A Conference on the Role of Opinio Juris in Customary International Law

I usually defer to An and Jessica’s (excellent!) work in flagging international law-related conferences and events.  But, I wanted to call particular attention to a conference I just learned about that Duke Law School is co-hosting with the University of Geneva next month at the Duke-Geneva Institute of Transnational Law on the Role of Opinio Juris in Customary International Law.  The event is well located (and timed) given the International Law Commission’s current project on customary international law.  But unlike many conferences, where all those not in attendance can see is a schedule of attendees and/or paper topics, the Duke-Geneva schedule generously includes links to the papers themselves.  I’m working my way through them for my own research on the functions interpretation serves in international law.  And although I’d note they seem to be mostly of the short, discussion paper variety, if the first one by Curt Bradley is anything to go by (he identifies and critiques existing paradoxes in definitions of opinio juris and offers a new descriptive and normative thesis for identifying CIL based on state preferences), these papers will be well worth reading.  I’m also interested to here from anyone who attends the conference itself what reception these papers receive, and in particular, what the various ILC members who will be commenting on several of them have to say about customary international law itself.