ESIL Interest Group History of International Law

ESIL Interest Group History of International Law

Friday, 19 December 2025

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS: 2025 ESIL IG History of International Law Article Prize [DEADLINE: 6 February 2026]

 

Call for Nominations: 2025 ESIL IG History of International Law Article Prize

The ESIL IG History of International Law invites its members to nominate an article that they believe has had or will have a major impact on the field of international legal history (sensu stricto).

Members may nominate any article on the history of international law published in any academic journal in 2023, 2024, or 2025 (the range is deliberately broad to avoid restricted access due to publisher embargoes). The prize winner will be invited to present the paper at an online ESIL event and participate in an interview with the IG Coordinating Committee, with the intention of publishing the interview in a peer-reviewed scientific venue. It is our intention to award this prize annually, with the following year’s award covering 2024, 2025, and 2026.

Nominations should adhere to the following rules (eligibility):

-          While the IG does not wish to define the history of international law, we prefer articles that, in substance, deal with history and international law, for example, by relying on archival materials. Articles whose primary focus is present-day international law (theory or practice), with an incidental historical excursion, will not be eligible for the award. Articles whose primary focus is history, with an incidental account of international law, will also not be eligible. In case of doubt, members are welcome to nominate the article. The evaluation committee will make the final decision based on the abovementioned criteria.

-          Self-nominations are not allowed.

-          The official year of publication of the article needs to be 2023, 2024, or 2025.

-          Only papers published in the Society’s official languages, English or French, are eligible.

-          Nominations should be sent to esil.ighilprize@gmail.com by the 6th of February 2026 with the subject line following the format: [FirstName_SURNAME_Paper title], with the paper attached in PDF. Nominations that do not adhere to this format will be excluded from evaluation.

Evaluation procedure:

-          Members of the IG Coordinating Committee and invited evaluators cannot express an opinion on or score papers submitted by colleagues currently or formerly affiliated with the same university to avoid a conflict of interest. The evaluators will assess any further conflicts of interest in accordance with the Canadian guidelines for federal research funding.

-          Threshold for consideration: The Coordinating Committee does not award this prize; the members of the IG do. To draw on the “wisdom of the crowd,” the Coordinating Committee will evaluate only the ten most nominated papers.

-          Each IG member can nominate only one paper. If a nominated paper does not receive the award, IG members can renominate it in a subsequent year, if they believe the impact of the paper has endured.

-          Nominations must be submitted through an institutional email address; IG members without an institutional email address can ask for a motivated exception.

-          In deciding the award, the Coordinating Committee will invite one or several highly-regarded, senior historians of international law to join the evaluation committee.

-          The Coordinating Committee calls upon its members to make an individual evaluation of a paper, in line with the four Mertonian norms underpinning the scientific ethos: communality, universalism, disinterestedness, and organized scepticism. Social media campaigns or other types of advertising, recruiting, or intimidation to increase a paper’s nominations are considered unethical.

The evaluation committee will assess papers based on the following criteria (1-5 scale):

-          The paper addresses longstanding and emergent questions regarding the history of international law from an innovative methodological and/or theoretical point of view.

-          The paper expands the history of international law by examining overlooked/understudied social contexts.

-          The paper bridges the history of international law with other disciplines in ways that result in new and original knowledge, advancing the state of the art of our field.

-          The paper soundly and rigorously explores the topic at hand, and offers significant or impactful insights, beyond increasing our knowledge of the field in question.

-          Clarity: The paper lays out the main argument unambiguously without unnecessarily reducing complexity or nuance.

Questions regarding the prize can be addressed to Dr. Florenz Volkaert (florenz.volkaert@uclouvain.be).


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Appel à candidatures : Prix d’Article 2025 de groupe d’intérêt pour l’histoire du droit international de la SEDI

Le GI Histoire du droit international de la SEDI invite ses membres à proposer un article qui, selon eux, a eu ou aura un impact majeur sur le domaine de l’histoire du droit international (au sens strict).

Les membres peuvent proposer tout article portant sur l’histoire du droit international, publié dans n’importe quelle revue académique en 2023, 2024 ou 2025 (la plage d’années est délibérément large afin d’éviter les restrictions d’accès liées aux embargos des éditeurs). Nous avons l’intention de décerner ce prix chaque année, la remise de l’année suivante couvrant les années 2024, 2025 et 2026.

