend their authority into regions in which imperial institutions were weak. Prize became a powerful but flawed mode of inter-imperial governance, central to efforts to end the Atlantic slave trade, shape European colonization in Asia, and decide the outcome of the Americas’ independence struggles. The project reveals a largely forgotten history of inter-imperial governance via private property relations in the era before modern international law.