ESIL Interest Group History of International Law: workshop

Showing posts with label workshop. Show all posts

Thursday, 18 April 2019

CALL FOR PAPERS: Law and Boundaries [5th Annual TAU Workshop for Junior Scholars in Law] (Tel Aviv: Buchmann Faculty of Law/Zvi Meitar Center for Advanced Legal Studies, 17-19 NOV 2019); DEADLINE 1 SEP 2019

Call for Papers

The 5^th Annual TAU Workshop for Junior Scholars in Law

Law and Boundaries

17-19 November 2019

Tel Aviv University, Buchmann Faculty of Law

Zvi Meitar Center for Advanced Legal Studies

Tel Aviv, Israel

Monday, 1 April 2019

ESIL IGHIL Pre-Conference Workshop: The Rule of Law in Historical Perspective, ESIL Research Forum Göttingen, 3 APR 2019

(image source: Georg August Universität Göttingen)

Denise Wohlwend (University of Firbourg (CH)), The Rule of Law in the Debates of the Sixth Committee of the United Nations General Assembly – Reflections on the Evolution and Universality of the Concept
Abstract:

The rule of law provides that people should be ruled by the law. Despite its prominence in today’s legal and political discourse on a global scale, the exact content of the rule of law remains contested. Legal scholars commonly distinguish between formal and substantive conceptions of the rule of law, which are often associated with positivistic and naturalistic accounts of law, respectively. Within the United Nations (UN), an “autonomous notion” of the rule of law has been emerging since the 2000s. Importantly, in 2005 the UN member states recognized the rule of law as one of the organization’s “core values and principles”, as well as “the need for universal adherence to and implementation of the rule of law at both the national and international levels”. In 2006, the UN General Assembly decided by resolution A/RES/61/39 to include in the provisional agenda of its sixty-second session the item “The rule of law at the national and international levels”. Since then, it has debated the topic, selecting different subtopics, through its Sixth Committee. This has resulted in the adoption of annual resolutions reaffirming the UN member states’ commitment to the rule of law at the national and international levels. Despite multiple references to the rule of law contained in UN documents, it is not entirely clear what the rule of law at both the national and international levels amounts to within the UN. The UN member states disagree about its exact content. True, frequent reference has been made to the definition of the rule of law put forward by the UN Secretary-General in his 2004 Report “The Rule of Law and Transitional Justice in Conflict and Post-Conflict Societies”. Moreover, it has been held that over the years, the member states of the UN have settled on this conception of the rule of law. However, so far, a comprehensive analysis of the debates about the rule of law at the national and international levels within the Sixth Committee is missing. In this paper, I aim to fill this gap. I intend to analyze the discussions about the rule of law at the national and international levels conducted by the representatives of UN member states within the Sixth Committee, from 2006 until today. I examine (1) whether the expressed views reflect the conventional distinction between formal and substantive conceptions of the rule of law, and (2) whether a single or common conception of the rule of law may be deemed to have emerged. I shall then use the findings of the analysis as a starting point for a more general reflection on the issue of the universality of the concept of the rule of law. In short, the rule of law can be deemed universal as long as there are common elements that make it the same concept, in spite of differences in its parochial interpretation. Conversely, if there are no such elements, the universal character of the rule of law may be questioned. Of course, a consideration of the universality of the rule of law concept requires a clarification of the (possible) meaning(s) of universality. Moreover, in the paper, I shall also deal with the question of whether, and if so how, the issue of the universality of the concept of the rule of law is connected to positivistic and naturalistic approaches to the concept of law.

Premislaw Tacik (Jagellionian University, Krakow),
The Evolution of the Rule of Law in the Framework of the European Convention on Human Rights
Abstract:

The presentation aims to reconstruct the outline of history of how the concept of the rule of law was understood and applied in the regime of the European Convention on Human Rights, particularly in regard to ECtHR’s and EComHR’s jurisprudence. Even though the maintenance of the rule of law is one of the goals of the Council of Europe and part of the ECHR’s preamble, historically it was not understood as a source of directly enforceable rights. As stated by the ECtHR in an early judgement in Golder v. the UK, it was, however, a point of reference in interpretation of particular rights and freedoms enshrined in the Convention, particularly when their limitations were at stake. Through this linkage, the ECtHR made some cautious steps to make the rule of law a living and effective concept. It influenced the establishment of standards concerning the quality of laws limiting rights and freedoms (as in Tourancheau et July v. France case) and shaped the understanding of the position of the judiciary under the ECHR. In the latter regard, the ECtHR for a long time displayed a restrained approach and gave a significant leeway to the states in regulating the status and nomination of judges. Nonetheless, in the recent years a different trend might be observed. It seems that the ECtHR developed the standards of the rule of law in the response to the illiberal backlash. The Baka v. Hungary case might be interpreted as a milestone in this regard: the ECtHR declared the violation of Art. 6 § 1 ECHR consisting in terminating the status of a judge via targeted legislation, by which Hungarian authorities wanted to prevent the president of the Hungarian Supreme Court to continue his term. In this ruling, the concept of the rule of law links the standards of the independence of the judiciary – now influenced by soft law of the CoE – with requirements of proper legislation. Moreover, by breathing a new life into Article 18 in the Merabishvili v. Georgia case the ECtHR seems to notice that the rule of law must be defended by preventing the states from executing their illegitimate goals in restricting rights and freedoms. All in all, it might be argued that the approach to the rule of law under the ECHR is in dynamic transformation: the Court seems to pass from restrained interpretation to active support of the rule of law in confrontation with the rise of illiberalism.