Les candidatures doivent respecter les règles suivantes (éligibilité) :

  • Bien que l’IG ne souhaite pas définir l’histoire du droit international, nous privilégions les articles qui traitent, en substance, d’histoire et de droit international, par exemple en s’appuyant sur des sources archivistiques. Sont exclus du prix les articles dont l’objet principal est le droit international actuel (théorie ou pratique), se contentant d’une incursion historique accessoire. De même, sont exclus les articles principalement historiques se limitant à un volet accessoire de droit international. En cas de doute, les membres peuvent proposer l’article. Le comité d’évaluation prendra la décision finale sur la base des critères susmentionnés.
  • Les auto-candidatures ne sont pas autorisées.
  • L’année officielle de publication de l’article doit être 2023, 2024 ou 2025.
  • Seuls les articles publiés dans l’une des langues officielles de la Société, l’anglais ou le français, sont éligibles.
  • Les candidatures doivent être envoyées à esil.ighilprize@gmail.com avant le 6 février 2026 avec, dans l’objet, le format suivant : [Prénom_NOM_Titre de l’article], et inclure l’article au format PDF. Les candidatures ne respectant pas ce format seront exclues de l’évaluation.

Procédure d’évaluation :

  • Les membres du comité de coordination de l’IG et les évaluateurs invités ne peuvent pas donner d’avis ni noter les articles soumis par des collègues actuellement ou anciennement affiliés à la même université, afin d’éviter tout conflit d’intérêts. Les évaluateurs examineront tout autre conflit d’intérêts conformément aux directives canadiennes relatives au financement fédéral de la recherche.
  • Seuil de considération : Le comité de coordination n’attribue pas ce prix ; ce sont les membres du GI qui en décident. Pour exploiter la « sagesse des foules », le comité de coordination n’évaluera que les dix articles ayant reçu le plus de propositions.
  • Chaque membre du GI ne peut proposer qu’un seul article. Si un article proposé n’est pas primé, les membres du GI peuvent le proposer de nouveau lors de l’année suivante, s’ils estiment que son impact perdure.
  • Les candidatures doivent être soumises depuis une adresse email institutionnelle ; les membres de l’IG sans adresse email institutionnelle peuvent demander une dérogation motivée.
  • Pour fixer le prix, le comité de coordination invitera un ou plusieurs historiens confirmés et renommés en droit international à rejoindre le comité d’évaluation.
  • Le comité de coordination invite ses membres à procéder à une évaluation individuelle d’un article, conformément aux quatre normes mertoniennes qui sous-tendent l’éthique scientifique : communauté, universalité, désintéressement et scepticisme organisé. Les campagnes sur les réseaux sociaux ou toute autre forme de publicité, de recrutement ou d’intimidation visant à augmenter le nombre de propositions pour un article sont considérées comme contraires à l’éthique.

Le comité d’évaluation évaluera les articles selon les critères suivants (échelle de 1 à 5) :

  • L’article aborde des questions anciennes ou émergentes relatives à l’histoire du droit international dans une perspective méthodologique et/ou théorique innovante.
  • L’article élargit l’histoire du droit international en examinant des contextes sociaux négligés ou peu étudiés.
  • L’article crée des liens entre l’histoire du droit international et d’autres disciplines, aboutissant à de nouvelles connaissances originales et faisant progresser l’état de l’art de notre domaine.
  • L’article explore solidement et rigoureusement le sujet traité, et apporte des perspectives significatives ou marquantes, allant au-delà de l’accroissement de nos connaissances dans le domaine concerné.
  • Clarté : L’article expose l’argument principal de manière non ambiguë, sans réduire inutilement la complexité ou les nuances.

Toute question concernant le prix peut être adressée au Dr Florenz Volkaert (florenz.volkaert@uclouvain.be).

 

Tuesday, 16 December 2025

CALL FOR PAPERS: ESIL Research Forum Pre-Conference IG Workshop, "What Could be the Future of a Sustainable International Law? Lessons from History” (Jagiellonian University in Kraków, 7 April 2026, DEADLINE: 15 January 2026)

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The ESIL IG of the History of International Law

Call for abstracts - deadline 15 January 2026 (23:59 CET)

What could be the future of a sustainable international law? Lessons from history

The Interest Group on the History of International Law is organizing an online workshop for early-career scholars on the histories of sustainable international law in the context of the 2026 ESIL Research Forum, Forum ‘Sustainable International Law. Reconciling Stability and Change’, to be hosted by the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. The workshop will take place online on Tuesday 7 April 2026, from 14:00 to 16:00 CET.


