The International Boundaries Research Unit at Durham University has issued a call for papers for its twentieth anniversary conference, "The State of Sovereignty," to be held April 1-3, 2009, in Durham. Here's the call:Governments around the world are facing increasingly complex challenges in the exercise of territorial sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction – and a growing number are arguably losing the battle, sometimes with catastrophic consequences. IBRU’s 20th anniversary conference will address a topic of growing concern to governments, scholars and boundary practitioners: The State of Sovereignty.
IBRU began work in 1989, the year that saw the fall of the Berlin Wall and the first use of the term ‘the borderless world’. Two decades on, borders are still very much with us but the geopolitical setting in which they exist has changed dramatically. The changing nature of sovereignty in a globalising world has attracted attention from a wide range of disciplines, but the practical implications of such changes for boundary-making, management and dispute resolution have rarely been examined in depth.
This major international conference will provide scholars and practitioners with an opportunity to reflect on the impact of the geopolitical upheavals of the last twenty years, and to exchange ideas about the meaning and function of sovereignty and international boundaries today and in the decades ahead.
Call for papers
The conference will be interdisciplinary in approach and global in scope. We invite proposals for panels or papers on the following themes:
- Sovereignty and territorial integrity
- Sovereignty and international law
- Boundary-making and the assertion of sovereignty on the ground
- ‘Earned sovereignty’, ‘contingent sovereignty’ and their territorial implications
- Failed states; ungoverned, undergoverned and ungovernable regions
- Secessionist movements and new states
- New frontiers: de-bordering, re-bordering and networked borders
- Alternatives to absolute territorial sovereignty
- Defending sovereignty: surveillance and infrastructure
- Creeping jurisdiction? The changing nature of control over maritime space
- New approaches to the resolution of territorial disputes
- The impact of climate change on sovereignty
- The management of transboundary resources
- Sovereignty and maritime jurisdiction in the Arctic and Antarctic
Potential speakers should submit an abstract of no more than 300 words by Friday 17 October 2008. If you wish to discuss a paper or panel before submitting a proposal, please feel free to contact us.
All abstracts and enquiries should be sent to:
Ms Astrid Alvarez, Director of External Relations and Business Development, IBRU, Department
of Geography, Durham University, DH1 3LE, UK. E-mail: ibru-events@durham.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0)191 334 1965 Fax: +44 (0)191 334 1962
