The ESIL Annual Conference serves as the flagship event of the European Society of International Law (ESIL), bringing together scholars, practitioners and students from around the world to discuss and debate the most pressing issues at the intersection of international law and global affairs.
Henry-Ford-Building,
Garystraße 35 - 14195 Berlin
Thursday to Saturday
11.09. - 13.09.2025
IG pre-conference workshops on 10./11.09.2025
6
fora
12
agorae
#ESIL2025
About
ESIL conference
The ESIL Annual Conference serves as the flagship event of the European Society of International Law (ESIL), bringing together scholars, practitioners and students from around the world to discuss and debate the most pressing issues at the intersection of international law and global affairs.
Henry-Ford-Building,
Garystraße 35 - 14195 Berlin
Thursday to Saturday
11. - 13.09.2025
6
fora
12
agorae
Theme
reconstructing international law
For the last decade, international law has gone through a period of turbulence. In response, it is time to move beyond crisis narratives and adopt a forward-looking approach. For such an undertaking, the year 2025 offers an appropriate context. It will mark the 80th birthday of the United Nations, the institutional centre of the international legal order. At the same time, 2025 is just five years away from 2030 when the future direction of the current blueprint for global social order, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will need to be decided.
The theme of “reconstructing international law” will be brought to life on various levels:
Reconstruction will be a pressing issue on a practical level. The collective security system of the United Nations has had limited success in realizing its purpose in the war of aggression against Ukraine, the ongoing war in Gaza as well as in many other contexts. Reconstructing the authority of the UN's institutional structure will require creative thinking on the interplay of UN organs and the role of international law. Challenges of institutional reconstruction are not confined to the UN but also invite us to rethink institutional arrangements of other international organisations, including the WTO, the WHO, and the EU as well as their relationship with more informal governance arrangements.
The SDGs have contributed to changing the understanding of what development requires, but their true potential of transforming our world in the Global South and beyond remains unrealized. Reconstructing the promise of international development without replicating earlier mistakes and without giving in to powerful new actors with wide-ranging conceptions for global development will require thinking about the role of international law in realizing a just future for the world's population. The conference will offer a venue to critically accompany as well as support other political processes leading to a new blueprint for development in 2030.
How has international law fared after past major systemic crises? At various moments in the history of international law, it was necessary to embrace a new form of international law. What can we learn from institutional and normative projects of (re-)constructing "new" international law in the past?
Reconstructing international law cannot mean a return to outdated progress narratives. The insights from Critical Legal Studies and Third World Approaches cannot and should not be unlearnt. This implies that the authority and legitimacy of international law need to be reconstructed in a manner as inclusive as possible and with input from a wide variety of theoretical approaches.
Theme
reconstructing international law
For the last decade, international law has gone through a period of turbulence. In response, it is time to move beyond crisis narratives and adopt a forward-looking approach. For such an undertaking, the year 2025 offers an appropriate context. It will mark the 80th birthday of the United Nations, the institutional centre of the international legal order. At the same time, 2025 is just five years away from 2030 when the future direction of the current blueprint for global social order, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), will need to be decided.
The theme of “reconstructing international law” will be brought to life on various levels:
Reconstruction will be a pressing issue on a practical level. The collective security system of the United Nations has had limited success in realizing its purpose in the war of aggression against Ukraine, the ongoing war in Gaza as well as in many other contexts. Reconstructing the authority of the UN's institutional structure will require creative thinking on the interplay of UN organs and the role of international law. Challenges of institutional reconstruction are not confined to the UN but also invite us to rethink institutional arrangements of other international organisations, including the WTO, the WHO, and the EU as well as their relationship with more informal governance arrangements.
The SDGs have contributed to changing the understanding of what development requires, but their true potential of transforming our world in the Global South and beyond remains unrealized. Reconstructing the promise of international development without replicating earlier mistakes and without giving in to powerful new actors with wide-ranging conceptions for global development will require thinking about the role of international law in realizing a just future for the world's population. The conference will offer a venue to critically accompany as well as support other political processes leading to a new blueprint for development in 2030.
How has international law fared after past major systemic crises? At various moments in the history of international law, it was necessary to embrace a new form of international law. What can we learn from institutional and normative projects of (re-) constructing "new" international law in the past?
