Stepping Away from the State:
Universality and Cosmopolitanism in International and Comparative Law
Call for Papers
The Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law (CJICL) will hold its Third Annual Conference on 10–11 May 2014 at the St John’s College Divinity School, University of Cambridge.
This conference will explore approaches that question the traditional state-centric view of international and comparative law. The idea of universality suggests that international law applies equally and indiscriminately across domestic legal systems, and within sub-systems of international law itself. Cosmopolitanism conceives of the world as a single entity, with resonances between people irrespective of their location, nationality and culture, and asks how legal actors can access legal regimes beyond their state’s domestic framework.
The CJICL welcomes a wide variety of proposals in the fields of comparative and international law (both public and private) that encompass empirical approaches, theoretical discussions and perspectives from practice. Research topics related to the theme of this conference include (but are not limited to):
- The universality of international law as a moral principle, especially the interaction between such a principle and the consensual theory of international law;
- The idea of a global public law that recognises the legal personality of actors other than states, including international organisations, individuals, corporations and NGOs;
- The extent to which international law is a cohesive corpus as opposed to a fragmented collection of related but fundamentally separate legal regimes;
- Theoretical perspectives on cosmopolitanism and comparative law methodology;
- Historical perspectives on citizenship, including the rights and duties of citizens in individual jurisdictions;
- Analysis of concrete examples of cosmopolitanism in private law institutions, including contracts and trusts;
- The growth of international arbitration as an instrument of cosmopolitanism; and
- Dialogues between courts in different jurisdictions as expressions of universality and/or cosmopolitanism.
Abstract submissions must be no longer than 300 words in length and should be accompanied by a brief biography or CV. The closing date for submissions is 26 January 2014. Successful applicants will be informed by 10 February 2014 and must submit their papers by 27 April 2014. Applications should be submitted at www.cjicl.org.uk/conference.
Conference papers should be no longer than 10,000 words, including footnotes. A selection of papers will be considered for publication in a special issue of the CJICL (volume 3 issue 4) and abstracts should be submitted on the basis that the subsequent paper will be available for publication.
General registration for the conference will open in mid February 2013 on our website, www.cjicl.org.uk. Numbers are limited and early registration is highly recommended.
Sunday, December 29, 2013
Call for Papers: Cambridge Journal of International and Comparative Law Third Annual Conference
Tuesday, December 24, 2013
Call for Papers: Property and Investment in Contemporary Jus Post Bellum: Clarifying Norms, Principles and Practices
Call for Papers: Peacebuilding and Environmental Damage in Contemporary Jus Post Bellum: Clarifying Norms, Principles and Practices
Thursday, December 19, 2013
Call for Papers: Il futuro delle organizzazioni internazionali – Prospettive giuridiche / L’avenir des organisations internationales. Perspectives juridiques
APPEL A COMMUNICATIONS
La Società Italiana di Diritto Internazionale (SIDI), en collaboration avec la Société Française pour le Droit International et la Fondazione Courmayeur Mont Blanc, invite les chercheurs de Droit International (public et privé) et de Droit de l’Union Européenne à soumettre leurs propositions de communication en vue du Colloque international “L’avenir des organisations internationales. Perspectives juridiques” qui se tiendra à Courmayeur (Italie) du 26 au 28 juin 2014, dans le cadre des thématiques suivantes (la liste n’est pas exhaustive):
- Cas de superposition ou/et synergie entre organisations internationales dans des secteurs spécifiques, tels que la protection de l’environnement, le commerce international, la protection des droits de l’homme et l’utilisation de la force;
- Anciennes et nouvelles formes de participation de la société civile aux organisations internationales et exigences de démocratisation;
- Problèmes de coordination et de représentation de l’Union Européenne et de ses Etats membres au sein des organisations internationales universelles et régionales;
- L’Union Européenne comme “modèle” pour d’autres expériences de coopération entre Etats en ce qui concerne, en particulier, le système juridictionnel;
- Le rôle des organisations internationales universelles et régionales dans la solution pratique de la crise économique des années 2008-2013 et conséquences de la crise sur la structure de gouvernance desdites organisations et, en particulier, de l’Union Européenne;
- Le rôle des organisations internationales dans l’harmonisation du droit international privé au moyen de divers types d’instruments normatifs: cas spécifiques liés à leur application au niveau national;
- La contribution de sujets autres que les Etats au développement du droit international privé et processuel dans les organisations internationales.
