The Force of International Law: An Interdisciplinary Workshop Series
Lead Research Organisation:
Birkbeck, University of London
Department Name: Law
Abstract
Given the current intense interest in international law and the persistent questions about the quality of force that law wields on the international plane, this project was timely in reflecting critically upon those forces being rallied in the name of international order across a range of disciplines, as well as upon the intrinsic force of law and community on an international scale.
Contemporary interest in, and concern for, international law is not confined to lawyers or the legal academy, nor should it be. Among other questions, the following demand attention from lawyers and non-lawyers alike: How might we understand the politics of contemporary appeals to international law and what role does critical scholarship play in relation to these calls? What founds 'community' (international and otherwise) and what exceeds community in the process of its formation? Wherein lies the force of that named 'the law' and what purchase does this have on contemporary violence? To what extent might international law call conventional understandings of law and politics / and the rationalizations and unities with which they are freighted / into question?
To address these and related questions, this project comprised a series of events oriented around the topic 'The Force of International Law'. These events enabled an extended, multi-disciplinary inquiry into the status, language and properties of law and force in international affairs and the promises and pitfalls of casting law and politics on an international scale.
The project was comprised of three closely related programmes:
1) Launch Workshop: A workshop focused on 'The Force of International Law', this event permitted engagement across a range of public and professional constituencies concerned with international law, with specific reference to contemporary political events and debates.
2) Thematic Workshop Series: This was a series of four cross-disciplinary thematic workshops, in which themes of salience to the constituent dimensions of modern law, including international law, were broached by scholars drawn from across the humanities and social sciences. The workshops addressed the following themes: Sovereignty and Community, the Law of the Law, Globalism and Secular Theology.
3) Critical International Law Reading Group Series: A series of specialist reading group sessions involving international lawyers and postgraduate students of international law drawn from a number of UK and overseas universities. The sessions were dedicated to the reading of selected examples of contemporary international legal scholarship alongside non-legal texts with which they directly or implicitly engage.
It was also planned that the project would result in publication of an edited volume and a special issue of an international legal journal (in addition to the conference papers and refereed publications produced by individual project participants) to permit consolidation and further sharing of insights. This project is underway, with interest secured from publishers and contributions sought from selected participants. This volume will be aimed at a generalist audience, in order to achieve our aim of yielding benefits beyond the academy by helping to foster critically informed public debate on a wide range of issues and reform agendas arising in contemporary international affairs.
Contemporary interest in, and concern for, international law is not confined to lawyers or the legal academy, nor should it be. Among other questions, the following demand attention from lawyers and non-lawyers alike: How might we understand the politics of contemporary appeals to international law and what role does critical scholarship play in relation to these calls? What founds 'community' (international and otherwise) and what exceeds community in the process of its formation? Wherein lies the force of that named 'the law' and what purchase does this have on contemporary violence? To what extent might international law call conventional understandings of law and politics / and the rationalizations and unities with which they are freighted / into question?
To address these and related questions, this project comprised a series of events oriented around the topic 'The Force of International Law'. These events enabled an extended, multi-disciplinary inquiry into the status, language and properties of law and force in international affairs and the promises and pitfalls of casting law and politics on an international scale.
The project was comprised of three closely related programmes:
1) Launch Workshop: A workshop focused on 'The Force of International Law', this event permitted engagement across a range of public and professional constituencies concerned with international law, with specific reference to contemporary political events and debates.
2) Thematic Workshop Series: This was a series of four cross-disciplinary thematic workshops, in which themes of salience to the constituent dimensions of modern law, including international law, were broached by scholars drawn from across the humanities and social sciences. The workshops addressed the following themes: Sovereignty and Community, the Law of the Law, Globalism and Secular Theology.
3) Critical International Law Reading Group Series: A series of specialist reading group sessions involving international lawyers and postgraduate students of international law drawn from a number of UK and overseas universities. The sessions were dedicated to the reading of selected examples of contemporary international legal scholarship alongside non-legal texts with which they directly or implicitly engage.
It was also planned that the project would result in publication of an edited volume and a special issue of an international legal journal (in addition to the conference papers and refereed publications produced by individual project participants) to permit consolidation and further sharing of insights. This project is underway, with interest secured from publishers and contributions sought from selected participants. This volume will be aimed at a generalist audience, in order to achieve our aim of yielding benefits beyond the academy by helping to foster critically informed public debate on a wide range of issues and reform agendas arising in contemporary international affairs.
People |
ORCID iD |
| Peter Fitzpatrick (Principal Investigator) |