Theme of the workshop

The sustainability of international law — and the international law of sustainability — are often framed as distinctly contemporary concerns. Yet the underlying ideas are far older. Although the vocabulary of “sustainability” is recent, earlier centuries produced comparable reflections on how to protect nature and human communities, and how to craft an international legal order capable of lasting across generations.

Historical actors diagnosed similar challenges: from resistance to “technicians for whom the earth is merely a “dead ball”’ and an object of their plannings” (Friedrich Georg Jünger, Die Perfektion der Technik, 1946), to Lassa Oppenheim’s 1908 call for a “Science of International Law” that would secure a stable and enduring international order through scientific reasoning. Visions of sustainability in international law were tied not only to predictions that war could be ended forever through mechanisms such as arbitration, but also to anxieties about the vulnerability of both humans and nature — forests, lakes, landscapes, and the people who depended on them.

In 1609, Hugo Grotius declared that the seas were common to all, thereby justifying economic exploitation and military operations, while challenging the dominance of individual states. Air pollution in early modern cities led to legal debates and measures. Late nineteenth-century debates already connected environmental, social, and legal precarity. Reformers denounced the exploitation of US mountain workers by industrialists and criticised the “land hunger” that fuelled the dispossession and suffering of South African communities — injustices that some argued required new forms of legal protection, including the extension of civil rights within the British Empire. Across these contexts, jurists, administrators, activists, and thinkers proposed solutions aimed at preserving nature, restraining extractive practices, and stabilising international order. Some ideas persisted; others were discarded; still others reappear today under new names. This call invites international lawyers and historians to examine how earlier generations conceived of what we now call “sustainability”:

  • ·         What legal, institutional, or conceptual proposals were advanced to protect nature (including animals), or ensure a durable global order?
  • ·         How were environmental protection, social welfare, and the stability of international law linked — or opposed — in different periods?
  • ·         Which proposals proved resilient, and why? Which ideas disappeared, and for what reasons?
  • ·         How did historical debates frame the relationship between protecting nature, regulating economic power, governing empires, and maintaining peace?

The Interest Group on the History of International Law welcomes papers that recover these past debates, analyse their conceptual vocabularies and political contexts, and reflect on their relevance for today’s discussions on the sustainability of international law and the international law of sustainability. Contributions from diverse regions, methodologies, and linguistic traditions are strongly encouraged.

 Submission of abstracts and timeline

The deadline for submitting abstracts is 15 January 2026 (23:59 CET). Abstracts may be submitted in English or French. Submissions must not exceed 400 words and should be submitted to this email: esilighistory@gmail.com.

The following information must be provided with the abstract: 

·         The author’s name and affiliation

·         An academic CV of the author

·         The author’s contact details, including email address and phone number

·         Whether the author is an ESIL member, and a member of this interest group

·         Confirmation that the author is an early-career scholar (see eligibility conditions on the ESIL website).

Authors of selected abstracts will be notified by 3 February 2026. Authors of accepted abstracts are invited to submit a draft paper by 30 March 2026. The draft papers will be circulated among the workshop participants. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us at esilighistory@gmail.com

Please see the 2026 ESIL Research Forum website for all relevant information about the Research Forum. 

Conveners

Anastasia Hammerschmied – Florenz Volkaert - Monica Garcia-Salmones Rovira – Sze Hong Lam 

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: ESIL Annual Conference Agora Proposal, "Conflict, Crisis and Continuity – Historical Perspectives" (3-5 September 2026, Universidad de Malaga, DEADLINE: 19 January 2026)

Call for Expression of Interest

ESIL Interest Group on the History of International Law

Agora Panel Proposal for the ESIL Annual Conference 2026

                 Conflict, Crisis and Continuity – Historical Perspectives

Málaga, 03 to 05 September 2026

Submission deadline: 19 January 2026

The ESIL Interest Group on the History of International Law is preparing an Agora panel proposal on ‘Conflict, Crisis and Continuity – Historical Perspectives’. The outcome of the Agora proposal is uncertain, but the panel speakers will be invited to present at the interest group pre-conference workshop, if the conference organizers do not select the Agora proposal.

Themes

This panel invites contributions that explore the long history of how international law has been shaped by, responded to, and coexisted with conflict. Contemporary debates frequently describe international law as being in crisis, particularly in light of escalating global conflicts and challenges to normative authority. Yet neither crises nor the tensions between law and conflict are new. Historically, moments of upheaval—whether triggered by war, shifting power structures, or ideological extremism—have repeatedly redefined the international legal order. We seek papers that illuminate how such crises emerged, how they were experienced, overcome and to what extent they represent recurring patterns within the history of international law’s engagement with conflict.