Reconstructing international law cannot mean a return to outdated progress narratives. The insights from Critical Legal Studies and Third World Approaches cannot and should not be unlearnt. This implies that the authority and legitimacy of international law need to be reconstructed in a manner as inclusive as possible and with input from a wide variety of theoretical approaches.
important dates
abstract & papers
abstract submission by 31 January 2025
notification of acceptance by 31 March 2025
full paper submission by 1 July 2025
final paper submission (optional) by 1 November 2025
conference
early bird registration until 1 June 2025
Interest Group pre-conference workshops on 10 September 2025 (afternoon) and 11 September 2025 (morning)
ESIL Annual Conference on 11 - 13 September 2025
The European Society of International Law is an independent scholarly association that serves as a platform for academics, researchers, practitioners, and students interested in international law. It aims to foster dialogue, exchange knowledge, and contribute to the development of international legal scholarship. ESIL organizes various events, including conferences, seminars, and workshops, to facilitate discussions and promote research in the field.
Freie Universität Berlin is one of Europe’s leading research universities. An international focus has been an integral part of its history since 1948 and is reflected in its research and teaching.
Freie Universität Berlin’s Department of Law is one the most popular and international places to study in Germany. Research at the Department covers the law from ancient times until today in a national, European and global perspective. The Department maintains a global network of partnerships and has hosted an array of research projects with an international and interdisciplinary outlook.
Hosts
organisers
Helmut Philipp Aust is a Professor of Public and International Law at Freie Universität Berlin. He is the Co-Chair of the ILA Committee Urbanisation and International Law – Potential & Pitfalls and currently a member of the board of ESIL as well as a member of the International Advisory Panel of the American Law Institute’s project on the Restatement on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. He is also an Associate Fellow of the German Council on Foreign Relations. He has published widely on questions of public international law and comparative constitutional law. His publications include Complicity and the Law of State Responsibility (CUP 2011), Encounters between Foreign Relations Law and International Law (CUP 2021, co-edited with Thomas Kleinlein) as well as the Research Handbook on International Law and Cities (Edward Elgar 2021, co-edited with Janne E. Nijman) which was awarded the 2022 Nijman) which was awarded the 2022 inaugural ESIL Collaborative Book Prize.
Heike Krieger holds the Chair for International and Public Law at the Freie Universität Berlin. She is Vice-President of the German Society of International Law and a member of the Senate of the German Research Foundation. She has acted as chair of the interdisciplinary Berlin Potsdam Research Group (Kollegforschungsgruppe) ‘The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?’ (funded by the German Research Foundation) between 2019 and 2024 and was a Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, between 2017 and 2021. Heike Krieger is Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (T.M.C. Asser Press and Springer). Her recent publications include the edited volumes ‘Tracing Value Change in the International Legal Order’ (OUP 2023, co-edited with Andrea Liese); ‘Law-making and Legitimacy in International Humanitarian Law’ (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021, editor) and ‘Due Diligence in the International Legal Order’ (OUP 2020, co-edited with Anne Peters and Leonhard Kreuzer).
Main organizers on the side of Freie Universität Berlin are Professor Heike Krieger and Professor Helmut Aust.
Prof. Helmut Aust
Prof. Heike Krieger
The 2025 ESIL Annual Conference is organized by the Institute of International and European Union Law at Freie Universität Berlin.
Download the long version of the programme including abstracts for all plenaries, fora and agorae in pdf format.
Wednesday, 10.09.2025
Thursday, 11.09.2025
Friday, 12.09.2025
Saturday, 13.09.2025
Reconstructing International Law: A View from Germany
Moderation: Stefan Detjen, Deutschlandfunk
Doris König, Vice-President of the German Federal Constitutional Court (t.b.c.)
Tanja von Uslar-Gleichen, Federal Foreign Office, Director of the Legal Department and Legal Advisor to the German Government
16:00 - 16:30
Coffee & Tea kindly supported by the European External Action Service
13:30 - 14:00
Openingof the Conference
14:00 - 14:30
Keynote Lecture: Reconstructing International Law
Professor Adam Bodnar, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland
14:30 - 16:00
Opening session: Reconstruction, Reform, Revolution - Futures of International Law
Chair: Professor Sigrid Boysen, Helmut Schmidt-Universität Hamburg
Associate Professor Kyle M. Lascurettes, Lewis & Clark University, Portland
Judge Dire Tladi, International Court of Justice, formerly Professor at the University of Pretoria
N.N.
16:30 - 18:00
18:15 - 19:15
19:15 -
Fora 1 and 2 (parallel sessions)
Forum 1 - Histories of Reconstruction
Chair: Professor Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Polish Academy of Sciences
Professor Arnulf Becker Lorca, European University Institute, Florence
Professor Bardo Fassbender, University St. Gallen
Dr. Inge van Hulle, Max-Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt/Main
Forum 2 - Is there still a Legitimate Role for Europe and the Global North in the Reconstruction of International Law?
