Workshop: Civil War, Intervention and International Law

On January 12, 2017, the Centre for Law and Society in a Global Context at Queen Mary University of London will hold a workshop on "Civil War, Intervention and International Law." The program is here. Here's the idea:

This workshop brings together leading scholars in history, international relations, international law, and political theory to discuss the 5-year project on Civil War, Intervention, and International Law directed by Anne Orford at Melbourne Law School as part of an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship. The lawfulness of external intervention in the domestic affairs of states is one of the most enduring and contested topics of debate within the disciplines of international law and international relations. The question of whether and when external actors can intervene in support of parties to a civil war has become an urgent one in recent times, with resort to an old pattern of proxy wars and support for competing factions emerging across the Middle East as well as the former Soviet bloc and the Great Lakes region in Africa. The Laureate Fellowship project explores whether the legal principle of non-intervention still makes any meaningful sense in a world which has been so radically transformed since the heyday of the principle in the nineteenth century, and if not what concepts or frameworks have been or should be developed to take its place. It combines historical research, legal analysis, and critical theorising to grasp the changing patterns and practices of intervention and account for the emerging role and responsibilities of external actors in civil conflicts. The workshop will discuss the methodological, conceptual, and normative challenges to which the Laureate Fellowship project gives rise, and offer responses to those challenges from a range of perspectives.