Les propositions seront exposées dans un résumé de 500 mots maximum. Le texte de la communication et sa présentation durant le Colloque pourront être en italien ou en français, au choix de l’auteur.
Le résumé de la proposition de communication, au format PDF, devra être adressé, avant le 28 février 2014, à la SIDI à l’adresse suivante info@sidi-isil.org. Ce résumé devra porter le prénom, le nom et l’affiliation de l’auteur et être accompagné de l’engagement de l’auteur à soumettre, au cas où il serait sélectionné, la version presque définitive de sa communication avant le 31 mai 2014, de façon à ce qu’elle puisse être mise à la disposition des participants lors du Colloque.
Avant le 15 mars 2014, la SIDI communiquera les résultats de la sélection à tous ceux qui auront soumis un résumé. Les auteurs sélectionnés seront les invités des organisateurs du Colloque.
Les communications sélectionnées, dans leur version définitive, seront publiées dans les actes du Colloque, dans une collection spéciale éditée par les soins de l’Editeur Editoriale Scientifica de Naples. Les actes du Colloque seront publiés au cours du premier semestre 2015.
Call for Papers: Fifth International Four Societies Conference
The Fifth International Four Societies Conference
Australian National University
1-2 July 2014
Call for Papers
The international law societies of Australia and New Zealand, Canada, Japan and the United States of America (the “Four Societies”) have held four conferences bringing together early career scholars around a theme, generally leading to an edited conference volume. The underlying goal of this initiative is to foster a scholarly network between individuals associated with the four sponsoring societies. The first cycle of the Four Societies Project saw events hosted by the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (ANZSIL) at University of Wellington in 2006, the Canadian Council on International Law held at Edmonton in 2008, the Japanese Society of International Law held on Awajishima Island in 2010, and the American Society of International Law held at Berkeley Law School in 2012 ANZSIL will host the Fifth International Four Societies Conference at the Australian National University on 1-2 July 2014, on the theme of Experts, Networks and International Law. The Steering Committee for the Fifth Conference now invites paper proposals from members of the Four Societies.
The Theme: Experts, Networks and International Law
A decade ago, in her book A New World Order, Anne-Marie Slaughter presented a novel answer to the question of how best to govern the world. Slaughter argued that global governance already existed, but that it was not to be found where most people expected to find it. She focused particularly on the emergence of ‘government networks’ as a ‘key feature of world order in the twenty-first century’ (1). Slaughter argued that it was necessary ‘to stop imagining the international system’ as a system of unitary states, and to start thinking about the ways in which states had become ‘disaggregated’ (5-6). The state could best be understood as the sum of its aggregate parts (legislatures, regulators, judiciaries), with those parts increasingly having the capacity (and at times the imperative) to interact with their foreign counterparts in order to address issues of common concern. For Slaughter, the emergence of a ‘world of government networks’ was not just an ‘underappreciated’ fact of international life (1), but also offered ‘a more effective and potentially more just world order’ than either ‘what we have today’ or ‘a world government in which a set a global institutions perched above nation-states enforced global rules’ (7). Government networks, operating alongside international institutions, could often provide a more efficient and just way of ordering a globalized world: more efficient, because management of transnational problems (such as pandemics, natural disasters, or terrorism) required flexibility and an ability to harmonize and coordinate government responses between counterpart national officials; more just, because the decentralized and dispersed nature of networks, when guided by principles such as deliberative equality, legitimate difference, positive comity and subsidiarity, were able to exercise power without a centralized coercive authority (30). Slaughter concluded that ‘(g)lobal governance through government networks is good public policy for the world’ – a ‘world order self-consciously created out of horizontal and vertical government networks could … create a genuine global rule of law without centralized global institutions’ (261).