Chair: Professor Rene Urueña, Universitat de los Andes, Bogota
Professor Veronika Bilkova, Charles University, Prague
Professor Frank Hoffmeister, Director of the Legal Service, European External Action Service, European Union, Brussels
Associate Professor Mutaz Qafisheh, University of Hebron
Welcome Reception kindly presented by the Department of Law, Freie Universität Berlin
09:00 - 12:00
Interest Group Pre-Conference Workshops
18:15 - 19:15
How to make International Law public: writing for wider audiences Special Event in Co-Operation with the Early Career Researcher Network
Professor Philippe Sands, KC, UCL
Assistant Professor Justina Uriburu, Manchester
9:00 - 10:30
11:00 - 12:30
12:30 - 14:00
14:00 - 15:30
13:00 - 14:00
14:00 - 15:30
15:30 - 16:00
16:00 - 17:30
17:30 - 19:00
20:00
Lunch Break
Coffee & Tea kindly presented by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law
Conference Dinner
ESIL General Assembly
Fora 3 and 4 (parallel sessions)
Forum 3 - Institutional Reconstructions: Which Role for the United Nations? Chair: Professor Christine Chinkin, London School of Economics
Professor Ingrid Brunk, Vanderbilt Law School
Professor Jan Klabbers, University of Cambridge
Associate Professor Guy Fiti Sinclair, University of Auckland
Forum 4 - Normative Reconstructions: Pathways into a Post-SDG-World
Chair: Professor Dr. Ellen Hey, University of Rotterdam
Assistant Professor Hannah Birkenkötter, ITAM Law Department, Mexico City
Professor Anél du Plessis, Stellenbosch University
Associate Professor Ryan Martinez Mitchell, University of Hong Kong
Agorae 1 to 4 (parallel sessions)
Agora 1 - Reconstruction and the Role of Scholarship
Chair: Assistant Professor Ezgi Yildiz, California State University Long Beach
Rethinking International Law: A Plan for Action (Professor Monica Hakimi, Columbia University)
The fall of gods: Rethinking (critical) legal studies in genocidal times (Bruna A. Gonçalves and Maximilian K. Reymann, European University Institute)
(Re-)Imagining Decolonization: Third-Worldism and (International Legal) Futurism in the Long Seventies (Soheil Ghasemi Bojd, Geneva Graduate Institute)
Agora 2 - Reconstruct Justice: Systemic Past Wrongs and the Future of International Law
Chair: Professor Sarah Nouwen, European University Institute, Florence
Instrumentalising Private International Law in Favour of Indigenous Heritage and Sovereignty (Dr. Ayla Do Vale Alves, University of South Australia)
Before Reconstruction: Deconstructing the Prayer of Intertemporality (Sara Katharina Wissmann, Paris Lodron University Salzburg)
The Fifth World Approaches to International Law: Reconstructing International Law in Favor of the Oppressed of the Oppressed (Shima Esmailian, University of Geneva, and Yossra Hamouda, American University in Cairo)
Agora 3 - Reforming the Diversity and Inclusivity of International Law's Institutions
Chair: Sareta Ashraph, Senior Legal Adviser, US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Center for Justice and Accountability
Reimagining international law through the feminist judgment method: lessons from the International Criminal Court Feminist Judgment Project (Dr. Louise Chappell, University of New South Wales, Suzanne Varrall, University of New South Wales, Associate Professor Kcasey McLoughlin, The University of Newcastle, and Dr. Rosemary Grey, University of Sydney)
Marginalization in the Making of International Law: Patterns of Absence and Inequality in the State Engagement with the International Law Commission (Bruno Biazatti, University of Luxembourg)
Mapping the "Invisible College" of UNHRC Special Procedures: An Empirical Analysis of the Mandate Holders' Biography and Appointment Patterns (Assistant Professor Huaxia Lai, Peking University, and Mika-Erik Möser, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin)
Agora 4 - Reconstruction: Values or Process?
