BOOK LAUNCH EVENT: Hendrik SIMON & Lauri MÄLKSOO in conversation about "A Century of Anarchy? War, Normativity, and the Birth of Modern International Order" (OUP, 2024), 22 October 2025

 

Source: OUP

Book discussion: A Century of Anarchy? War, Normativity, and the Birth of Modern International Order

The Interest Group on the History of International Law of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) warmly invites you to an online discussion with Hendrik Simon (Frankfurt University / PRIF) and Lauri Mälksoo (University of Tartu) on Hendrik Simon’s recent book A Century of Anarchy? War, Normativity, and the Birth of Modern International Order (Oxford University Press, 2024).

The book challenges the conventional narrative that the nineteenth century was a period of unlimited warfare until the emergence of the League of Nations, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the UN Charter. Instead, Simon demonstrates how the concept of a “free right to go to war” (liberum ius ad bellum) was a construct of Imperial German legal realism, later universalized in international historiography. His work redefines our understanding of modern international order and the justifications of war. Hendrik Simon and Lauri Mälksoo will discuss the

book together, addressing current issues in the history of international law.

Speakers:

•       Hendrik Simon is Principal Investigator at the Research Institute Social Cohesion (RISC) at Frankfurt University and Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). His book A Century of

Anarchy? has received the Jost Delbrück Prize 2024 and the Helmuth James von Moltke Prize 2025.

•       Lauri Mälksoo is Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu, member of the Institut de Droit International, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, and the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Europe (2024) and author of the forthcoming Russia, the Soviet Union, and Imperial Continuity in International Law (OUP).

Date: 22 October 2025

Time: 2:00 PM (CET)

Venue: Online via Zoom -- contact Anastasia Hammerschmied to register at anastasia.hammerschmied@univie.ac.at.

We look forward to your participation!

Jaanika Erne - Anastasia Hammerschmied - Sze Hong Lam (Ocean) - Florenz Volkaert

ONLINE BOOK DISCUSSION: Hendrik SIMON & Lauri MÄLKSOO in conversation about "A Century of Anarchy? War, Normativity, and the Birth of Modern International Order" (OUP, 2024), 22 October 2025

Source: OUP

Book discussion: A Century of Anarchy? War, Normativity, and the Birth of Modern International Order

The Interest Group on the History of International Law of the European Society of International Law (ESIL) warmly invites you to an online discussion with Hendrik Simon (Frankfurt University / PRIF) and Lauri Mälksoo (University of Tartu) on Hendrik Simon’s recent book A Century of Anarchy? War, Normativity, and the Birth of Modern International Order (Oxford University Press, 2024).

The book challenges the conventional narrative that the nineteenth century was a period of unlimited warfare until the emergence of the League of Nations, the Kellogg-Briand Pact, and the UN Charter. Instead, Simon demonstrates how the concept of a “free right to go to war” (liberum ius ad bellum) was a construct of Imperial German legal realism, later universalized in international historiography. His work redefines our understanding of modern international order and the justifications of war. Hendrik Simon and Lauri Mälksoo will discuss the
book together, addressing current issues in the history of international law.

Speakers:
•       Hendrik Simon is Principal Investigator at the Research Institute Social Cohesion (RISC) at Frankfurt University and Senior Researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). His book A Century of
Anarchy? has received the Jost Delbrück Prize 2024 and the Helmuth James von Moltke Prize 2025.
•       Lauri Mälksoo is Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu, member of the Institut de Droit International, the Venice Commission of the Council of Europe, and the Estonian Academy of Sciences. He is co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of International Law in Europe (2024) and author of the forthcoming Russia, the Soviet Union, and Imperial Continuity in International Law (OUP).

Date: 22 October 2025
Time: 2:00 PM (CET)
Venue: Online via Zoom
We look forward to your participation!

Jaanika Erne - Anastasia Hammerschmied - Sze Hong Lam (Ocean) - Florenz Volkaert

ESIL IG HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL AWARDS 2024 ARTICLE PRIZE TO HANNA EKLUND

 

In April 2025, the ESIL IG History of International Law announced the inaugural edition of its annual article prize (link). With the prize, the ESIL IG History of International Law seeks to further its mission to promote and celebrate the history of international law as a vibrant and active (sub)field of international law scholarship.

After careful deliberation following the procedure outlined in the Call for Nominations, the Evaluation Committee has decided to award the 2024 Article Prize to:

Hanna Eklund (University of Copenhagen)

for her article published in Volume 34 (4) of the European Journal of International Law, entitled

Peoples, Inhabitants and Workers: Colonialism in the Treaty of Rome 

The Evaluation Committee would like to congratulate Professor Eklund on the award.

An honourable mention goes to:

Sebastian Spitra

for his article published in Volume 26 (3-4) of the Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte, entitled

A Short Introduction to Research in the History of International Law: Current State, Contexts and Perspectives

The ESIL IG History of International Law Coordinating Committee would also like to thank its members for their active participation in the nomination process and warmly invites them to participate again in the 2025 edition.

Anastasia Hammerschmied - Florenz Volkaert - Jaanika Erne - Sze Hong Lam

Fr

CALL FOR PAPERS: Journal for Digital Legal History, "Agent-Based Modelling in Law and Legal History" (DEADLINE: 30 September 2025)

 

2025 Call for Papers: Agent-Based Modelling in Law and Legal History

The Journal for Digital Legal History invites submissions for its 2025 issue on the (mis)use and potential of agent-based modelling (ABM) in legal history and legal studies. This issue will explore how computational simulations can serve as heuristic and hermeneutic tools, rather than replacements for “traditional” (however defined) legal research, to illuminate the dynamics of law as a complex system.