Alan Nissel, Capitalism and the Evolution of State Responsibility: How US Law became Binding upon New States and, Ultimately, Everyone Else
Abstract:

Since the late nineteenth century, Anglo-American lawyers have employed domestic standards of property protection to hold Latin American governments responsibility for injuries suffered by Western aliens. Barely hidden behind this rule of law mask was a capitalist structure of economic expectations that favored Western over local individuals. The doctrine of state responsibility emerged, historians explain, as a mechanism for fostering the peaceful resolution of international claims. The idea was that arguing over legal norms – by professional lawyers in third party courts and tribunals – was certainly preferable to diplomatic and military alternatives. There is data to point to that indicates a happy correlation: the establishment of state responsibility has coincided with the rise of international arbitration and the demise of force interventions. This result has convinced many that international law, despite its lack of any police force, can finally be described as positive law. Because there are legal consequences for international breaches, international law must be binding. Today, state responsibility is the sacred cow of international lawyers, assuring us of the reality of their cause. However, the doctrine of state responsibility is not just a legal norm of peaceful dispute resolution; neither is it is simply a neutral procedure of international arbitration. It is a framework of capitalist values that was imposed by Anglo-American diplomats to provide better than local protection to their nationals residing in Latin America. The evolution of state responsibility is a story of Anglo-American triumph in the international debates over the international minimum standard of care and about the normative basis for recognizing States, of admitting nations to international organizations and of identifying them as international personalities. The historic success of State responsibility is, thus, not just a rule of law narrative; it is continued evidence of how Western imperial values underpins the primary enforcement regime of international law: State responsibility.

Ryan Mitchell (Chinese University of Hong Kong), International Rule of Law and the Problem of Legal Sanction: War and the Zwangsordnung
Abstract:

The project of using international law to prohibit wars of aggression grew steadily in importance from the Hague Conference era through World War One, culminating with the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. While there has been much recent discussion of the Pact, and debates about its role in originating the crime of aggression (most recently consolidated via the Kampala Amendments to the Rome Statute), there has been less detailed examination of the specific contemporary debates as to the legal validity of the Pact's norm seeking to prohibit aggression. The views of prominent legal scholars of the time can be distinguished into three main contending positions, each of which then had significant influences upon the subsequent theory and practice of public international law. These three perspectives can be summarized as positing either that 1) the Pact independently abolished the validity of all wars per the principle pacta sunt servanda or as an element of customary international law (the view of Quincy Wright, Hersch Lauterpacht, and others); 2) the Pact had no meaningful legal effect due to its broad exceptions and reservations, as well as the fundamental impossibility of restricting states’ traditional rights to wage war (Carl Schmitt's view); or 3) the existing jus ad bellum could not in fact be revised by the Pact per se, but only by an international organization exercising an effective monopoly on the legitimate use of force (Kelsen's view). This paper explains the evidence, methodology, and theoretical implications of each of these perspectives, including the context of the scholars and states who were their respective advocates. It concludes by endorsing the third view, exemplified by Hans Kelsen in his critical analysis of legal prohibitions of war, arguing that the mere disavowal by states of their rights to wage war (as reflected in the Pact) does not equate to a legal prohibition of war under international law unless there is a centralized sanctioning authority enforcing that prohibition, as was introduced under the UN Charter in 1945. This view, while conservative in some ways, also provides the foundation for Kelsen's related claim that international law as a "Zwangsordnung," or sanction-based order, is potentially as robust and enforceable a system of legal norms as is any domestic legal system.

Andre Nunes Chaib (MPI Luxemburg), The Various Sides of a Coin: Ideas of Rule of Law in the Ideology of International Adjudication
Abstract:

International courts have been both the object of praise and criticism throughout their existence. It is also well-known that their creation, as well as the use of international arbitration, was also always replenished with controversies. Nevertheless, despite controversies, international courts and international arbitration made their way into the life of states and individuals during the last century and had come to be accepted as important institutions in international life. Much of the backlash and the critique on international adjudication nowadays come from a tension existing between the various ideologies pervading the imaginary that informs the work of international courts. This tension finds its origin in the historical debates at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century involving international lawyers and diplomats, mainly from Europe and the United States about the concept of the rule of law at the international law and what role should arbitration or permanent international courts should have in enforcing it. In light of these debates, this paper will look into the ideologies that informed these debates and how this tension – resulting in utopic positions but also in stark criticisms – created the legal and political imaginary for international adjudication until today. Much has been written and said about the role of US international lawyers, such as Elihu Root, in pushing forward the movement towards the creation of permanent international adjudicatory mechanisms and the resistance some of them faced by European international lawyers, fearful of what courts at the international level might do to their then still strong empires’ sovereignty. Although these two sides are revealing of a particular ideal of the international rule of law, it does not tell the whole story. Therefore, this paper hopes to shed light to other ideas coming from other parts of the world, which particularly during the Second Hague Conference in 1907, influenced and impacted the ideology of international adjudication and the ideal of international rule of law that was formed at that time and that remains pervasive to these days. Individuals, such as the Brazilian Ruy Barbosa, were known to have been staunch defenders of sovereign equality and offered specific ideas about the nature and function of a potential international court. This paper hopes to clarify these different positions that were put forward at that time by not only US or European lawyers, but also by individuals of the Global South. In doing so, it hopes to show how specific ideas regarding the international, advanced by cosmopolitan thinkers such as Jeremy Bentham and Immanuel Kant, but also lawyers such as Andres Bello and Carlos Calvo were decisive in the formation of the ideology of modern international adjudication. Such an inquiry should also reveal the origins of the tensions existing nowadays regarding international adjudication and aid in the understanding of its criticism.

