Survey: How do scholars of public international law choose their research methods?

Researchers at Leiden University are conducting a new study to develop a better understanding of the methodological landscape in the field of public international law. Researchers in this field are invited to take a short survey (here). The survey takes less than ten minutes to complete and includes questions about your background, current position, research methods, and publication choices. Your participation in this study is voluntary and can be terminated at any time, for any reason. The research team consists of Cecily Rose, Misha Plagis, Johanna Trittenbach, and Nicholas McGuire, and they can be contacted at methodssurvey@law.leidenuniv.nl. Information regarding the study can be found here.

Call for Engaged Listeners: Workshop on Armed Conflict and Climate Change

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law and the Humboldt University, Berlin, are organising the Sixth Authors’ Workshop of the Max Planck Trialogues on the Law of Peace and War, to take place March 12-13, 2026, in Berlin. The workshop will explore the relationship between climate change and armed conflict and how to conceptualize it from a legal perspective. The organisers invite interested researchers, especially doctoral and early career researchers, to apply as “engaged listeners.” Engaged listeners will not give a talk but are expected to participate actively in the discussions and will be listed in the workshop’s program. Applications should be submitted through the online application system with a CV and letter of motivation (max. 500 words) by December 15. 2025. More information can be found here.

Call for Engaged Listeners: “International Law in the Quest for Truth on the Battlefield” Roundtable

A call for engaged listeners has been issued for a roundtable on “International Law in the Quest for Truth on the Battlefield,” to take place July 4, 2025, at the University of Milan (and online). Applications are invited from early-career researchers and doctoral candidates. The call is here.

Call for Engaged Listeners: Defund Meat Conference (Doctoral and Postdoctoral Researchers)

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law invites doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to apply to be "engaged listeners" at the Defund Meat Conference, which will take place January 16-17, 2025, in Heidelberg. Engaged listeners will be admitted to the conference, including meals free of charge, and will be listed in the program. Engaged listeners do not give a talk but are expected to participate actively in the discussions. Travel and accommodation are at own expenses. Details are here.

Call for Participation: UN Treaty Body Human Rights Case Law Reporters (Oxford Reports on UN Human Rights Law)

Oxford University Press and the editors of the Oxford Reports on UN Human Rights Law have issued a call for UN Treaty Body Human Rights Case Law Reporters. Here's the call.

Call for Participation: "New Voices in International Law" for ASIL Annual Meeting

The American Society of International Law has issued a call for participation for "New Voices in International Law" at the 2023 ASIL Annual Meeting. Here's the call:

The Society seeks to incorporate new voices into several of its panels for the upcoming Annual Meeting. If you are a young scholar or practitioner with particular expertise to contribute to one of the panels set out below, we would love to hear from you. By no later than Thursday, March 16th, please submit a short description of your qualifications and what you believe you could contribute substantively to the panel, (in 200 words or less) and a résumé or CV via this Google Form: https://forms.gle/wXneFBVzWEVJK5kh8. Decisions will be made no later than March 22. New voice panelists are expected to attend the Annual Meeting in person.

• Synergy or Dissonance on Business and Human Rights? The interplay between national practice and international law
• Regulating States' Sovereign Rights under Today's Global Challenges
• Beyond Greenwashing: Navigating the complex policy framework for green finance
• Managing Climate Migration: Legal and policy considerations in approaches
• Economic Statecraft or Economic Warfare?
• Artificial Intelligence and International Law: Uncharted Territory?

Call for Input: Reports on “The impact of unilateral coercive measures on the right to health” and “Secondary sanctions, over-compliance and human rights”

The Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights has issued a call for input to reports on “The impact of unilateral coercive measures on the right to health,” for the 54th Session of the UN Human Rights Council (September 2023), and “Secondary sanctions, over-compliance and human rights,” for the 78th Session of the UN General Assembly (October 2023). The call is here.

Call for Submissions and Young Practitioners and Scholars Essay Competition: European Investment Law and Arbitration Review

The European Investment Law and Arbitration Review has issued a call for submissions for its 2023 issue. The call is here. EILAR also invites submissions for its Young Practitioners and Scholars Essay Competition. Details regarding the essay competition are here.

Call for Ideas: International Law and Agent-based Modeling

As part of the Social Simulation Fest of the European Social Simulation Association, the Human Rights Nudge project is organizing an interactive workshop bringing together legal scholars and modeling experts to discuss the potential application of agent-based modeling in international legal research. The project is currently seeking ideas from scholars identifying international legal questions or puzzles that would benefit from an agent-based modeling approach. The call is here.

Call for input to reports on “secondary sanctions, civil and criminal penalties for circumvention of sanctions regimes, and over-compliance with sanctions” and “Unilateral sanctions in the cyber world”

The Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of the unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights has issued a call for input to reports on “secondary sanctions, civil and criminal penalties for circumvention of sanctions regimes, and over-compliance with sanctions” and “Unilateral sanctions in the cyber world.” The call is here.

