Call for Papers: Security, Scarcity, Struggle: The Dilemmas of International Law

The sixteenth annual conference of the Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law will take place June 26-28, 2008, at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra. The theme is "Security, Scarcity, Struggle: The Dilemmas of International Law." Here's the call for papers:

The theme of this year's Conference reflects a number of debates (or struggles) occurring in public international law. The field is fragmenting, to be sure, but at every turn similar dilemmas arise. In a world marked by increasing scarcity and insecurity, does international law need to be reconfigured to accommodate or confront the threat of hegemony, or to realise the promise of justice (or kindness), or to facilitate the redistribution of resources (or the operation of the market), or to reconcile the imperatives of economic well-being (or gross over-consumption) with the salvation of planetary life? If so, what role ought we, as international lawyers, play in ordering, reordering or reimagining the global commonwealth?

Accordingly, the Conference Organising Committee now calls for proposals for papers to be presented at the 16th Annual Conference. Special consideration will be given to proposals which seek to develop the Conference theme in one or more of the following areas:

(1) the meaning of security (military, human, state) in contemporary international law;

(2) the struggle over international law and human rights in national courts (Al Jedda, Al Skeini, Hicks, Hamdan, Boumediene);

(3) current issues for international law (including those arising from the war on terror, the protection of whale stocks, poverty, gender, global climate change, disarmament and nuclear proliferation);

(4) the protection of the global environment and prevention ofglobal warming in the context of inequality and the "carbon debt"?

(5) the role of international institutions, international lawyers and civil society in promoting or ameliorating injustice (e.g. Australian Government's proposal to bring Iran to the International Court of Justice).

A range of journals have expressed interest in receiving submissions of conference papers for consideration for publication including, the Australian Yearbook of International Law, the New Zealand Journal of Public and International Law, the New Zealand Yearbook of International Law and the Australian International Law Journal. Conference papers will also be published (unedited and unrefereed) in a new International Papers database to be established by Austlii at http://www.austlii.edu.au/.

The Organising Committee encourages proposals which present collaborative research amongst Society members and/or which focus on the role of international law in the Asia-Pacific region. Recently-appointed academics, in particular, are encouraged to send proposals. Post-graduate students and those wishing to present on their post-graduate thesis work are encouraged to submit their proposals for the Post-Graduate Workshop to be held immediately prior to the Conference on 25 June 2007.

A one page abstract and a one page resumé should be submitted to the Organising Committee by Friday 7th March 2008 by email to the Conference Administrator: Kavitha Robinson at cipl@law.anu.edu.au.