The conveners of the Steering Committee for the ESIL Interest Group History of International Law:
Jan Lemnitzer (Southern Denmark)
Markus Beham (Passau)
Martin Clark (LSE)
Frederik Dhondt (Brussels/Antwerp)
Hossein Piran (US/Iran Claims Tribunal)

Thursday, 31 January 2019

WORKSHOP: MILC Emerging Scholars (Manchester, 25 JUN 2019); DEADLINE 15 MAR 2019

(image source: Mancester University)

MILC Emerging Scholars Workshop

Call for applications

The Manchester International Law Centre (MILC) is holding its first Emerging Scholars Workshop on 25 June 2019 in Manchester. The aim of the Workshop is to bring together a carefully selected group of eight doctoral students. During the workshop, the participants will receive tailored feedback on their research project through closed roundtable discussions with Jean d’Aspremont, Iain Scobbie and John Haskell. In addition to the roundtable discussions, the event will also include sessions on publishing in international law and how to prepare for a job interview and compose postdoc applications.

Applicants are expected to be at an advanced stage of their PhD studies and must be focusing their doctoral research on a question related to international law, international legal practice, and/or international legal theory. Successful applicants must submit a paper of no more than 3.000 words that will be shared with other participants. The selection process will be very competitive as only eight participants will be selected.

Submission of applications

Abstracts of no more than 500 words and a one-page CV should be submitted to isil.aral@manchester.ac.uk by 15 March 2019. The subject line of the email must read “MILC PhD Workshop” followed by the surname of the author. Applicants will be notified by 15 April 2019. The deadline for submission of the papers by the selected participants is 10 June 2019.

Unfortunately, MILC is unable to offer any financial support and participants will have to bear their own expenses. Lunch and refreshments throughout the day will be provided.

(source: International Law Reporter)

Tuesday, 10 October 2017

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: Historians Without Borders: Writing the Histories of International Organizations (Leiden: Leiden University, 22-23 Mar 2018); DEADLINE 13 Nov 2017

(image source: Leiden University)

HISTORIANS WITHOUT BORDERS
Writing Histories of International Organizations

Leiden University – 22-23 March 2018

This workshop is organized by the ERC project ‘Rethinking Disability’. It is intended to bring together early-career researchers from different fields working on international organizations, to discuss methodological challenges together with peers and established scholars. A combination of a master class, keynote lectures, and roundtable discussions aims at providing an informal and interactive setting for the exchange of ideas and perspectives. Confirmed speakers include:

Davide Rodogno (The Graduate Institute, Geneva)
Corinne Pernet (University of Geneva)
Kiran Patel (Maastricht University)

Call for abstracts
Ever since the paradigm of ‘globalization’ has found its way into the field of history, ways of writing histories beyond borders have proliferated. Today, historians no longer need to justify enlarging their geographical scope beyond the national, but it can nonetheless be a daunting task to decide on how to do this. While we are going beyond borders, the choice for a translocal, transnational, transregional or global history still reveals our preference for a certain scale. Methodologically, our toolbox now offers us concepts such as comparisons, transfers, connections, entanglements and circulations. As different approaches focus on different concepts, choosing one approach often entails a rejection of other possible approaches. Transnational historians will distance themselves from comparative history; global history, as any global historian will tell you, is not the same as world history. The further we seem to get in advancing the call for breaking with our ‘methodological nationalism’, the more we seem to split up into different subfields, where fruitful dialogue becomes increasingly difficult. The purpose of this workshop is to open up this dialogue, to see what specific advantages different approaches can offer and how they can be best put to use.
In order to do this, the workshop will focus on the history of international organizations (IOs), as they are “extremely stimulating heuristic objects for historians of globalism in that they represent a true laboratory of the accords and tensions at work between the international, national, and local scenes and frames of reference” (Kott, 2011, p. 449). Therefore, writing their history automatically compels us to think about methodologies of doing ‘history beyond borders’. Although they automatically force historians to think about international connections, it is equally important to consider the continuing role of local or national scales within international organizations. Research objects in this regard can encompass both the main intergovernmental organizations (IOs) – such as the League of Nations, the UN or the NATO – and the vast field of International Non-Governmental Organizations (INGOs), spanning a diverse range of causes from the environment (Greenpeace), over human rights (Amnesty International), to humanitarianism (Médecins sans frontières).
For this workshop, we are looking for original contributions on the history of IOs and INGOs, based on empirical research, but with explicit methodological reflections on transnational, global, comparative, etc. approaches. Questions raised can include (but are not limited to):

What specific advantages do different approaches bring to the history of international organizations?
Are these approaches mutually exclusive, or do we need to combine different perspectives and concepts?
What are some of the methodological challenges in writing the history of international organizations, in terms of analyzing connections, entanglements, comparisons, etc.?
What are some of the practical challenges in writing the history of international organizations, in terms of mobility, language barriers, cultural sensitivity, etc.?
How can we deal with the fact that levels can be used both as analytical concepts (used by the historian) and as historical concepts (used by the historical actors)?
How can we deal with different uses of terms like international, national, local, e.g. as level, geographical or spatial unit or loyalty of a historical actor?
How can we deal with the (hidden) hierarchy of terms or levels like global, national, etc.?