There were seismic conflicts regarding previous orders, such as the Spanish encounter with the American peoples, the Great Turkish War of the 17th century, the rise of the Dutch and the British East India Companies, the earlier Portuguese settlement in Macau from 1557, or the Chinese encounter with Russia in the 1680s. The late nineteenth century is often portrayed as the “golden age” of international law, followed by profound disappointment among scholars and pacifist activists at the outbreak of the First World War. Still, the interwar period also saw significant normative innovations, including the outlawing of war in the Briand–Kellogg Pact—an experiment that was the result of states, scientific cooperation, activism, and broader societal mobilization. How are the prevention of wars and the condemnation and prevention of war crimes historically linked? The rise of fascism exposed the sharp limits of the interwar legal order. Questions concerning the treatment of Nazi crimes and criminals generated transformative impulses for modern international criminal law through the work of opponents and those persecuted under National Socialism.

We welcome papers that assess the resilience of international law across shifting political conditions. Are there successes in conflict prevention that have been obscured by history? Are there ideas for conflict avoidance that have been forgotten today? How did a system grounded largely in customary norms until well into the twentieth century respond to pressures of war, empire, and changing power hierarchies? Did the relative informality of customary law render it more crisis-resistant, or did it merely expose its dependence on state cooperation?

Contributors may also address the deep entanglements of international law with capitalism and colonialism, or revisit assumptions about the novelty of asymmetric conflict in light of recent work by Lauren Benton. The IG particularly encourages interdisciplinary research engaging with historical methods, such as the use of archives and other historical sources, to apply. Perspectives from underrepresented regions and critical scholars are particularly welcomed.

Submission procedure

Members of the HIL IG and other ESIL Members working on related topics are invited to express their interest in participating by sending to prior to the deadline the following documents to esilighistory@gmail.com:

-          An Abstract of no more than 400 words

-          Your curriculum vitae

-          A short biography about yourself, indicating whether you’re an ESIL member and whether you are applying for the ESIL Early-Career Scholar Prize

 Timeline

The deadline for expressing interest in the Agora panel proposal is 19 January 2026. We expect to inform successful applicants before 31 January 2026 whether they will be part of the panel proposal submitted to the ESIL. However, even if the applicants were not selected for the Agora, strong applicants will be invited to present at the ESIL pre-conference workshop.

Successful applicants will compose the panel for the Agora proposal to the ESIL Conference in Malaga. If ESIL and the conference committee do not select our proposal, strong candidates will be invited to present at our pre-conference workshop on the same topic instead.

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us: esilighistory@gmail.com

Please note that the Interest Group is prioritizing those who could present their papers in person. However, the Interest Group is unable to provide funding for travel and accommodation. Selected speakers will be expected to bear the costs of their own travel and accommodation. Some ESIL travel grants and ESIL carers’ grants will be available to offer partial financial support to speakers who have exhausted other potential funding sources.

Please see the ESIL website for all relevant information about the conference.

Conveners

Monica Garcia-Salmones Rovira - Anastasia Hammerschmied – Florenz Volkaert – Sze Hong Lam (Ocean)

Monday, 1 December 2025

NOTICE: Monica Garcia-Salmones Rovira joins the Interest Group History of International Law as a convenor

Message from Monica Garcia-Salmones to the members of the IG

Dear Friends of the blog of ESIL - IG of the History of International Law,

I am a trained international lawyer who embraced the turn to history in international law. I wrote my LLD in international law at the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, (Helsinki University) with a thesis on the project of positivism in 20th century international law. After that, I held several post-doc positions, in projects such as ‘History of International Law: Between Empire and Religion’ and ‘The Concept of Natural Rights’, also based at The Erik Castrén Institute, where I was a Senior Researcher, and since 2016, an Associate Professor of International Law. Since 2023, I am Assistant Professor of Foundations of Law at the University of Maastricht, The Netherlands, and Co-Director of the Maastricht Centre for Law & Jurisprudence.

As an IG Convener, I would like to continue the great work done by the other Conveners so far. I am specially intrigued by the possibility of observing the past as a vast territory, which can be explored for thinking about the future. Creative ideas may arise from such observation. These ideas might or might not realise, but they can often contribute to enlighten our trouble times. I also would welcome the creation of opportunities to interact more with people focusing on doctrinal themes.

The other convenors welcome Monica and look forward to collaborating with her.