Announcements: Lecture, Human Rights in Armed Conflict (Keele); CfP Transnational Law & Social Justice (London); Migration Workshop (Athens); Panel on ICC (London); New Additions to UN AV Library; CfA Max Planck Research School (Heidelberg); Seminar on Proportionality (Paris); IHL Summer School (Geneva); Sanctions Conference (London); CfP on Sociology and Int’l Law (Toronto); Conference on Urgency and Human Rights (The Netherlands); EJIL:Live! and EJIL:Live Extra!

1.  The Keele Law School and the School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy (SPIRE) are pleased to invite you to the Inaugural Thornberry Lecture in International Law and Human Rights. The lecture will take place on Wednesday 25 February 2015, 4-6pm (Dorothy Hodgkins Building, University of Keele) and will be followed by a drinks reception. The title of the lecture by Professor Dapo Akande is ‘The Application of Human Rights Law in Time of Armed Conflict’. The Thornberry Lecture in International Law and Human Rights is an annual lecture established in 2015 by the Keele Law School and the School of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy (SPIRE). It is named in honour of Patrick Thornberry – an alumnus and Emeritus Professor of International Law at Keele – and brings to the University leading academics, thinkers and experts on major current international law and human rights issues. Register here.

2. The Transnational Law & Social Justice project seeks to study how transnational law shapes, facilitates and challenges economic, political and cultural exclusion in a fragmented legal and political landscape. Our aim is to bring together lawyers and non-lawyers, early career scholars and PhD researchers whose work examines pervasive inequalities in the transnational context. Our first event, hosted by the London School of Economics on 26-27 June 2015, will feature roundtable discussions and thematic panels exploring the methodological challenges raised by the study of transnational law and its distributional effects. The event will focus more specifically on the normative dimensions of family, marketplace and workplace regulations. In choosing these three themes our aim is to examine the effects of transnational law on individuals’ everyday life while also analysing themes that are often neglected in the global or transnational governance debates because labelled as ‘private’. Speakers include Graínne de Búrca (NYU School of Law), Priya S. Gupta (Southwestern Law School), Ralf Michaels (Duke Law School), Aukje van Hoek (Amsterdam Law School) and Peer Zumbansen (KCL). The event is sponsored by the Modern Law Review. For more information on the event including the call for papers visit here.

3.  The Faculty of Law of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens has the pleasure to invite you to an international workshop on ‘Regulating ‘irregular’ migration: International obligations and international responsibility’ in Athens, Greece on 20 March 2015. The workshop is organized in the   context of the research project 70/3/11629: ‘Irregular Migration through the Mediterranean Sea: Obligations of States under international and European law’, implemented within the framework of the Action «Supporting Postdoctoral Researchers» of the Operational Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” (Action’s Beneficiary: General Secretariat for Research and Technology) and co-financed by the European Social Fund (ESF) and the Greek State. You may find the program and register here.

4.  The International Law Programme at Chatham House is holding an event on 11 March 2015 – ‘The ICC at a Crossroads: The Challenges of Kenya, Darfur, Libya and Islamic State’. Shehzad Charania (International Law Team, British Embassy, The Hague), Elizabeth Evenson (Human Rights Watch) and Dr Rod Rastan, (Office of the Prosecutor, ICC) will discuss the effect of non-cooperation by states on the ICC’s proceedings and the difficulties in conducting investigations in unsafe or conflict areas. The expert panel will also consider other challenges such as the possibility of prosecuting Islamic State and its supporters before the ICC. The event, held in association with Doughty Street Chambers, will take place from 17:30 to 19:00 at Chatham House in St James’s Square, London.  Attendance is free but prior registration is required. For further details and to register see here.

5.  New additions to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added new lectures to the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law website, which provides high quality international law training and research materials to an unlimited number of recipients around the world free of charge. The latest lectures were given by Justice Hassan B. Jallow on “Fair Trial in International Criminal Justice”, and by Professor Sean D. Murphy on “Crimes against Humanity”.

6.  The International Max Planck Research School for Successful Dispute Resolution in International Law (IMPRS-SDR) is a doctoral school located in Heidelberg (Germany) and Luxembourg. Founded in 2009, the Research School’s aim is to examine and analyse different mechanisms for solving international disputes. The participating institutions are the Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for International, European and Regulatory Procedural Law, Heidelberg University, the University of Luxembourg, the Max Planck Foundation for International Peace and the Rule of Law, and the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (both in Heidelberg). In cooperation with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague, the IMPRS-SDR runs an internship program in international arbitration for its doctoral students. Ten PhD positions are available from June 1, 2015. An additional five positions will become available in January 2016. Applicants who are admitted to the IMPRS-SDR will pursue their research within the framework of the Research School. The IMPRS-SDR will offer funding in the form of scholarships and research contracts to its new members. The deadline for applications is April 1, 2015. To view the complete call for applications, please visit here.