Program
The workshop will offer a combination of a master class, keynote lectures, and roundtable discussions. It will start on 22 March in the afternoon, with a master class by Davide Rodogno (The Graduate Institute, Geneva), followed by a keynote lecture by Corinne Pernet (University of Geneva). The second day (23 March) will consist of roundtable sessions, where participants present their research and enter into discussion. Senior researchers will chair these sessions and Kiran Patel (Maastricht University) will deliver a closing keynote.
Submission of abstracts
Please send an abstract of max. 500 words and a short CV to the following email address: rethinkingdisability@hum.leidenuniv.nl by 13 November 2017. Questions to the organizers can be sent using the same address. Authors will be notified regarding the acceptance of their contribution by 20 November. Invited participants will be expected to submit a short draft version of a more substantial paper two weeks prior to the event, which will be circulated among all other participants. Participants who are accepted to present their paper are also automatically accepted to participate in the master class. If you are unable or do not wish to attend the master class, kindly indicate this in your application.
Organization
The workshop is initiated and hosted by the research team of the ERC project ‘Rethinking Disability: the Global Impact of the International Year of Disabled Persons (1981) in Historical Perspective’, based in the Institute for History at Leiden University. It is supported by the Huizinga Institute, the national Dutch research network for Cultural History.

Contact Email:

rethinkingdisability@hum.leidenuniv.nl

URL:

http://rethinkingdisability.net/historians-without-borders/

(source: HNet)

Friday, 28 April 2017

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Production of Imperial Space. Empire and Circulations (18th-20th Centuries). Paris: Sciences Po Paris/CIERA, 23-24 Nov 2017 (DEADLINE 1 JUN 2017)

(image source: Sciences Po)

Camille Buat (CHSP/Sciences Po Paris-Göttingen), Aude-Cécile Monnot (CHSP/Sciences Po) and Alexander van Wickeren (CHSP/Sciences Po, Cologne) organize a conference on the Production of Imperial Space.

Conference description:

Empires are often presented as State structures with specific relations to space, as they tend to expand through progressive accretion of territory. Imperial spaces are supposed to be strongly hierarchical, divided between centres and peripheries, with highly militarized border areas and buffer zones. In this framework, empires are primarily defined by their ability to establish their sovereignty over a specific space, which entails control over territories and the populations that inhabit them, as well as over the flows of goods and people that develop in this space.
While it is important to take into account the role of the State in structuring imperial space, the workshop proposes to study the multiplicity of processes and actors involved in the production of such a space. Henri Lefebvre’s conception of social space has been especially significant in drawing attention to the different mechanisms involved in the production of space, which he identified as spatial practices (of each member of a society), representation of space (the “conceptual space” of scientists and planners) and representational space (the space of the “inhabitants”, lived through images and symbols). Lefebvre also contended that the constitution of new spaces did not lead to the disappearance of pre-existing ones. Such insights into the complexity and multilayeredness of social space provide the basis for an inquiry into the specificity of imperial space, and of the processes contributing to its constitution.
The workshop intends to focus on circulation as an entry point to study the imbrication of spaces, of space-producing activities, and of actors, in an imperial context. A “spatial practice” par excellence, circulation produces spaces of its own, both at its most local and at its most global scale. The imperial space is itself constituted through a multiplicity of circulations: flows of legal and regulatory practices as well as of imperial personnel constitute the administrative and political space of the empire; circulations of goods and of labor shape its economic space. In addition, circulation of explorers and surveyors, and the various survey reports, travelogues and cartographic representations they produced underlie its cognitive space. The workshop adopts a broad definition of circulation, looking at the movement of peoples and goods, of information, knowledge, techniques, cultural productions and practices which constitute the circulatory regime of a given society, a regime that is constantly reconstituted in response to wider economic, social and political processes.
The workshop especially proposes two lines of enquiry
1- Imperial spaces are neither singular, nor coherent, but are constituted of many nested spaces, produced through the interaction of various actors. The imperial State is only one among several actors who take part into the production of this imperial space. Through processes of imperial expansion and consolidation, the imperial State does usher in the spatial reorganisation of the territories that come under its ambit to serve its own economic, administrative and political interests. However, the Empire’s power over space is shaped by constant negotiations with local intermediaries and further contends with diverse practices of appropriation and subversion of space.
2- Imperial space is only one among many spaces that exist within and beyond. These different spaces coexist and overlap, compete or become intertwined. Circulatory practice – regional, cross-border, and transimperial – lead to the constitution of parallel spaces. Be it the circulation of experts or indentured workers, of technical or administrative knowledge, transimperial circulations contrive to link distant territories, each under distinct sovereignties. Similarly, any given space is set within multiple temporalities, as past circulatory practices continue to interact with new imperial circulatory regimes.
The workshop aims to develop a comparative approach to foster exchange between PhD students, post-doctoral fellows and researchers working on imperial structures that traditional taxonomies have tended to segregate; i.e. continental, colonial and maritime empires. A rather broad chronological focus, spanning the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century will allow us to capture different imperial formations at different stage of their evolution. By this mean we may explore the relationship between empire and circulation, and its reconfiguration, through different contexts and at different historical moments.
The workshop will especially welcome contributions that explore the intertwinement of spaces and actors. Papers could also go beyond a strictly imperial temporal framework, looking at circulations antedating the development of the empire, as well as studying the posterity of imperial circulatory regimes. With a view to explore the plurality of imperial spaces, different scales of analysis need to be deployed, relying on manifold sources both in terms of their nature, and of the scale of activity, as well as the actors involved. Administrative sources could thus be paired with literary ones, travelogues and maps, pictorial representations as well as folklore and, for the more recent periods, oral history.

