LECTURE SERIES: Ignacio DE LA RASILLA, "China and the Turn to the National Histories of International Law", Histories of International Law: Chinese and Global Perspectives (Zoom, 16 december 2022)

The first lecture in the Histories of International Law: Chinese and Global Perspectives lecture series organised by the Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law, City University of Hong Kong, in partnership with Wudan University School of Law and Fudan University School of Law (organizing committee: Professors Ignacio de la Rasilla, Jiangyu Wang and Congyan Cai) will take place 16 December 2022.

The program can be found below. Register using this link. Contact ccc.@cityu.edu.hk for more information.

LECTURE SERIES: Histories of International Law: Chinese and Global Perspectives, Wuhan University (Zoom, December 2022 - June 2023)

We have learnt of a lecture series organised by the Centre for Chinese and Comparative Law, City University of Hong Kong, in partnership with Wudan University School of Law and Fudan University School of Law (organizing committee: Professors Ignacio de la Rasilla, Jiangyu Wang and Congyan Cai).

Two lecture series will take place simultaneously from December 2022 to June 2023:

1. Distinguished Lectures in the History of International Law
• February 2023: Prof. Martti Koskenniemi
• March 2023: Prof. David Armitage
• April 2023: Prof. Jose Maria Beneyto
• May 2023: Prof. Randall Lesaffer
2. Histories of International Law: Chinese and Global Perspectives
• 16 December 2022: China and the Turn to the National: Peripheral and Semi-Peripheral Histories of International Law
• Prof. Ignacio de la Rasilla, Wuhan University
• Discussant: Prof. Chen Li, Fudan University
• 13 January 2023: In the Garden of Gethsemene: US-Sino Relations in the History of International Law during the Republican Period
• Prof. Christopher Rossi, UiT The Arctic University of Hong Kong
• Discussant: Prof. Ryan Mitchell, Chinese University of Hong Kong
• 17 February 2023: Historicism and Chinese Translations of International Law in Late Qing China
• Prof. Qu Wensheng & Mr. Wan Li, East China University of Political Science and Law
• Discussant: Prof. Inge van Hulle, KU Leuven
• 17 March 2023: The Legacy of Concessions
• Prof. Frederic Megret, McGill University & Dr. Wanshu Cong, Hong Kong University
• Discussant: Prof. Matthias Vanhullebusch, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
• 14 April 2023: China and the 'Third World' in International Law - On Bandung and Beyond
• Assist. Prof. Maria Adele Carrai, New York University Shanghai
• Discussant: Dr John Haskell, Senior Lecturer, Manchester University
• 19 May 2023: The Opening Up and Reform Policy and China's Re-engagement with the International Legal Order
• Prof. Jacques deLisle, University of Pennsylvania
• Discussant: tbc
• 16 June 2023: Revolution and the Introduction of Marxist theory of International Law to China
• Prof. Congyan Cai, Fudan University & Dr Jie Liu, Sun Yat-Sen University
• Discussant: Prof. Björn Ahl, University of Cologne

For more information, see the program below or contact Prof. Ignacio de la Rasilla. Register on the website of the City University of Hong Kong.

BOOK LAUNCH: Dimitri VAN DEN MEERSSCHE, "The World Bank's Lawyers: The Life of International Law as Institutional Practice" (Zoom, 16 November 2022)

 

Source: OUP

In cooperation with the ESIL Interest Group on International Organizations and Völkerrechtsblog, the IG History of International Law is organizing an online book launch event for Dimitri van den Meerssche's (formerly at the Asser Institute and Edinburgh Law School, currently at Queen Mary University London) upcoming monograph on the history of lawyers at the World Bank: "The World Bank's Lawyers: The Life of International Law as Institutional Practice".

To attend, please register at the IG IO website. Please note that the event will be recorded and posted on the websites of the IG's and Völkerrechtsblog. Following the book launch, a book symposium will be published on the Völkerrechtsblog under the lead of Anna Sophia Tiedeke.

Programme (16 November 2022, 18h15 CET - 20h CET)

Word of welcome from the organizers - Florenz Volkaert (Ghent University, IG HIL)

1. Book presentation by Dr. Dimitri Van den Meerssche (Queen Mary), 18h20-18h40
2. Followed by a panel discussion with..., 18h40-19h25

• Negar Mansouri (Graduate Institute, IG IO)
• Dr. Gail Lythgoe (University of Manchester, IG IO)
• Dr. Tommaso Soave (Central European University)
• Dr. Ahmed Memon (Cardiff School of Law and Politics)
• Florenz Volkaert (moderator, Ghent University, IG HIL)
• ... and a response by Dr. Van den Meerssche

       3. Questions from the audience, 19h25-19h55     

               

               Concluding remarks - Florenz Volkaert

Book abstract:

The World Bank’s Lawyers provides an original socio-legal account of the evolving institutional life of international law. Informed by oral archives, months of participant observation, interviews, legal memoranda and documents obtained through freedom-of-information requests, it tells an untold story of the World Bank’s legal department between 1983 and 2016. This is a story of people and the beliefs they have, the influence they seek and the tools they employ. It is an account of the practices they cling to and how these practices gain traction, or how they fail to do so, in an international bureaucracy. Inspired by Actor-Network Theory, relational sociologies of association and performativity theory, this ethnographic exploration multiplies the matters of concern in our study of international law(yering): the human and non-human, material and semantic, obscure and evasive actants that tie together the fragile fabric of legality. In tracing these threads, this book signals important changes in the conceptual repertoire and materiality of international legal practice, as liberal ideals were gradually displaced by managerial modes of evaluation. It reveals a world teeming with life—a space where professional postures and prototypes, aesthetic styles and technical routines are woven together in law’s shifting mode of existence. This history of international law as a contingent cultural technique enriches our understanding of the discipline’s disenchantment and the displacement of its traditional tropes by unexpected and unruly actors. It thereby inspires new ways of critical thinking about international law’s political pathways, promises and pathologies, as its language is inscribed in ever-evolving rationalities of rule.

For more details, contact Florenz Volkaert (florenz.volkaert@ugent.be) and Negar Mansouri (negar.mansouri@graduateinstitute.ch).