Call for Papers

The rules on the use of force established since 1945 are increasingly being tested by contemporary conflicts and changing forms of warfare. Questions surrounding self-defence, humanitarian intervention, neutrality, hybrid and non-linear warfare, and emerging military technologies are placing sustained pressure on established legal concepts.

These developments invite renewed reflection on the values, rules and principles that should continue to govern the use of force. Rather than assuming that the existing framework will remain unchanged, this agora asks what should be preserved, reconsidered or reconstructed as international law responds to new realities of conflict and security.

International law has long adapted to technological change, but the speed and scale of current developments are creating new forms of disruption. Artificial intelligence, autonomous weapons, cyber operations, deep-seabed technologies and geoengineering are among the innovations testing existing rules and principles.

These technologies may generate new risks for peace and security, the environment and human rights, while also reshaping the way legal systems respond to complex global problems. This agora invites reflection on whether international law is sufficiently equipped to regulate technological risk and what legal strategies may be needed for the future.

International law does not operate in isolation. Many of the political, social, economic and environmental questions addressed by international legal rules require knowledge from disciplines beyond law.

Climate and environmental law depend on scientific expertise; international trade law requires engagement with economics; and increasingly specialised areas of regulation demand that lawyers understand concepts and evidence developed elsewhere. Interdisciplinarity may therefore be essential to the future development of international law, while also creating challenges for legal reasoning and professional practice.

Agora 10 is reserved for a complete panel proposal submitted by an ESIL Interest Group convener. Interest Group proposals follow a dedicated submission route and must present the panel as a coherent contribution to the conference programme.

Proposals should identify the Interest Group, panel concept and format, proposed participants and the individual works to be presented. The panel must result from a call for papers circulated to the Interest Group membership and should reflect geographical, gender and institutional diversity.

All agorae are scheduled for 1 hour 30 minutes and may include a maximum of four participants. A chair and three speakers is one possible format, but other panel or roundtable structures may be proposed.

The expansion of international organisations after the Second World War reflected a period in which multilateral institutions were seen as central to peace, development, economic cooperation and international governance.

Today, the growing prominence of unilateral approaches in world politics raises questions about the future role and influence of those institutions. As international society changes, this agora asks whether international organisations can continue to perform the functions for which they were created and what place they should occupy in the future international legal order.

The global trade order is undergoing profound transformation. Tariffs, export restraints and other measures once primarily associated with protectionism are increasingly being used as instruments of geopolitical strategy, economic security and strategic autonomy.

At the same time, states are turning to preferential trade agreements and alternative forms of cooperation as they respond to disruptions in the multilateral system. These developments raise fundamental questions about the resilience of international trade rules and the future of institutions such as the World Trade Organization.

New technologies are placing increasing pressure on traditional territorial understandings of state sovereignty. Control over data, infrastructures and software is distributed among multiple public and private actors and often extends across national borders.

This creates challenges for legislation, enforcement and judicial authority, while prompting states to seek greater control over the digital environment. Yet the decentralised and transnational character of digital systems raises a fundamental question: whether meaningful digital sovereignty is both necessary and achievable.

Agora 11 is reserved for a complete panel proposal submitted by an ESIL Interest Group convener. Interest Group proposals follow a dedicated submission route and must present the panel as a coherent contribution to the conference programme.

Proposals should identify the Interest Group, panel concept and format, proposed participants and the individual works to be presented. The panel must result from a call for papers circulated to the Interest Group membership and should reflect geographical, gender and institutional diversity.

All agorae are scheduled for 1 hour 30 minutes and may include a maximum of four participants. A chair and three speakers is one possible format, but other panel or roundtable structures may be proposed.

Thinking about the future requires space for open discussion, freedom of thought and freedom of expression. Yet recent developments suggest that the scope and limits of these freedoms are again being contested across academic debate, political speech, traditional media and online platforms.

Humour provides a particularly revealing example. Expressions once assumed to benefit from a very high degree of tolerance are increasingly becoming the subject of judicial disputes, including before international courts. These cases raise wider questions about how international law should address changing social expectations while protecting fundamental freedoms.

Outer space is increasingly central to everyday life. Navigation, telecommunications, satellite imagery, global trade, disaster management and military activities all depend on space-based infrastructure.

Since the 1967 Outer Space Treaty, many legal developments have taken the form of soft law, even as the number of actors and the range of commercial and technological activities in space have expanded significantly. Future developments — including tourism, mining, settlement and increasing militarisation — will place further pressure on the existing international legal framework.

The transition towards cleaner technologies and more sustainable forms of development is increasing global demand for critical minerals, natural resources and new energy systems.

This transformation creates significant legal and political tensions. Questions of sovereignty, resource distribution, extraction, corporate responsibility, environmental protection and supply-chain security increasingly intersect with geopolitical competition and energy security.

International law already contains mechanisms intended to address some of these challenges, from the common heritage regime under UNCLOS to emerging standards of corporate responsibility. This agora asks whether those frameworks remain sufficient for the pressures associated with the green transition and changing global resource needs.

Current climate data suggest that the temperature goals established under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement remain difficult to achieve. At the same time, the first decade of the Paris Agreement has seen continued state action, growing climate litigation and an increasing number of requests for advisory opinions.

These developments point both to the limitations and to the continuing evolution of climate law. Questions concerning reparations, loss and damage, climate finance, geoengineering and states’ due-diligence obligations are likely to become increasingly important as the legal response to climate change develops.

Climate change may be the clearest example of a disruptive global environmental challenge, but many of these questions also extend to other areas of international environmental law.