Instructions:

The following themes could, among others, be explored by the different contributions
- Imperial circulatory regimes (economic, political, administrative, cognitive...) and the processes of structuration of the imperial space (shifts and changes in spatial hierarchies, at different levels of the empire)
- Development of communication infrastructures, as both tools to control territories and objects of negotiations and contestations
- Discrimination between circulatory practices: fostering some (indenture and labor migration, opening the “interiors” and development of trade) and preventing others (sedentarisation of populations, criminalisation of peripatetic modes of life...)
- Imperial frontier, buffer zones and circulation across borders
- Trans-imperial circulations: development of regional linkages between empires, involving a multiplicity of actors (labor migrants and imperial experts, techniques and scientific knowledge, administrative practices...)
- Circulation and crisis: intensification of circulatory practices or breaches in circulatory regimes (crisis in the imperial system, but also sanitary, political, social, environmental crisis...)
Application process :
Paper abstract of 500 words max. and Curriculum Vitae should be sent to colloquium.circulation@gmail.com by June, the 1st 2017.
Every applicant will be informed by early August of the results of the selection process. Travel and housing expenses of the selected participants will be covered.

Source: HSozKult.
More information here.

Monday, 23 January 2017

ESIL RESEARCH FORUM GRANADA: Workshop "Neutrality in the History of International Law" (30 Mar 2017)

(image source: ESIL/SEDI)

The Interest Group History of International Law of the European Society of International Law is delighted to announce the line-up for this year's workshop at the Research Forum in Granada (Spain), which will take on 30 March 2017.

We received a copious number of abstracts in response to our call. After a double blind peer review, the following submissions have been selected:

L’intervention d’humanité dans la Guerre des Boxeurs (drs. Paul Bourgues/ATER at the Université de Grenoble)
Contested Turkish Neutrality in International Law (Hakan Gungor/Turkish National Education)
Neutrality in the United Nations – The Case of Austria (Prof. dr. Peter Hilpold/Professor at the Universität Innsbruck)
International Legal Thought : A Legal Project and an Integrative Approach (Dr. PD Thomas Kleinlein/Privatdozent at the Universität Frankfurt, Dr. David Roth-Isigkeit-Berlin/Research Fellow at the Excellenzcluster Normative Orders/Frankfurt)
Questioning Territory’s Contribution to Neutrality (dra. Gail Lythgoe/University of Glasgow)
Ethiopia, Neutrality and the First World War (Jakob Zollmann/Research Fellow Global Public Law at the WZB Berlin)

Organisation: Interest Group Steering Committee.

Ignacio de la Rasilla y del Moral (Associate Professor, Brunel)
Frederik Dhondt (Assistant Professor, VUB/Visiting Professor, UA/Fellow, FWO-UGent)
Thomas Skouteris (Assistant Professor, American University in Cairo)
Inge Van Hulle (Assistant Professor, Tilburg)

We of course regret not having being able to retain all excellent and informative abstracts. We nevertheless encourage all applicants to assist to the scientific event in the marvellous historical city of Granada and warmly welcome any further engagement.

Registration for the event here.

Tuesday, 1 November 2016

TRAINING DAY: Socio-Legal Sources and Methods in International Law (Institute of Advanced Legal Studies/British Library/Socio-Legal Studies Association) (London, 25 Nov 2016)

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (University of London/School of Advanced Study), the British Library and the Socio-Legal Studies Association co-organise a Training Day on "Socio-Legal Sources and Methods in International Law".

The training is amed at PhD/MPhil researchers, early career academics and policy researchers.

Programme:

Socio-Legal Methods in International Law
- Luis Eslava, University of Kent Law School
- Isobel Roele, Queen Mary University of London Law School
- Emilie Cloatre, University of Kent Law School
Socio-Legal Sources of International Law
- Hester Swift, Foreign and International Law Librarian, IALS
- Yassin Brunger, Queen’s University Belfast School of Law
- Lesley Dingle, Foreign and International Law Librarian,
University of Cambridge
Socio-Legal Histories of International Law - Mira Siegelberg, Queen Mary University of London School
of History/School of Law
- Jeroen Vervliet, Director of the Peace Palace Library, The
Hague
- Ruth Frendo, IALS Archivist and Records Manager
Objects of International Law
- Jessie Hohmann, Queen Mary University of London Law
School
- Jonathan Sims, Content specialist for humanities and
social sciences, British Library

Online booking and payment here.

Fees: £ 80 (standard); SLSA members £ 70; students £ 55 (incl. lunch/refreshments)

Venue:

Institute of Advanced
Legal Studies
Charles Clore House
17 Russell Square
London WC1B 5DR

Contact: Belinda.Crothers@sas.ac.uk

WORKSHOP: Girls Trade and International Law. Processes of Juridification from the 19th Century Onwards (Leipzig, 4-5 Nov 2016)

(image source: uni-leipzig)

Kathleen Zeidler (University of Leipzig) and Sonja Dolinsek (University of Erfurt) co-organise a workshop on Girls Trade and International Law. Processes of Juridification from the 19th Century onwards. The event takes place from 4 till 5 November 2016.

Summary:

Das Phänomen „Mädchenhandel“ hat Konjunktur. Es wurde am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts zum Gegenstand transnationaler Verhandlungen, internationaler Regelungen und überstaatlicher Vereinbarungen und stellt bis heute ein wichtiges Feld für grenzüberschreitende Rechtsan- gleichung und Vereinheitlichung rechtlicher Normen dar. Im Workshop wollen wir uns den internationalen Verrechtlichungsprozessen vom 19. Jahrhundert bis zur Gegenwart aus unterschiedlichen Perspektiven annähern. Ausgehend von der Entdeckung des Mädchenhandels als internationales Phänomen diskutieren wir die Praktiken der Ermittlung, Politik und Recht im staatlichen Kontext bis hin zu den aktuellen Debatten und Problemen.

