Events and Announcements: 18 January 2026

To have your event or announcement featured in next week’s post, please send a link and a brief description (1-2 paragraphs) to ojeventsandannouncements@gmail.com.

Announcement

Vote for the Best UN Treaty Body Decision of 2025: The researchers of the project Deep Impact through Soft Jurisprudence? The Contribution of United Nations Treaty Body Case Law to the Development of International Human Rights Law at Hertie School Centre For Fundamental Rights invite everyone to participate in their poll to select the best UN treaty body decision of 2025. They have shortlisted twelve decisions from seven treaty bodies. The summaries of these decisions and the poll can be accessed here. The poll is open until 9 February. 

Calls for Applications

PhD Course on the Legitimacy of International Law in a Time of Uncertainty: PhD researchers are invited to a multidisciplinary course that explores the legitimacy of international law in today’s uncertain times. The rules of the game have changed in international relations. State behavior has become unpredictable. And in these unpredictable times, the language of international law is spoken everywhere. Never has international law attracted so much attention. But questions arise concerning the current role and legitimacy of international law. What role is left for international law if it is ignored in practice? How is its legitimacy affected if powerful states disregard it at will and only comply if it furthers their national interests? International law defines the legal responsibilities of states and other actors in their mutual relations, but are we now witnessing a shift towards a reality where states use international law as a tool to achieve dominance? For more information, including on how to apply, please visit this website. 

ITLOS – Nippon Foundation Capacity Building and Training Program 2026-2027: The ITLOS-Nippon Foundation Capacity-Building and Training Programme on Dispute Settlement under UNCLOS, July 2026 – March 2027, to be held at ITLOS (Hamburg, Germany), is welcoming applications until 6 March 2026.

For more information see the flyer and website.

Calls for Papers

Global Law Conference: University of Edinburgh Centre for International and Global Law and University of Edinburgh International Law Reading Group is jointly organising a Global Law Conference, taking place on 30 April and 1 May 2026 in person at the University of Edinburgh. The committee is now collecting abstracts to present at this two-day conference on one of its three panel streams, titled as (1) Substance and boundaries [of global law], (2)  The empirical implications: global law in practice and (3) Situating global law in critical legal scholarship. Presenters will deliver a 15-minute individual presentation within a panel of 3 presenters, which will be followed by a 30-minute discussion and Q&A for the entire panel. Interested applicants should submit their abstract by 31 January 2026, and the conference committee will notify selected presenters by 20 February 2026. Further information about the conference as well as the application form could be found through this link. If you have any questions, please do not hesitate the contact ilrg@ed.ac.uk.

The Afterlife of Atrocity Tribunals: An international criminal tribunal is established to fanfare. Indictments are issued, trials held, judgements rendered, appeals exhausted, convicts sentenced. But all things must come to an end. And so it goes with tribunals for Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, Lebanon, and Kosovo. A small ceremony might mark the closure. But then what? Tribunal closure is treated like a technical footnote with little thought to the tribunal’s afterlife.

The afterlife of tribunals — their surviving commitments, responsibilities, and legacies — remains one of the most understudied and least understood aspects of the international justice project. And, yet, the process through which tribunals manage closure may prove crucial in shaping how tribunals convey long-term meaning for victims and societies emerging from conflict, how the conflict and accountability therefor is remembered, and for international criminal law as a discipline itself.

These are questions we – Mark Drumbl, Maria Elander and Rachel Killean – have begun to explore. We now invite scholars to join us on the journey. Selected papers will form part of a special issue (or double issue) of the International Criminal Law Review, edited by the three of us together, and to be published in 2027. As part of the publication process, authors will be invited to join a symposium in Sydney 12-13 November 2026. There may also be a smaller event in September in the US. For full Call for Papers with details, see here.

New Technologies and International Legal Accountability, University of Perugia: The organisers of the European Society of International Law (ESIL)-supported Conference “New Technologies and International Legal Accountability”, which will take place in Perugia on 22–23 October 2026, invite contributions exploring the role of international law in ensuring accountability for malicious cyber or AI-enabled operations in peacetime, hybrid settings, and armed conflicts. Abstracts of no more than 500 words may be submitted by 15 April 2026 to newtechila@gmail.com. Selected contributions will be notified by 15 May 2026. The organisers will cover accommodation for two nights. Travel expenses may be subsidised in exceptional cases in the absence of alternative funding. Publication of the selected contributions in an edited volume is expected. Further details can be found here.

Trade, Law and Development: Founded in 2009, the philosophy of Trade, Law and Development (TL&D) has been to generate and sustain a constructive and democratic debate on emergent issues in international economic law and to serve as a forum for the discussion and distribution of ideas. TL&D also has the distinction of being ranked the best journal in India across all fields of law for seven consecutive years by Washington and Lee University School of Law. Accordingly, the Board of Editors of TL&D is pleased to invite original, unpublished manuscripts for publication in the General Issue of the Journal (Vol. XVII, No. 2) in the form of ‘Articles’, ‘Notes’, ‘Comments’ and ‘Book Reviews’.

Manuscripts received by 10 March 2026 pertaining to any area within the purview of international economic law will be reviewed for publication in the Summer’26 issue. Manuscripts may be submitted via e-mail or the Journal’s website here. For further information about the Journal, please click here. For submission guidelines, please click here.

Events

International Criminal Law Year in Review Webinar: The ASIL International Criminal Law Interest Group will be hosting an International Criminal Law Year in Review. As we begin the new year, leading scholars in the field will discuss and debate some of the most momentous international criminal law developments from the year that has passed. The event will feature Beth Van Schaack, former Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice in the U.S. State Department; Marko Milanovic, Professor of Public International Law at the University of Reading School of Law; and Rachel López, Barrack Chair in Law at Temple Law. Join us to learn about the events that defined international criminal law in 2025. The event will be taking place by Zoom on 26 January 2026 at 12:30pm ET. Register here.

Workshop – Inter-Judicial Dialogue on Climate Change and Human Rights: Climate change has become a profound human rights challenge, increasingly addressed by courts worldwide. This one-day academic workshop brings together judges from the European Court of Human Rights and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, alongside leading scholars and practitioners, to explore how human rights law is shaping judicial responses to the climate crisis. Through comparative discussion of landmark cases and advisory opinions, the event fosters inter-judicial dialogue, mutual learning, and the development of shared approaches to climate justice across regional human rights systems. The event takes place in a hybrid format on 17 April 2026. Online participation is possible after registration, with the link to the relevant page being provided later. For more information, please see here.