ABSTRACT
This chapter presents two approaches to examining the relationship between law and intellectual history. It focuses on two very different bodies of law in contrast to many related studies. The chapter first presents methods with which to study the legal environment of intellectual activities. It explains how various legal norms might take part in the making and dissemination of ideas. The chapter also focuses on copyright law, which is one of the oldest and most fundamental legal structures of intellectual activities, and which generates intense legal, economic and cultural battles. It examines interdisciplinary debates surrounding a major issue of legal thinking: international law. Brought together, these studies of international law and copyright law provide theoretical and methodological resources in order to study the regulation of intellectual activities, the making of legal rules, legal debates, as well as the genesis of legal ideas or views of law.