Programme:

Freitag, 4. November
14:00-14:00
Begrüßung und Einführung Sonja Dolinsek (Universität Erfurt) und Kathleen Zeidler (GWZO)
14:00–15:30
Keynote: Die Stellung der Frauen im Völkerbund: Internationale Normierungs- und Standardisierungsprozesse in der Zwischenkriegszeit
Regula Ludi (Universität Bern)
Moderation: Dietlind Hüchtker (GWZO)
16:00–17:30
Panel I: Entdeckung – Mädchenhandel als internationales Phänomen
Moderation: Dietmar Müller (GWZO)
Historisierung der transnationalen Diskurse zu Mädchenhandel
Ruth Ennis (Universität Leipzig)
Der Völkerbund und die völkerrechtliche Regelung zur freien Bewegung von Frauen und Mädchen sowie der Versuch eines internationalen Verbotes des Prostitutionsgewerbes
Thomas S. Carhart (Universität Freiburg)
18:00–20:00
Filmsichtung mit Diskussion
Bibliothèque Pascal
Regie: Szabolcs Hajdu, Ungarn 2010 Ungarisch/Rumänisch mit deutschen Untertiteln Einführung: Kathleen Zeidler (GWZO) Moderation: Sonja Dolinsek (Universität Erfurt)

Samstag, 5. November 2016
9:30–11:00
Panel II: Ermittlung – Suche nach dem Mädchenhandel
Moderation: Katarina Ristić (Universität der Bundeswehr Hamburg)
Marcus Braun – Ein US-special immigrant inspector auf den Spuren des Mädchenhandels in Europa (1908–1909)
Jakob Lanman Niese (Leipzig/Magdeburg)
„... unser Volk rekrutiert selten Ware für die Prostitution“: Mädchenschutz im Königreich SHS/ Jugoslawien der Zwischenkriegszeit
Svetlana Stefanović (Belgrad)
11:30–13:00
Panel III: Verrechtlichung – Mädchenhandel im staatlichen Kontext
Moderation: Kathleen Zeidler (GWZO)
Gouvernementalisierung und/oder Verrechtlichung? Überlegungen am Beispiel des Kampfes gegen Prostitution und Mädchenhandel in Luxemburg um 1900
Heike Mauer (Universität Duisburg-Essen)
Frauenhandel im 19. Jahrhundert in Deutschland und im deutschsprachigen Österreich
Jürgen Nautz (Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe / Universität Wien)
14:00–16:00
Panel IV: Fortsetzung – „Mädchenhandel“ zwischen internationalem Recht und internationaler Kritik
Moderation: Claudia Kraft (Universität Siegen)
Nach der „Abolition“: Wie der Frauen- und Mädchenhandel in Vergessenheit geriet (1949–1975)
Sonja Dolinsek (Universität Erfurt)
Investigating Human Trafficking: Troubles and Development of Law Enforcement in Hungary
Tamas Bezsenyi / Noémi Katona (Budapest)
Mädchenhandel, Menschenhandel, moderne Sklaverei: Liegt der Teufel im Begriff?
Janne Mende (Universität Kassel)
16:00–17:30
Resümee und Diskussion
Dietlind Hüchtker (GWZO) und Claudia Kraft (Universität Siegen)

More information on HSozKult.

Sunday, 11 September 2016

ESIL IG History of International Law Workshop "Writing Crisis in the History of International Law" (Riga, 7 September 2016)

(Prof. Peters starting her response to the papers presented)

The Interest Group invited its members (latest ESIL secretariat count: 377) for an engaging and stimulating workshop on the theme "Writing Crisis in the History of International Law" within the Annual ESIL conference, organised in Riga (Latvia).

Four papers were presented by Monica García Salmones (Helsinki, "Universal Solutions for Exceptional Times: Vitoria and Grotius"), Eric Loefflad (Kent, "‘The Stunted ‘Science’ of Statehood as a Technology of Crisis Disavowal: Three ‘Gentle Civilizers’, The Blindspots of International Institutionalism, and Explanations of the Third Reich’"), Paolo Amarosa (Helsinki; "Diverging Reconstructions: the American international law of Alejandro Álvarez and James Brown Scott during World War I") and Ingo Venzke (Amsterdam; "The Economic Crisis in the 1970s: Possibilities for Change in the Past to Feed the Future"). Prof. Anne Peters (MPI Heidelberg) responded to the proposed texts.

The Interest Groups thanks all participants for a stimulating exchange on topics of doctrine, theory and the life of the law, ranging from 16th century theology to 21st century critical legal studies.

(view from the Latvian National Library, main site of the conference)

We point to the open call for abstracts for the workshop at the upcoming ESIL Research Forum in Granada (30-31 March 2017), which can be found here. We hope to welcome you again in Spain !

Thursday, 25 August 2016

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS: ESIL RESEARCH FORUM, Granada: Workshop "Neutrality in the History of International Law - Myths and Evolving Realities"; DEADLINE 15 DEC 2016

(image source: Wikimedia Commons)

No law is neutral. Law is always a mirror of the value-system and the power structure underlying any given society at any point in time and international law has never been an exception to this rule. A different, and yet related matter, is the extent to which the law applies equally (or not) to all members of any given society, the extent to which these members participate as equals (or not) in the formation of international law and the extent to which the law is effectively (or not) applied in an objective and un-biased manner (what is, commonly known, as 'neutrally') by international bodies and adjudicators charged with applying it to international situations or with settling disputes between any given parties. The aspiration towards 'neutrality' (as such conceived) of international law in its quest for an ever-greater legitimacy, has, undoubtedly, evolved throughout different historical periods.

