Announcements: I-HILT Lecture with Anne Orford; ILDG Lecture on Ukraine; CfS CILJ; Continental Shelf Seminar; Ukraine Peace Project; Athens PIL Discussion; UN Audiovisual Library of International Law; New Globalization Podcast; CfP IV TRAMEREN Conference; Green Ambitions Conference; Calls for Action from Ukrainian Institutions

1. I-HILT History of International Law E-Lecture Series 2021-2022 – Anne Orford: International Law and the Politics of History. The ongoing I-HILT online e-lecture series at Tilburg Law School will host Professor Anne Orford (University of Melbourne) in the latest instalment to discuss her most recent book International Law and the Politics of History. As the future of international law has become a growing site of struggle within and between powerful states, debates over the history of international law have become increasingly heated. International Law and the Politics of History explores the ideological, political, and material stakes of apparently technical disputes over how the legal past should be studied and understood. The event is taking place Tuesday 19 April, 1pm CET. Those interested should contact Deepak Mawar (d.r.mawar@tilburguniversity) with the email title ‘I-HILT E-Lecture Registration’ who will provide the Zoom link for the e-lecture.

2. ILDG Lecture: Current Developments in Ukraine (Webinar). The International Law Discussion Group at Maastricht University is organising an online Symposium on Current Developments in Ukraine on 11 April 2022.  The event is free of charge, but registration is mandatory. The full programme can be found here. 

3. Call for Submissions: Cambridge International Law Journal. The Editorial Board of the Cambridge International Law Journal invites submissions for Volume 11(2) of the Journal on the theme ‘Strengthening Global Governance through International Law: Challenges and Opportunities‘. The Board also welcomes long articles and case notes that engage with current themes in international law. Submissions close on Friday 13 May 2022. For further information, including on how to submit, see here.

4. Volterra Fietta Seminar: Claiming the Unclaimed – The Limits of the Continental Shelf Beyond 200nm. This event will take place on 14 April 2022 at 2.00 pm BST / 3:00 pm CEST / 7:00 pm EST. The continental shelf is the largest maritime area within a State’s national jurisdiction. It is an area of increasing importance, commercially and otherwise. States have sole rights to drilling, fishing and mining on the continental shelf within their jurisdiction. Upon submission to the UN Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf (the “CLCS”), States may be entitled to extend those rights to the outer edges of the continental shelf, beyond 200nm.  However, this process of claiming rights to an extended continental shelf before the CLCS is complex and technical, often entailing years of preparing, delivering and defending submissions. And, where States’ maritime areas overlap, entitlement to and delimitation of the outer edges of the continental shelf is subject to significant controversy. This seminar will address the various technical and legal issues related to establishing an extended continental shelf and the process of submissions to the CLCS. For more information, see here. 

5. Ukraine Peace Settlement Project Launched. An international team of mediation experts based in the University of Cambridge and other major institutions has launched a resource in support of a peace settlement for Ukraine. The web-resource is geared towards helping the sides in the conflict, and the present and future facilitators in negotiations, to understand how a settlement might take shape. Issues covered include neutrality for Ukraine, security guarantees, the status of areas in Donbas and of Crimea, arms limitation, language rights and other specialisms. The team is headed by Professor Marc Weller of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law and the Department of Politics and International Studies in the University of Cambridge. Dr Mark Retter is the Senior Manager of the initiative. The project is conducted in partnership with the Harvard Negotiations Project (Professor William Ury) and Opinio Juris  (Professor Kevin Jon Heller). In addition, it can draw on a wide range of  experts and the Language of Peace project, conducted jointly by the project team and the United Nations. The web-site chronicles the negotiations and offers detailed options papers and settlement ideas. The initiative is based in the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law in the University of Cambridge and can be found here.

6. Athens PIL Discussion Group: The ‘Africanization’ of International Investment Law: Myth or Reality? Online meeting (via Zoom) on Wednesday, 13 April 2022 at 18.00-19.30 (Athens time zone, EET). This discussion will be with Professor Makane Mbengue, Professor of International Law at the Faculty of Law of the University of Geneva and Director of the Department of International Law and International Organization. He is also an Affiliate Professor at Sciences Po Paris (School of Law).  Register and book tickets here. Or livestream the event on the Athens PIL Youtube page here. 

7. New Lecture on Refugee and Asylum Law at the UN Audiovisual Library of International Law. The Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs recently added new materials to the Lecture Series of the Audiovisual Library of International Law: A Lecture entitled “Refugee and Asylum Law: Towards the centrality of Human Rights” by Professor Cecilia Bailliet of the University of Oslo. The Audiovisual Library of International Law is also available as a podcast on SoundCloud and can be accessed through the relevant preinstalled applications on Apple or Google devices, or through the podcast application of your preference by searching “Audiovisual Library of International Law”.

8 New Podcast: Conversations about Globalization and Law. The Globalization and Law Network (GLAW-Net) at the Faculty of Law, Maastricht University has started a new podcast, ‘Conversations about Globalization and Law’ on pressing issues of international law and order. (Spotify) The first three episodes include interviews with Arthur Ripstein (Toronto) on Kant and the laws of war, Lea Raible (Glasgow) on extraterritorial human rights obligations, and Adom Getachew (Chicago) on the efforts by African and Caribbean independence and decolonization movements at regional and international institution-building. Further episodes are planned on a roughly bi-weekly basis.

9. Call for Papers: IV TRAMEREN International Conference. The Centre for International Law and Governance, Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen, and the Frank Guarini Center, New York University School of Law welcome proposals for paper presentations at the IV TRAMEREN International Conference on Enhancing Climate Action beyond the State, which will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark, on the 1 – 2 June 2022. Selected conference papers will be published in a Special Issue (journal TBD). All papers must conform to the journal content scope and form, and will be processed through the journal’s standard peer review procedures. Further, presentations and short think pieces will be published at the TRAMEREN’s conference website. Proposals should be submitted by the 26 April 2022. Find out more and see the Call for Papers here. 

10. Green Ambitions for Sustainable Development: Past, Present and Future, Faculty of Law, Pavol Jozef Safarik University in Kosice. The aim of this scientific conference, which takes place on 8 – 9 September 2022, is to create a platform for practitioners, academia and young researchers to exchange knowledge and suggestions in the field of sustainable development, climate change, and international cooperation. The topic of sustainable development is not new, and there are already many instances how the international community wants to tackle the climate change in this regard. Numerous legal aspects on the fulfilment of the European Green Deal goals and other international instruments emerge, which the conference participants will address. The organizers welcome contributions, which not only reflect on the achievements in this area, but also on contemporary and future challenges. The output of the scientific conference will be a peer-reviewed conference proceedings composed of contributions from conference participants. The deadline for registration is 1 May 2022. For registration, visit the conference website.

11. Calls for action from Ukrainian institutions

Several Ukrainian legal institutions, including the Ukrainian Bar Association and the Ukrainian Association of International Law have issued a call for action to the 152 Contracting Parties of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide to prevent further genocide against Ukrainians. The call can be found here, can be signed here, and the full list of signatories is available here. The Ukrainian Catholic University has also issued an Appeal to global academic and research community on de-putinization of academia, which is available here.