This conference will reflect upon how the vision of a new world order based upon networked, disaggregated state institutions has held up over the past ten years. How has this ideal of global governance fared in the face of world events since 2004 (such as the Global Financial Crisis and the Arab Spring), or the perceived failure to achieve consensus on core policy questions relating to pressing global issues such as climate change, agricultural liberalisation, international criminal prosecution, the responsibility to protect, or financial market reform? Does international law today in fact operate through diffused networks? Have (and how have) domestic courts lived up to their promise in enforcing a new transnational legal system? What do empirical studies of networks reveal about their effectiveness as mechanisms of decision- making and governance? Do network principles of ‘harmonisation’ and ‘convergence’ work in ‘hard’ issue areas (such as security, scarcity, and global redistribution)? How does power operate within and between transnational networks? Is strengthening governance by experts across fields such as policing, counter-terrorism, environmental protection, human rights promotion, food safety, public health, financial regulation, international criminal prosecution, investment liberalisation, and security sector reform equally desirable and effective? What is the power of networks and norm entrepreneurs in setting global policy agendas, and how much control do global policy-makers really have over the implementation of those agendas? Do networks complement or compete with traditional institutions of global governance, and how do these dynamics vary in different institutional and substantive settings? Should international lawyers support the development of global governance through government networks, or should they take a more critical approach to the rise of networked governance? The 2014 Four Societies conference provides an opportunity for exploring these and related aspects of the broad theme of experts, networks and international law. We encourage proposals from both theoretical and practical perspectives, and from all areas of international law. We welcome applications from those who are interested in working within the discipline of international law, as well as those taking an interdisciplinary approach to the theme.
Submission of Proposals and the Process of Selection
Applications to take part in the conference should include a paper description not exceeding 300 words and the applicant’s curriculum vitae. Papers should cover work that has not been published. The Four Societies intend to publish the papers in an edited collection with a leading international publisher. Submissions should be sent by e-mail to the Society of which the applicant is a member; applicants who are members of more than one of the Societies should make a submission to only one Society. The deadline for submission of proposals is February 1, 2014. Submissions should be made to the following individuals:
ANZSIL: Professor Anne Orford a.orford@unimelb.edu.au
ASIL: Ms Elizabeth Andersen events@asil.org
CCIL: Professor Joanna Harrington Joanna.Harrington@ualberta.ca
JSIL: Professor Akio Morita a.morita@hosei.ac.jp
Each sponsoring society will select four papers, subject to the review and approval of the Steering Committee comprised of members from the Four Societies. Preference will be given to papers by those who are in the early stages of their careers. The selected participants will be notified in March 2014. Each participant will submit a full paper to the organizers by 1 June 2014 for distribution to the other participants. Transportation to the venue will be subject to arrangement between each sponsoring organisation and its conference participants (and may include the seeking of internal university support or use of an existing grant). Lodging and meals at the venue during the conference will be provided by ANZSIL. The working language of the Conference will be English.
Sunday, December 15, 2013
Call for Papers: Jeunes chercheurs SFDI
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Call for Papers: Postgraduate and Early Professionals/Academics Network of the Society of International Economic Law
3rd Conference of the Postgraduate and Early Professionals/Academics Network of the
Society of International Economic Law (PEPA/SIEL)
São Paulo (Brazil), 24 - 25 April 2014
Organised by PEPA/SIEL in cooperation with DIREITO GV – São Paulo Law School
SIEL was founded in 2008 to act as an umbrella organisation to foster coordination, collaboration and debate between International Economic Law (IEL) scholars, practitioners and national or regional IEL organisations around the world. SIEL’s Postgraduate and Early Professional/Academics Network (PEPA/SIEL) is, among other things, interested in fostering collaboration and mentoring opportunities for emerging academics and professionals in IEL. PEPA/SIEL fulfils these goals through various activities such as organising conferences at which emerging IEL academics and professionals can present and discuss their research in a supportive and welcoming environment. We are pleased to announce that the third conference will take place on Thursday 24 and Friday 25 April 2014 in São Paulo (Brazil).
