For the third and last workshop of the Doc.CH “New Directions in the Theory & History of
International Law” Workshop series,
1 we are particularly interested in hosting scholars that
problematize both the spatio-temporal coordinates and the modalities of representation of
international legal history. While our discipline has long tried to see itself as one that happens
“everywhere”2 with the perspective of an “universalizing gaze,”3 in truth such interventions only
happen “somewhere” —often, far from the places we easily associate with the adjective
“international.”4 For this reason, we build on previous work that has called into question the
artificial divisions between the “local,” “national,” “international,” or “imperial,” units of analysis5
and on the burgeoning literature on “cities and international law”6 to foreground questions of
space and scale in international legal history. We embrace, at the same time, the productive
tensions involved in capturing and representing traditional and alternative spatio-temporal
boundaries of “the province” of international law.7
1 For previous iterations, see https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/communications/events/workshop-political-economyhistory-international-law and https://www.graduateinstitute.ch/communications/events/beauty-and-poweraesthetics-history-and-international-law-0 (accessed on 29 July 2023) 2 Juan M Amaya-Castro, “Teaching International Law: Both Everywhere and Somewhere,” in Liber Amicorum in
Honour of a Modern Renaissance Man: Gudmundur Eiríksson, ed. Juan Carlos Sainz Borgo et al. (Universal Law
Publishing, 2017), 521–36. 3 Annelise Riles, “The View from the International Plane: Perspective and Scale in the Architecture of Colonial
International Law,” Law and Critique 6, no. 1 (1995): 39–54. 4 Luis Eslava, “Istanbul Vignettes: Observing the Everyday Operation of International Law,” London Review of
International Law 2, no. 1 (2014): 3–47. 5 Luis Eslava, Local Space, Global Life: The Everyday Operation of International Law and Development (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2015); Lauren Benton, “Made in Empire: Finding the History of International Law in
Imperial Locations,” Leiden Journal of International Law 31, no. 03 (2018): 473–78; Samuel Moyn, “Substance, Scale,
and Salience: The Recent Historiography of Human Rights,” Annual Review of Law and Social Science 8, no. 1 (2012):
123–40. 6 Helmut Philipp Aust and Janne E. Nijman, “The Emerging Roles of Cities in International Law – Introductory
Remarks on Practice, Scholarship and the Handbook,” in Helmut Philipp Aust and Janne E. Nijman (eds.), Research
Handbook on International Law and Cities (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2021), 1–15. 7 With apologies to John Austin, The Province of Jurisprudence Determined: And, The Uses of the Study of
Jurisprudence (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Pub, 1998).
With this in mind, we are interested in paper proposals that theoretically question the ways in
which different spatial and temporal spaces and modalities of inquiry limit —or enrich— our ways
of seeing international law’s “world making practices.”8 And we would also welcome more
empirically oriented contributions that attempt to traverse these imaginary registers —especially
those that move within multiple spatio-temporal registers of international law and its history.
9
The speakers will be chosen from this public call for papers, considering the importance of a
diverse mix of participants from different disciplinary and geographical sensibilities, along with a
balanced composition between scholars of different genders and career-stages. Sadly, in principle,
we will not be able to fund the travel and accommodation costs of the participants.
Scholars who would like to present a paper at the third workshop are invited to submit a title
and abstract (250─500 words) to [email protected] before October 31, 2023
(23:59 Geneva Time – CEST). A decision on acceptance of the abstract will be communicated by
late November 2023. We expect to host the workshop in person, but hybrid participation might
be considered depending on the overall sanitary situation and the guidelines issued by the Geneva
Graduate Institute. We are keen on exploring options for a collective publication effort after the
workshop. As such, we encourage potential participants to bear this in mind as they prepare their
abstracts.
