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