Neutrality in the history of international law can, on the other hand, also be understood as a legal institution. Neutrality as a legal institution was born as a synonym for emancipation from a rigorous moral top-down juridical-moral framework inherited from theology. Its theoretical blossoming went in parallel with the consolidation of the principle of sovereign equality of nations and the principle of non-intervention in domestic affairs during the transition of the classical law of nations to modern international law. Since the establishment of the first international institutions with universal and permanent character, neutrality as a legal institution has continued to evolve against the background provided by the ever-shifting chessboard of international relations and proliferating international institutions.

Finally, the relationship of neutrality and the history of international law can be also examined through the lenses of the neutrality (or lack of) of history writing itself. If all history is, as B. Croce noted, contemporary history (by which it is generally meant that all history writing is, in one degree or other, done from the perspective of the present and also that all history writing constitutes an intervention in the present) could any historical account possibly aspire to be considered a 'neutral' history of international law? And, if so, under what criteria?

The Interest Group of the History of International Law welcomes abstracts that engage critically with any of these dimensions of neutrality in the history of international law or a combination thereof in historical perspective by reference to relevant episodes in the history of international law and/or different historiographical schools.

Each submission should include:

– An abstract of no more than 400 words, the intended language of presentation,

– A short curriculum vitae containing the author’s name, institutional affiliation, contact information and e-mail address.

Applications should be submitted to both Ignacio de la Rasilla del Moral (ignacio.delarasillaydelmoral@graduateinstitute.ch); and Frederik Dhondt (frederik.dhondt@vub.ac.be) by 15th December 2016. All applicants will be notified of the outcome of the selection process by 15th January 2017.

Selection will be based on scholarly merit and with regard to producing an engaging workshop, without prejudice to gender, seniority, language or geographical location. Please note that the ESIL Interest Group on the History of International Law is unable to provide funds to cover the conference registration fee or related transport and accommodation costs.

More information on the Research Forum (30-31 March 2017) can be found on the website of the European Society of International Law or on the Granada Law School website.

Tuesday, 5 April 2016

ESIL Conference 2016 (Riga): Interest Group Workshop: "Writing Crisis in the History of International Law" Line-up (7 Sep 2016)

(image: M.C. Escher, "Writing Hands"; source: MC Escher)

The ESIL Interest Group History of International Law is delighted to announce the line-up for its workshop "Writing Crisis in the History of International Law" at the upcoming ESIL Annual Conference, held at the Riga Law School (8-10 Sep 2016).

This event will take place ahead of the Conference, on 7 September 2016.

The Interest Group expresses its thanks to the 19 submitters of abstracts (cf. call for papers). Unfortunately, it was not possible to include all interesting paper proposals we received. After a process of double blind peer review by independent assessors, the following five papers have been retained:

"The Economic Crisis in the 1970s"
Dr. Ingo Venzke
Associate Professor at the Department of International and European Law of the University of Amsterdam

"The Stunted 'Science' of Statehood"
Eric Loefflad
Phd candidate at the University of Kent at the Centre for Critical International Law.

"Diverging Reconstructions"
Paolo Amorosa
Phd candidate at the Erik Castrèn Institute, University of Helsinki.

"The Emergence of the 'Indifference'-Narrative"
Agathe Verdebout
Phd candidate at ULB Belgium at the Centre for International Law

"Universal Solutions for Exceptional Times"
Dr. Monica Garcia-Salmones
Postdoctoral researcher at the Erik Castrèn Institute, University of Helsinki.

We welcome all persons interested at the Workshop in Riga !

Monday, 21 March 2016

WORKSHOP A HISTORY OF INTERNATIONAL LAW IN ITALY: The Development of International Law Scholarship in Italy and the Impact of Key Historical and Political Events on International Legal Studies, Firenze: EUI, 18-19 Apr 2016

Prof. Guido Bartolini (Roma III) transmitted the following fascination programme of a two-day workshop on The History of International Law in Italy at the EUI (18-19 Apr).

18 – 19 April 2016
European University Institute
Sala Europa, Villa Schifanoia
via Boccaccio 121
Firenze

Monday 18 April 2016

9.15 - 9.30 Introduction to the Workshop
Nehal Bhuta
What “A History of International Law in Italy” Is for?
Giulio Bartolini
9.30 - 11.00 Early ‘Italian’ Scholars of ius gentium
Claudia Storti Storchi
Discussant: Luigi Lacchè
International Legal Scholarship in Italy from the Late Seventeenth to the Early Nineteenth Century
Walter Rech
Discussant: Eliana Augusti
11.00 - 11.20 Coffee-break
11.20 – 13.15 The Risorgimento and the ‘Birth’ of the International Law Scholarship in Italy Edoardo Greppi
Discussant: Claudia Storti Storchi
The Italian Legal Scholarships in the Early Decades of the XXth Century
Giulio Bartolini
Discussant: Bardo Fassbender
The Italian Doctrine of International Law in the Post-II WW Period (Antonio Cassese); The Last Decades of the Italian Doctrine
Paolo Palchetti
Discussant: Nehal Bhuta
13.15 - 14.30 Lunch (speakers only)
14.30 - 17.30 The Dialogue of Private and Public International Law in Italy
Pietro Franzina
Discussant: Roberto Virzo
The Formation of Scholarly Journals of International Law – Their Role in the Discipline
Ivan Ingravallo
Discussant: Milos Vec
Catholicism and International Law Studies
Mirko Sossai
Discussant: Paolo Benvenuti
The Influx of International Law Scholars in the Constitution-making Process Roberto Virzo
Discussant: Sergio Marchisio

Tuesday 19 April 2016

9.00 - 11.10 Encounters: The Mutual Influence between Italian and Foreign Scholars Robert Kolb and Giovanni DiStefano
Discussant: Anne Peters
The Unification of Italy and International Law
Sergio Marchisio
Discussant:

Colonialism and Italian International Lawyers
Luigi Nuzzo
Discussant: Matthew Craven

11.10 - 11.30 Coffee-break
11.30 – 13.30 The “Roman Question”, the Creation of the Vatican City State and the Recognition of the International Legal Personality of the Holy See in the International Law Literature
Tommaso Di Ruzza
Discussant: Edoardo Greppi

Main Post-II WW International Law Issues: 1945-1957
Enrico Milano
Discussant: Federico Romero
The Impact of Marxism on Italian International Lawyers
Lorenzo Gradoni
Discussant: Pavel Kolář

13.30 Conclusion of the Workshop

 PARTICIPANTS
Eliana Augusti University of Salento
Giulio Bartolini University of Roma Tre
Paolo Benvenuti University of Roma Tre
Nehal Bhuta European University Institute
Matthew Craven SOAS, University of London
Tommaso Di Ruzza Financial Information Authority, Holy See
Giovanni DiStefano University of Neuchatel
Bardo Fassbender University of St. Gallen
Pietro Franzina University of Ferrara
Lorenzo Gradoni Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law
Edoardo Greppi University of Turin
Ivan Ingravallo University of Bari
Pavel Kolář European University Institute
Robert Kolb University of Geneva
Luigi Lacchè University of Macerata
Sergio Marchisio University of Rome, La Sapienza
Enrico Milano University of Verona
Luigi Nuzzo University of Salento
Paolo Palchetti University of Macerata
Anne Peters Max Planck Institute, Heidelberg
Walter Rech University of Helsinki
Federico Romero European University Institute
Mirko Sossai University of Roma Tre
Claudia Storti Storchi University of Milan
Milos Vec University of Vienna
Roberto Virzo University of Sannio

 ORGANIZING COMMITTEE
Giulio Bartolini University of Roma Tre
Nehal Bhuta European University Institute
Valentina Spiga European University Institute

A PDF of this provisional programme can be found here.

Thursday, 25 February 2016

ESIL RESEARCH FORUM Istanbul: line-up “Beyond the Western Paradigm? Towards a Global History of International Law” (Istanbul, 21-22 Jan 2016)

“Beyond the Western Paradigm? Towards a Global History of International Law”

(image source: thestregisistanbul)

The ESIL Interest Group History of International Law is proud to announce the line-up for its first Workshop on an ESIL Research Forum, hosted in Istanbul (21-22 April 2016).

Convener/Chair
    Thomas Skouteris (The American University in Cairo)
Comments:
    Gerry Simpson (Melbourne Law School)
Panelists:
    Andrei Mamolea (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva): "The Law of War in the Conquest of Indigenous Polities, 1899-1904"
    Stiina Löytömäki (University of Helsinki), "The ‘Mise en Valeur’ of the Colonies and Free versus Forced Labour: France and the Construction of Congo-Ocean railway"
    Martin Clark (Melbourne Law School): "What Can We Learn from the History of Global Historiography? Global Historiography, International Law, and a Method Sketch for a Global History of the Congo Free State"
    Johannes Hendrik Fahner (University of Amsterdam & University of Luxemburg): "The Good, the Bad, and International Investment Law – Decoupling History and Ideology"

We look forward to welcoming you at this scientific event !

(original call for papers here)

Wednesday, 9 December 2015

WORKSHOP: A new world order? Internationalism and legal imagination in inter-war Europe (17 December 2015, Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, University of Helsinki)

(image source: Helsinki University)

The Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights and the Graduate School Law in a Changing World are pleased to invite you to a workshop “A new world order? Internationalism and legal imagination in inter-war Europe”. The event takes place on December 17, 2015, at Unioninkatu Festive Halls (Unioninkatu 33).

The cataclysm of the Great War, the birth of democratic nation-states upon the ruins of monarchic empires, and efforts to found the League of Nations challenged contemporary legal theorists to restate, re-frame – or indeed to found anew – the principles of European internationalism. The urgent agendas of this extraordinarily intense period of legal innovation included attempts to think beyond unlimited state sovereignty, articulations of the legal and institutional tools for an organized system of internationalism, and reformulations of natural law or positivism to support these efforts. The seminar explores the transformations and innovations in the political and legal discourses of the time, as well as their embeddedness in the substantive and methodological frameworks of the tradition. A particular focus is on mapping the state of art in the inter-war history of European legal thought, including possibilities for a trans-national approach, and on its echoes in our own times.

Program:

1. Nathaniel Berman, Brown University, "Whose Imagination? A Cacophonous Period and the Impossibility of Legal History"

2. Georgios Varouxakis, Queen Mary University of London, "Continuities and discontinuities in Inter-War British internationalism"

3. Kaius Tuori, University of Helsinki, “Tradition and renewal: Refugee scholars and the revisiting of the foundations of European legal culture as a counter-reaction to interwar totalitarianism"

4. Balasz Trencsenyi, Central European University, "Dominance, Crisis, and Renewal: The Faces of Liberalism in Interwar East Central Europe

5. Katharina Rietzler, University of Cambridge, “German and Indian critics of British imperialism”

6. Taina Tuori, University of Helsinki, “From League of Nations Mandates to Decolonization: A History of Rights”

7. Timo Miettinen, University of Helsinki, “The idea of internationalism and universalism in the phenomenological tradition in Germany”

8. Panu Minkkinen, ”The Political Constitution: Law and Politics in Weimar”

9. Liisi Keedus, University of Helsinki, "'The New World' of Karl Barth: On Political Theologies"

10. Rotem Giladi, University of Helsinki/University of Jerusalem, "Blending the Universal with the Particular: Jewish Engagements with International Law in the Interwar Period"

More information on the website of the Erik Castrén Institute.