Chair: Professor Max du Plessis, University of Cape Town/Nelson Mandela University
The Status and Trajectories of International Law: Global (In)Justice, Fragmented Rule of Law or Anarchism (Tesfaye Ayalew Mekonen, University of Queensland)
Locating the common interest: towards a political epistemology of international law (Benjamin Peters, Geneva Graduate Institut)
Public Interest Litigation Before the ICJ as a Tool for (Re)Constructing International Common Values: Substantivization of Procedure or Proceduralization of Substance? (Dr. Veronica Botticelli, University of Milan)
Agorae 5 to 8 (parallel sessions)
Agora 5 - Actors of Reconstruction
Chair: Associate Professor Nina Reiners, University of Oslo
Reconceptualizing Legal Personality for Normative Inclusion: Conduct-based International Law (Dr. Klara Polackova van der Ploeg, University of Nottingham)
On the Reconstruction of International Environmental Law: Indigenous Peoples in the Convention on Biological Diversity (Dr. Elsa Tsioumani, University of Liege, Dr. Bartek Goldmann and Professor Louisa Parks, University of Trento)
Arguing AI: Big Tech and Legal Reasoning in the Military Domain (Taylor Kate Woodcock, TMC Asser Institute)
Agora 6 - Reconstructing the Sources of International Law
Chair: Professor Phoebe Okowa, Queen Mary University, London; Member of the UN International Law Commission
Diagnosis and Remedy? Reconstructing Consent (Başak Etkin, University of Groningen)
On Decisions by Conferences of the Parties as a Source of International Law: Status, Authority, and Process (Dr. Rita Guerreiro Teixeira, Utrecht University)
The Lack of Diversity in the Use of 'Teachings' as Subsidiary Sources of International Law: Reframing the Problem from Representativeness to Pluralism (Andrea Pelliconi, University of Southampton, Dr. Aldo Zammit Borda, City University of London, and Dr. Stefan Mandelbaum, University of Leicester)
Agora 7 - Is there a future for liberal human rights?
Chair: Professor Gabor Halmai, European University Institute, Florence
Confucian Paternalism Meets Liberal Human Rights: Cultural Hybridization and the Limits of Universalism in International Law (Qin (Sky) Ma, European University Institute)
Responding to the Illiberal Politics of Rights in Europe and the Americas: Awakening the Principle of Non-Retrogression (Professor Renata Uitz, Central European University, and Professor Thiago de Souza Amparo, FGV São Paulo Law School)
What are human rights, if not liberal? Rethinking the “human” of human rights law in the Anthropocene (Dr. Corina Heri, Tilburg University)
Agora 8 - Interdisciplinarity and the (Re)construction of International Law
Chair: Assistant Professor Tommaso Soave, Central European University
The Chains of Pride: Reconstructing International Law as a Discipline of Fact and Principle (Seán Fobbe, LMU Munich)
Reconstructing International Treaty Law-Making with Behavioral Research (Professor Anne van Aaken, University of Hamburg, and Professor Tomer Broude, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Foregrounding time in international law: between contestation and renewal (Dr. Eliana Cusato, University of Amsterdam)
Agorae 9 to 12 (parallel sessions)
Agora 9 - Reforming International Economic Law
Chair: Associate Professor Nicolas Lamp, Queens University, Ottawa
China's Green Industrial Policy and the Future of World Economic Law (Xiaofeng Li, Durham University)
Legal Pathways for Integrating Trade and Sustainability: The ACCTS Approach to Fossil Fuel Subsidies and its Implications for the WTO (Dr. Anna Panarella, Università della Svizzera italiana)
Correcting International Tax Injustice (Fernando Javier Loayza Jordán, Yale Law School)
Agora 10 - Planetary Thinking - Revolutionizing International Environmental Law?