Call for Authors: Open Textbook on Public International Law

A call for authors has been issued for an "Open Textbook on Public International Law." Details are here.

Call for Rapporteurs: Oxford Reports on UN Human Rights Law

Oxford University Press and the editors of the Oxford Reports on UN Human Rights Law have issued a Call for Rapporteurs. Here's the call.

New Organization: Association of Young International Criminal Lawyers

Recently, the Association of Young International Criminal Lawyers was founded by a group of young international lawyers who seek to create a platform for fostering connections with likeminded professionals. Here's the idea:

The Association of Young International Criminal Lawyers (YICL) is a non-profit organisation open to all those interested in International Criminal Law (ICL), International Human Rights Law (IHRL), International Humanitarian Law (IHL), Public International Law (PIL), and Criminal Law, irrespective of nationality, background or level of experience.

YICL is a platform on which academicians, practitioners, and students from all around the world can share their knowledge and experience, evaluate and discuss current developments in the field, and work together toward building a global network.

Call for Members: ILA Study Group on "The International Law of Regional Organizations"

Samantha Besson (Collège de France; Univ. of Fribourg) and Eva Kassoti (TMC Asser Institute), co-chairs, invite expressions of interest on the part of potential members for the newly formed ILA Study Group on "The International Law of Regional Organizations." The call is here.

Call for Participation: Seminar on the JHIL's Special Issue "Politics and the Histories of International Law"

The European Society of International Law's Interest Group on the History of International Law has issued a call for participation for an online seminar appraising the individual articles in and assessing the impact on the field of the recently published special issue of the Journal of the History of International Law on "Politics and the Histories of International Law." The call is here.

Call for Engaged Listeners: The Individual in International Law – History and Theory (Reminder)

A call for engaged listeners has been issued by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law for a workshop on "The Individual in International Law – History and Theory," which will take place June 25-26, 2020, in Berlin. The call is here. The deadline is November 30, 2019.

Call for Engaged Listeners: The Individual in International Law – History and Theory

A call for engaged listeners has been issued by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law for a workshop on "The Individual in International Law – History and Theory," which will take place June 25-26, 2020, in Berlin. The call is here.

Call for Engaged Listeners: Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict – Beyond the ILC

A call for engaged listeners has been issued for a workshop on "Protection of the Environment in Relation to Armed Conflict – Beyond the ILC," which will take place on March 7-8, 2019, at the Faculty of Law of the University of Hamburg. The call is here.

Call for Engaged Listeners: Conference on "Politics and the Histories of International Law"

The Journal of the History of International Law has issued a call for engaged listeners for its conference on "Politics and the Histories of International Law," which will take place February 15-16, 2019, at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, in Heidelberg. The call is directed at those who are interested in participating in the audience of the conference (not as a speaker) and thus contribute to the discussion. The deadline is September 30, 2018. The full call is here.

Call for Audience: International Law in a Dark Time

The Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights and Peking University Institute of International Law Collaboration Project (ECI-PUIIL Project) have issued a call for an audience for a seminar for doctoral students and junior researchers on "International Law in a Dark Time," on May 22-23, 2017, in Helsinki. The seminar will be directed by Anne Orford (Univ. of Melbourne) and Martti Koskenniemi (Univ. of Helsinki). Up to thirty participants may register to be in the audience. Registration is here; the deadline is May 15, 2017. The program is here. Here's the idea:

The Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights and Peking University Institute of International Law Collaboration Project (ECI-PUIIL Project) funded by CIMO is pleased to offer a seminar for PhD students and junior researchers to be held at Faculty of Law, University of Helsinki. The purpose of this workshop is to examine the transformations of law at a specific moment in history in which law and lawfulness appear as much part of the problem as the solution.

The background for this workshop is formed by the experience that in the past 25 years optimism about international progress after the end of the Cold War has diminished and law’s role in global governance has come to appear increasingly ambivalent: it has often proven either useless or actually harmful. From an easy acceptance of the ideology of the “rule of law” in the early 1990s, we have come to realise that law comes in many forms and supports very different and often contradictory policies. On the one hand, there has been a massive growth of law in various specialist fields ranging from human rights to the environment, war and security to the economy. At the same time, in many of these fields a sense of a “crisis” has emerged or persists. Sometimes the crisis has been attributed to external phenomena – and law has come to seem inefficient in dealing with them. At other times crisis may seem have been created or exacerbated by the law itself. Despite the “growth” of law in the field of human rights and the environment, huge numbers of people experience daily deprivation and no end can be seen to the degradation of the quality of the environment. Laws enacted to protect the security of human groups are used to discipline and oppress, and economic laws seem powerful to forestall the massive growth of global inequality. In a word, the benefits of the traditional recipe to international problems of “more law” may no longer seem sustainable.

The purpose of the workshop would be to examine law’s increasingly complex role and its often problematic consequences for international politics.