7.  A seminar, organized under the auspices of PluriCourts, on the principle of proportionality in public international law. The participants include President Ronny Abraham, Professor Mads Andenas, Professor Enzo Cannizzaro, Former President Gilbert Guillaume, Professor Robert Kolb, and Justice Andreas Paulus. The program is available here. Please contact mads.andenas {at} jus.uio(.)no or eirik.bjorge {at} law.ox.ac(.)uk for more information.

8.  International Humanitarian Law Summer School, June 22 – July 10, 2015 in Geneva, Switzerland.  The course methodology insists on the importance of a practice-based teaching of International Humanitarian Law (IHL), the law protecting persons affected by armed conflicts, thus combining theory and discussions of contemporary conflicts. The course welcomes applications from graduate or post-graduate students (currently enrolled in master degree or above) in law, international relations or related areas, Ph.D candidates, and humanitarian practitioners. Upper-year undergraduate students may also apply, and will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Please note that this is a master-level course. Background in public international law is recommended, although not required. More information and registration are here.

9.  The London Centre of International Law Practice (LCILP) will hold a one-day conference on ‘International Sanctions: Legal, Policy and Business Challenges’, in cooperation with the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies (Leiden University) and the ILA Study Group on UN Sanctions and International Law, in London on 19 March 2015. Speakers include Nico Schrijver (Leiden), Alfred de Zayas (UN Independent Expert on the Promotion of a Democratic and Equitable International Order, Geneva), Antonios Tzanakopoulos (Oxford), Larissa van den Herik (Leiden), Martin Dawidowicz (Oxford), and many others. All details on this conference and the full list of speakers are available here. In conjunction with this event, LCILP will also deliver a two-day intensive training workshop on ‘International Sanctions in Practice: Legal and Business Implications’ in London on 17-18 March 2015. Details are available here.

10.  The second workshop on Sociological Inquiries into International Law will take place at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs on 9-10 October 2015. Scholars and graduate students are invited to submit abstracts by 1 April 2015 (and Not 15 September, as previously published). For full call for papers, please contact Sungjoon Cho at <scho @kentlaw.iit.edu>. Abstracts of no more than 300 words should be sent to Sungjoon Cho at <scho @kentlaw.iit.edu> and include the author’s name, affiliation, and full contact information. Decisions regarding inclusion in the workshop program will be sent by 5 May, 2015. Those presenting will be expected to provide short discussion papers (3,000-4,000 words) by  5 September, 2015. Steering committee: Sungjoon Cho (IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law); Moshe Hirsch (Hebrew University); Andrew Lang (London School of Economics); Ron Levi, (University of Toronto).

11.  Conference on Urgency and Human Rights taking place on 29 and 30 May 2015 in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. The conference will be hosted by the Department of International and European Law of the Law Faculty of the Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands in cooperation with the Seconda Università di Napoli, Dipartimento di Giurisprudenza, Italy and Ghent Human Rights Centre, Belgium. It firstly aims to bring together existing scholarship regarding urgency and human rights and discuss the evolving practices in this respect with practitioners. Secondly, its objective is to allow for in-depth discussion of what should be the role of the domestic judiciary when dealing with urgent cases. A call for papers is also issued, the deadline being 1 March 2015. For the Call for Papers and the Concept Paper for the conference see here.

12.  In case you missed it, you can see the latest EJIL:Live Extra! here. Professor Joseph Weiler and Professor Andrew Clapham of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, discuss Prof. Clapham’s new edition of Brierly’s Law of Nations. They touch on the process of writing in Brierly’s “voice”, what has changed in the 50 years since Brierly wrote his last edition, and the great achievement of this important and concise book. The interview was recorded at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy, in December 2014. Also, the latest edition of EJIL:Live! is available here. It is an interview with Professor Jan Klabbers on his article from EJIL issue 25:3, “The Emergence of Functionalism in International Institutional Law: Colonial Inspirations.”

13. 3 Fellowships with the Berlin Research Group: “The International Rule of Law – Rise or Decline?”; Duration: 12-24 months fellowship starting from 1 October 2015; Deadline for Applications: 31 March 2015; Further information can be obtained at intlaw {at} rewi.hu-berlin(.)de.