Call for Papers
This conference offers postgraduate students (students enrolled in Masters or PhD programmes) and early professionals/academics (generally within five years of graduating) studying or working in the field of IEL an opportunity to present and discuss their research. It also provides a critical platform where participants can test their ideas about broader issues relating to IEL. One or more senior practitioners or academics will comment on each paper after its presentation, followed by a general discussion.
We invite submissions on any IEL topic including, but not limited to:
- trade, investment and monetary/financial policies;
- the interaction of international trade law, investment law and competition law with other branches of law governing intellectual property, human rights, environment and sustainable development;
- bilateral and regional economic integration and the multilateral trading system;
- comparative economic law, focussing on how international economic law interacts with laws, institutions and actors at the domestic level;
- law and practice in international economic governance and international organizations; and,
- philosophy, sociology, politics and economics of international economic law.
How and when to submit
Submissions should include a CV and a research abstract (no more than 400 words) and be sent no later than 12 January 2014 to pepa2014conference@gmail.com. Papers will be selected based on a double blind review conducted by a senior practitioner or academic and a conference organiser. Successful applicants will be notified by 31 January 2014, after which they are expected to submit a conference paper (no more than 4000 words) by 31 March 2014. Papers will be made available online via the SIEL website (www.sielnet.org).
General practical information about participating and attending the Conference
The deadline for registration is 17 February 2014. Registration has to be done online at the SIEL website (the registration page will be available shortly). Registration costs 45 GBP for non-SIEL Members, and 35 GBP for SIEL Members. SIEL Membership details may be found at the SIEL website (student membership is 5 GBP). The Registration fee covers conference materials and coffee breaks on both days.
Cancellations of participation must be made in writing to pepa2014conference@gmail.com. The deadline for cancellation is 6 April 2014. The registration fee minus an administrative fee of 10 GBP and any incurring bank fees will be refunded if the cancellation is done before or on the given date. Later cancellations will not be refunded.
A limited number of conference fee waivers is available for applicants facing financial hardship. Applicants for a conference fee waiver are kindly invited to add a short letter of no more than 3 paragraphs to their conference application, stating the reason for their waiver request. Successful applicants will be notified by 30 January 2014.
Subject to space availability, registration of participants not presenting a paper will be accepted. The regular fee will be applied. Please contact pepa2014conference@gmail.com.
If you should have any (further) questions regarding participation, please feel free to contact pepa2014conference@gmail.com.
Organisers
Conference Co-Chairs: Michelle Ratton Sanchez Badin, Vera Thorstensen, Freya Baetens and José Caiado
Monday, December 9, 2013
Call for Papers: L'Empire du crime ? Vers une analyse critique des processus internationaux de criminalisation
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Call for Papers: Foundations and Futures of International Law
2014 ILA British Branch Spring Conference
23 - 24 May 2014 - King's College London, Dickson Poon School of Law
Foundations and Futures of International Law
The time is ripe both to revisit the foundations of international law and to imagine its possible futures. Once the preserve of a small community of specialised academics and practitioners, international law increasingly plays an important role in cases decided by national courts; it is at the centre of renewed interest by political and legal theorists; and in many countries (Britain among them) it even shapes public argument on foreign policy, national security and the resort to armed force. Amidst these developments one finds different methodological approaches seeking to explain the role of international law, as well as different instrumental camps using international law to advocate particular priorities.
The organisers of this year’s Spring Conference of the British Branch of the ILA are particularly interested in contributions that shed new light on the following foundational questions: the relationship between international, regional and domestic legal orders; the identification and development of customary international law; and the regulation of armed conflict. Re-examining foundations in the light of new information and modes of thinking leads naturally to the imagination of possible futures. In this respect we are also seeking papers that explore the relevance of new theoretical paradigms (for example, the idea of transnational law) or analyse issues of concern to present and future generations, such as combatting climate change, preventing human trafficking, managing financial risk, encouraging businesses to respect human rights and promoting socially responsible investment.
This conference will combine pace-setting panels with keynote speeches that will present a striking vision of lawmaking in the future.
The organisers also welcome the submission of unsolicited proposals. These should be one page long and sent to ilaconf@kcl.ac.uk by 30 January 2014.