Chair: Professor Makane Moise Mbengue, University of Geneva
Reconstructing International Law for the Earth-Space System (Professor Michael Byers, University of British Columbia)
Climate atrocity and international law (Gaspard Lemaire, University of Angers)
From state prerogative to planetary concern: international environmental law's governance of the energy sector (Melanie Schneider, University of Oxford)
Agora 11 - Rethinking the Laws of War
Chair: Professor Eliav Lieblich, University of Tel Aviv
From Cold Language Games to the Heat of Battle: Rethinking the Role of Legal Advisors (Dr. Wim Zimmermann, University of Salzburg)
Manipulating Minds, Challenging Laws: The Rise of Cognitive Warfare (Dr. Marcin Marcinko and Dr. Milena Ingelevic-Citak, Jagiellonian University in Krakow)
Unexpected and unforeseen: Law, knowledge, and ignorance in US military responses to civilian casualties (Professor Christiane Wilke, Carleton University)
Agora 12 - (De-/Re-)Constructions of the History of International Law
Chair: Professor Anne Peters, Max-Planck Institute of Comparative Public and International Law, Heidelberg
International Legal History and the Crisis of Modern Time (Dr. David M. Scott, Queen Mary University of London)
Navigating the Seas of History in International Law (Dr. Valentina Vadi, University of Florence/European University Institute)
Reconstructing Through Historiographical Myth-Building: The Rise of International Adjudication and Fin de Siècle Pacifist Internationalism (Dr. Chen Xiaohang, Peking University School of Law)
Closed Business Meeting of Publishers
International Law Publishing and ‘EDI’: Limits, Blindspots, and Alternatives Lunchtime Event organized by ESIL’s Diversity Advisory Body
Coffee & Tea kindly presented by Seven Summits Arbitration
10:30 - 11:00
C
Coffee & Tea kindly presented by the Walther Schücking Institut for International Law
10:30 - 11:00
Fora 5 and 6 (parallel sessions)
Forum 5 - Reconstruction of International Law: A View from Practice Chair: Professor Janne Nijman, University of Amsterdam/Graduate Institute Geneva
Professor Mykola Gnatovskyy, Judge at the European Court of Human Rights
Dirk Pulkowski, Deputy Legal Advisor, NATO HQ Brussels
Rashmin Sagoo, International Law and Policy Consultant; former Director International Law Programme, Chatham House, London
Forum 6 - Current Affairs Forum – Genocide Litigation in International Law
Chair: Professor Janina Dill, University of Oxford
Associate Professor Iryna Marchuk, University of Copenhagen
Professor Mehrdad Payandeh, Bucerius Law School, Hamburg
Dr. Nahed Samour, Research Associate, Radboud University Nijmegen
09:00 - 10:30
Closing of the Conference and Farewell
13:00 - 13:30
A Conversation with the ESIL Book Prize Winners
11:00 - 12:00
12:00 - 13:00
Concluding Roundtable - Reconstructing International Law - Empty Promise or Promising Avenue? Chair: Judge Vasilka Sancin, European Court of Human Rights, formerly Professor at the University of Ljubljana and Member of the UN Human Rights Committee
Professor Johanna Alerio P. Lorenzo, University of Amsterdam
Professor Antonios Tzanakopoulos, University of Oxford
Professor Christian Walter, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
11:00 - 12:00
Special Panel on Academic Freedom and the Discourse on International Law Chair: Associate Professor Kriszta Kovács, ELTE University Budapest
Dr. Jannis Grimm, Research Group Leader Radical Spaces, Freie Universität Berlin
Dr. Stefania di Stefano, Postdoctoral Researcher, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Paris
N.N.
15:00 - 18:00
Interest Group Pre-Conference Workshops
Partners
supporters
Furthermore, we thank for individual contribution(s) from Jutta von Falkenhausen, ...
Helmut Philipp Aust is a Professor of Public and International Law at Freie Universität Berlin. He is the Co-Chair of the ILA Committee Urbanisation and International Law – Potential & Pitfalls and currently a member of the board of ESIL as well as a member of the International Advisory Panel of the American Law Institute’s project on the Restatement on the Foreign Relations Law of the United States. He is also an Associate Fellow of the German Council on Foreign Relations. He has published widely on questions of public international law and comparative constitutional law. His publications include Complicity and the Law of State Responsibility (CUP 2011), Encounters between Foreign Relations Law and International Law (CUP 2021, co-edited with Thomas Kleinlein) as well as the Research Handbook on International Law and Cities (Edward Elgar 2021, co-edited with Janne E. Nijman) which was awarded the 2022 Nijman) which was awarded the 2022 inaugural ESIL Collaborative Book Prize.
Heike Krieger holds the Chair for International and Public Law at the Freie Universität Berlin. She is Vice-President of the German Society of International Law and a member of the Senate of the German Research Foundation. She has acted as chair of the interdisciplinary Berlin Potsdam Research Group (Kollegforschungsgruppe) ‘The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?’ (funded by the German Research Foundation) between 2019 and 2024 and was a Max Planck Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg, between 2017 and 2021. Heike Krieger is Editor-in-Chief of the Yearbook of International Humanitarian Law (T.M.C. Asser Press and Springer). Her recent publications include the edited volumes ‘Tracing Value Change in the International Legal Order’ (OUP 2023, co-edited with Andrea Liese); ‘Law-making and Legitimacy in International Humanitarian Law’ (Edward Elgar Publishing 2021, editor) and ‘Due Diligence in the International Legal Order’ (OUP 2020, co-edited with Anne Peters and Leonhard Kreuzer).
The 2025 ESIL Annual Conference is organized by the Institute of International and European Union Law at Freie Universität Berlin.