Submissions from all fields of law and legal history are welcome. This includes private, public, European, and international law, both contemporary and historical.

Background and Rationale

Agent-based modelling is now “a common and well-established tool in social sciences and certain of the humanities” (Klein, Marx, and Fischbach 2018). Agent-based models construct artificial societies of autonomous “agents” whose simple rules of interaction generate emergent macro-level patterns. Historians are increasingly open to simulation and have thought fairly extensively about the epistemology of ABM (Düring 2014; Gavin 2014).

ABM remains underutilized in law and legal history but offers unique strengths: It can make assumptions explicit, allow for counterfactual “what-if” experiments, and uncover the generative sufficiency of hypothesized mechanisms (Benthall and Strandburg 2021; Schwartz 2020). Legal historians could employ ABM to test theories by simulating alternative sets of legal “rules of the game” and observing the resulting outcomes.

We welcome diverse formats:

Research articles (up to 10000-15000 words) presenting ABM-driven projects.

Technical essays (2000–5000 words) with code snippets, notebooks, or visualizations.

Reflections: Shorter pieces (up to 2000 words) on methodological hurdles, interdisciplinary collaboration, or critiques of ABM.

Trial and error (up to 5000 words): pieces reflecting on failed attempts to implement ABM in a project or grant application, identifying the specific factors or obstacles that led to failure or success.

Deadline: 30 September 2025 (authors can request another timeline in consultation with the editorial board)

Bibliography

Benthall, Sebastian, and Katherine J. Strandburg. 2021. “Agent-Based Modeling as a Legal Theory Tool.” Frontiers in Physics 9. doi:10.3389/fphy.2021.666386.

Düring, Marten. 2014. “The Potential of Agent-Based Modelling for Historical Research.” In Complexity and the Human Experience: Modeling Complexity in the Humanities and Social Sciences, eds. Paul A. Youngman and Mirsad Hadzikadic. CRC Press, 121–37.

Gavin, Michael. 2014. “Agent-Based Modeling and Historical Simulation.” Digital Humanities Quarterly 8(4). https://www.digitalhumanities.org/dhq/vol/8/4/000195/000195.html (April 28, 2025).

Klein, Dominik, Johannes Marx, and Kai Fischbach. 2018. “Agent-Based Modeling in Social Science, History, and Philosophy. An Introduction.” Historical Social Research / Historische Sozialforschung 43(1 (163)): 7–27.

Schwartz, Alex. 2020. “Agent-Based Modeling for Legal Studies.” In Computational Legal Studies: The Promise and Challenge of Data-Driven Research, ed. Ryan Whalen. Edward Elgar, 312–27.

More info with the JDLH.

PRECONFERENCE WORKSHOP PROGRAM: ESIL IG History of International Law, "(De-/Re-)Constructions of International Law over Time and Space", 2025 ESIL Annual Conference (Freie Universität Berlin, 10 September 2025)

 

2025 ESIL Annual Conference Reconstructing International Law

Pre-Conference Workshop:

  (De-/re-)constructions of International Law over Time and Space

Wednesday 10th September 2025, 15:00 to 18:00, Berlin

There has been no agreed-upon definition as to when ‘international law’ exactly began, but it is generally agreed that (de-/re-)construction has been a common theme in the history of international law at various times. This workshop aims to better understand the theme of ‘reconstructing international law’ from a historical perspective: (1) What have been the causes and reasons for (re-)constructions of international law in its history? (2) How has international law fared after past major systemic crises? (3) What can we learn from institutional and normative projects of (re-)constructing ‘new’ international law in the past?

Programme

15:00 – 15:05	Introduction and words of welcome (Sze Hong Lam)
15:05 – 16:15	Panel 1: De-/reconstruction through historical archives
	Dr. Ralph Janik (Sigmund Freud Private University Vienna): Totalitarian International Law Now and Then: Lessons from the 1940s Dr. Alina Cherviatsova (Ghent University): The Unrecognized Republic: Ukraine's Struggle for Independence in the Shadow of the Versailles Treaty
	César Targowla (Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne University): Construction and Deconstruction of Sovereign Legitimacy During the French Revolution: The Emergence of a New Concept in International Law, the Government-in-Exile
	Moderator: Jaanika Erne (University of Tartu)
16:15-16:20	Break
16:20-17:10	Panel 2: De-/reconstruction of the history of colonialism and international law
	Professor. dr. Henri de Waele (Radboud University/ University of Antwerp): “Lie There, My Art.” The (Re)construction of International Law in the Dutch Colonial Empire, 1919-1940
	Marcel Modest-Massner (University of Vienna): Rethinking the Colonial Imprint: A Dual Lens on the History of International Law
	Moderator: Anastasia Hammerschmied (University of Vienna)
17:10-18:00	Panel 3: The spatial de-/reconstruction of international law
	Dr. Milena Mottola (University of Padova): From roads to borders, and back again? International law’s (time)lines
	Miguel Rodríguez Vidosa (Tilburg University): The Place of Territory in Public International Law. An Intellectual History of Legal Space
	Moderator: Dr. Florenz Volkaert (Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve – Ghent University)
18:00:18:10	Final remarks (Sze Hong Lam)

Conveners

Anastasia Hammerschmied – Florenz Volkaert - Jaanika Erne – Sze Hong Lam