Conference: Contingency in the Course of International Law

On June 14-16, 2018, the Amsterdam Center for International Law will host a conference on "Contingency in the Course of International Law." The program is here. Here's the idea:

We want to question the present state of international law by challenging its pretence to necessity and by better understanding the forces that have shaped it. Put simply with Robert Musil: "If there is a sense of reality, there must also be a sense of possibility.” The overarching aim will be to expose the contingencies of international law’s development by inquiring into international law’s past. Such inquiries may be of systematic purport – asking, for example, how a different conception of the sources of international law could have emerged. Or they may focus on specific areas of the law, asking questions like whether the idea of state crimes could have taken hold or whether the NIEO could have achieved greater success. International law’s past is almost certainly ripe with possibilities that we have forgotten. The workshop will seek to reveal and remember them.