The European Society of International Law is an independent scholarly association that serves as a platform for academics, researchers, practitioners, and students interested in international law. It aims to foster dialogue, exchange knowledge, and contribute to the development of international legal scholarship. ESIL organizes various events, including conferences, seminars, and workshops, to facilitate discussions and promote research in the field.
Freie Universität Berlin is one of Europe’s leading research universities. An international focus has been an integral part of its history since 1948 and is reflected in its research and teaching.
Freie Universität Berlin’s Department of Law is one the most popular and international places to study in Germany. Research at the Department covers the law from ancient times until today in a national, European and global perspective. The Department maintains a global network of partnerships and has hosted an array of research projects with an international and interdisciplinary outlook.
Main organizers on the side of Freie Universität Berlin are Professor Heike Krieger and Professor Helmut Aust.
16:00 - 16:30
Coffee & Tea kindly supported by the European External Action Service
13:30 - 14:00:
Openingof the Conference
14:00 - 14:30
Keynote Lecture: Reconstructing International Law
Professor Adam Bodnar, Minister of Justice of the Republic of Poland
14:30 - 16:00
Opening session: Reconstruction, Reform, Revolution - Futures of International Law
Chair: Professor Sigrid Boysen, Helmut Schmidt-Universität Hamburg
Associate Professor Kyle M. Lascurettes, Lewis & Clark University, Portland
Judge Dire Tladi, International Court of Justice, formerly Professor at the University of Pretoria
N.N.
16:30 - 18:00 Fora 1 and 2 (parallel sessions)
Forum 1 - Histories of Reconstruction
Chair: Professor Aleksandra Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Polish Academy of Sciences
Professor Arnulf Becker Lorca, European University Institute, Florence
Professor Bardo Fassbender, University St. Gallen
Dr. Inge van Hulle, Max-Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt/Main
Forum 2 - Is there still a Legitimate Role for Europe and the Global North in the Reconstruction of International Law?
Chair: Professor Rene Urueña, Universitat de los Andes, Bogota
Professor Veronika Bilkova, Charles University, Prague
Professor Frank Hoffmeister, Director of the Legal Service, European External Action Service, Brussels
Associate Professor Mutaz Qafisheh, University of Hebron
19:15 -
Welcome Reception kindly presented by the Department of Law, Freie Universität Berlin
18:15 - 19:15
Reconstructing International Law - A View from Germany
Moderation: Stefan Detjen, Deutschlandfunk
Doris König, Vice-President of the German Federal Constitutional Court (t.b.c.)
Tanja von Uslar-Gleichen, Federal Foreign Office, Director of the Legal Department and Legal Advisor to the German Government
09:00 - 12:00
Interest Group Pre-Conference Workshops
18:15 - 19:15
How to make International Law public: writing for wider audiences
Special Event in Co-Operation with Early Career Researcher Network
Professor Philippe Sands, KC, UCL
Assistant Professor Justina Uriburu, Manchester
12:30 - 14:00
Lunch
15:30 - 16:00
Coffee & Tea kindly presented by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public and International Law
20:00
Conference Dinner
17:30 - 19:00
ESIL General Assembly
11:00 - 12:30
Fora 3 and 4 (parallel sessions)
Forum 3 - Institutional Reconstructions: Which Role for the United Nations? Chair: Professor Christine Chinkin, London School of Economics
Professor Ingrid Brunk, Vanderbilt Law School
Professor Jan Klabbers, University of Cambridge
Associate Professor Guy Fiti Sinclair, University of Auckland
Forum 4 - Normative Reconstructions: Pathways into a Post-SDG-World
Chair: Professor Dr. Ellen Hey, University of Rotterdam
Assistant Professor Hannah Birkenkötter, ITAM Law Department, Mexico City
Professor Anél du Plessis, Stellenbosch University
Associate Professor Ryan Martinez Mitchell, University of Hong Kong
9:00 - 10:30
Agorae 1 to 4 (parallel sessions)
Agora 1 - Reconstruction and the Role of Scholarship
Chair: Assistant Professor Ezgi Yildiz, California State University Long Beach
Rethinking International Law: A Plan for Action (Professor Monica Hakimi, Columbia University)
The fall of gods: Rethinking (critical) legal studies in genocidal times (Bruna A. Gonçalves and Maximilian K. Reymann, European University Institute)
(Re-)Imagining Decolonization: Third-Worldism and (International Legal) Futurism in the Long Seventies (Soheil Ghasemi Bojd, Geneva Graduate Institute)
Agora 2 - Reconstruct Justice: Systemic Past Wrongs and the Future of International Law
Chair: Professor Sarah Nouwen, European University Institute, Florence
Instrumentalising Private International Law in Favour of Indigenous Heritage and Sovereignty (Dr. Ayla Do Vale Alves, University of South Australia)
Before Reconstruction: Deconstructing the Prayer of Intertemporality (Sara Katharina Wissmann, Paris Lodron University Salzburg)
The Fifth World Approaches to International Law: Reconstructing International Law in Favor of the Oppressed of the Oppressed (Shima Esmailian, University of Geneva, and Yossra Hamouda, American University in Cairo)
Agora 3 - Reforming the Diversity and Inclusivity of International Law's Institutions
Chair: Sareta Ashraph, Senior Legal Adviser, US Holocaust Memorial Museum and Center for Justice and Accountability
Reimagining international law through the feminist judgment method: lessons from the International Criminal Court Feminist Judgment Project (Dr. Louise Chappell, University of New South Wales, Suzanne Varrall, University of New South Wales, Associate Professor Kcasey McLoughlin, The University of Newcastle, and Dr. Rosemary Grey, University of Sydney)
Marginalization in the Making of International Law: Patterns of Absence and Inequality in the State Engagement with the International Law Commission (Bruno Biazatti, University of Luxembourg)
Mapping the "Invisible College" of UNHRC Special Procedures: An Empirical Analysis of the Mandate Holders' Biography and Appointment Patterns (Assistant Professor Huaxia Lai, Peking University, and Mika-Erik Möser, Hertie School of Governance, Berlin)
Agora 4 - Reconstruction: Values or Process?
Chair: Professor Max du Plessis, University of Cape Town/Nelson Mandela University
The Status and Trajectories of International Law: Global (In)Justice, Fragmented Rule of Law or Anarchism (Tesfaye Ayalew Mekonen, University of Queensland)
Locating the common interest: towards a political epistemology of international law (Benjamin Peters, Geneva Graduate Institut)
Public Interest Litigation Before the ICJ as a Tool for (Re)Constructing International Common Values: Substantivization of Procedure or Proceduralization of Substance? (Dr. Veronica Botticelli, University of Milan)
14:00 - 15:30
Agorae 5 to 8 (parallel sessions)
Agora 5 - Actors of Reconstruction
Chair: Associate Professor Nina Reiners, University of Oslo
Reconceptualizing Legal Personality for Normative Inclusion: Conduct-based International Law (Dr. Klara Polackova van der Ploeg, University of Nottingham)
On the Reconstruction of International Environmental Law: Indigenous Peoples in the Convention on Biological Diversity (Dr. Elsa Tsioumani, University of Liege, Dr. Bartek Goldmann and Professor Louisa Parks, University of Trento)
Arguing AI: Big Tech and Legal Reasoning in the Military Domain (Taylor Kate Woodcock, TMC Asser Institute)
Agora 6 - Reconstructing the Sources of International Law
Chair: Professor Phoebe Okowa, Queen Mary University, London; Member of the UN International Law Commission
Diagnosis and Remedy? Reconstructing Consent (Başak Etkin, University of Groningen)
On Decisions by Conferences of the Parties as a Source of International Law: Status, Authority, and Process (Dr. Rita Guerreiro Teixeira, Utrecht University)
The Lack of Diversity in the Use of 'Teachings' as Subsidiary Sources of International Law: Reframing the Problem from Representativeness to Pluralism (Andrea Pelliconi, University of Southampton, Dr. Aldo Zammit Borda, City University of London, and Dr. Stefan Mandelbaum, University of Leicester)
Agora 7 - Is there a future for liberal human rights?
Chair: Professor Gabor Halmai, European University Institute, Florence
Confucian Paternalism Meets Liberal Human Rights: Cultural Hybridization and the Limits of Universalism in International Law (Qin (Sky) Ma, European University Institute)
Responding to the Illiberal Politics of Rights in Europe and the Americas: Awakening the Principle of Non-Retrogression (Professor Renata Uitz, Central European University, and Professor Thiago de Souza Amparo, FGV São Paulo Law School)
What are human rights, if not liberal? Rethinking the “human” of human rights law in the Anthropocene (Dr. Corina Heri, Tilburg University)
Agora 8 - Interdisciplinarity and the (Re)construction of International Law
Chair: Assistant Professor Tommaso Soave, Central European University
The Chains of Pride: Reconstructing International Law as a Discipline of Fact and Principle (Seán Fobbe, LMU Munich)
Reconstructing International Treaty Law-Making with Behavioral Research (Professor Anne van Aaken, University of Hamburg, and Professor Tomer Broude, Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
Foregrounding time in international law: between contestation and renewal (Dr. Eliana Cusato, University of Amsterdam)
16:00 - 17:30 Agorae 9 to 12 (parallel sessions)
Agora 9 - Reforming International Economic Law
Chair: Associate Professor Nicolas Lamp, Queens University, Ottawa
China's Green Industrial Policy and the Future of World Economic Law (Xiaofeng Li, Durham University)
Legal Pathways for Integrating Trade and Sustainability: The ACCTS Approach to Fossil Fuel Subsidies and its Implications for the WTO (Dr. Anna Panarella, Università della Svizzera italiana)
Correcting International Tax Injustice (Fernando Javier Loayza Jordán, Yale Law School)
Agora 10 - Planetary Thinking - Revolutionizing International Environmental Law?
Chair: Professor Makane Moise Mbengue, University of Geneva
Reconstructing International Law for the Earth-Space System (Professor Michael Byers, University of British Columbia)
Climate atrocity and international law (Gaspard Lemaire, University of Angers)
From state prerogative to planetary concern: international environmental law's governance of the energy sector (Melanie Schneider, University of Oxford)
Agora 11 - Rethinking the Laws of War
Chair: Professor Eliav Lieblich, University of Tel Aviv
From Cold Language Games to the Heat of Battle: Rethinking the Role of Legal Advisors (Dr. Wim Zimmermann, University of Salzburg)
Manipulating Minds, Challenging Laws: The Rise of Cognitive Warfare (Dr. Marcin Marcinko and Dr. Milena Ingelevic-Citak, Jagiellonian University in Krakow)
Unexpected and unforeseen: Law, knowledge, and ignorance in US military responses to civilian casualties (Professor Christiane Wilke, Carleton University)
Agora 12 - (De-/Re-)Constructions of the History of International Law
Chair: Professor Anne Peters, Max-Planck Institute of Comparative Public and International Law, Heidelberg
International Legal History and the Crisis of Modern Time (Dr. David M. Scott, Queen Mary University of London)
Navigating the Seas of History in International Law (Dr. Valentina Vadi, University of Florence/European University Institute)
Reconstructing Through Historiographical Myth-Building: The Rise of International Adjudication and Fin de Siècle Pacifist Internationalism (Dr. Chen Xiaohang, Peking University School of Law)
14:00 - 15:30 Closed Business Meeting of Publishers
13:00 - 14:00
International Law Publishing and ‘EDI’: Limits, Blindspots, and Alternatives Lunchtime event organized by ESIL's Diversity Advisory Body
10:30 - 11:00
Coffee & Tea kindly presented by the Walther Schücking Institut for International Law
09:00 - 10:30
Fora 5 and 6 (parallel sessions)
Forum 5 - Reconstruction of International Law: A View from Practice Chair: Professor Janne Nijman, University of Amsterdam/Graduate Institute Geneva
Professor Mykola Gnatovskyy, Judge at the European Court of Human Rights
Dirk Pulkowski, Deputy Legal Advisor, NATO HQ Brussels
Rashmin Sagoo, International Law and Policy Consultant; former Director International Law Programme, Chatham House, London
Forum 6 - Current Affairs Forum – Genocide Litigation in International Law
Chair: Professor Janina Dill, University of Oxford
Associate Professor Iryna Marchuk, University of Copenhagen
Professor Mehrdad Payandeh, Bucerius Law School, Hamburg
Dr. Nahed Samour, Research Associate, Radboud University Nijmegen
13:00 - 13:30
Closing of the Conference and Farewell
11:00 - 12:00
A Conversation with the ESIL Book Prize Winners
12:00 - 13:00
Concluding Roundtable - Reconstructing International Law - Empty Promise or Promising Avenue? Chair: Judge Vasilka Sancin, European Court of Human Rights, formerly Professor at the University of Ljubljana and Member of the UN Human Rights Committee
Professor Johanna Alerio P. Lorenzo, University of Amsterdam
Professor Antonios Tzanakopoulos, University of Oxford
Professor Christian Walter, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
11:00 - 12:00
Special Panel on Academic Freedom and the Discourse on International Law Chair: Associate Professor Kriszta Kovács, ELTE University Budapest
Dr. Jannis Grimm, Research Group Leader Radical Spaces, Freie Universität Berlin
Dr. Stefania di Stefano, Postdoctoral Researcher, Conservatoire national des arts et métiers, Paris
N.N.
15:00 - 18:00
Interest Group Pre-Conference Workshops
