LCIL International Law Centre Podcast
The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law at the University of Cambridge hosts weekly lectures on topical issues of international law by leading practitioners and academics. This podcast features recordings of those lectures, covering a wide range of international law topics. The Centre, founded in 1983 by Sir Elihu Lauterpacht QC, serves as a scholarly forum for discussion and development of international law.
Episodes
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2026: Lecture 3: 'Immunities of State Officials and Prosecutions for International Crimes - Where does the Law Stand?' - Prof Dapo Akande, University of Oxford
The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture will be given by Professor Dapo Akande, Chichele Professor of Public International
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2026: Lecture 2: 'Immunities of State Officials and Prosecutions for International Crimes - Where does the Law Stand?' - Prof Dapo Akande, University of Oxford
The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture will be given by Professor Dapo Akande, Chichele Professor of Public International
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2026: Lecture 1: 'Immunities of State Officials and Prosecutions for International Crimes - Where does the Law Stand?' - Prof Dapo Akande, University of Oxford
The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture will be given by Professor Dapo Akande, Chichele Professor of Public International
The Global Housing Crisis and International Law: A Critical Assessment
In this talk, I’ll focus on multiple dimension of the global housing crisis - affordability, homelessness, loss of homes due to climate crisis, mass destruction of homes or domicide during conflict, migration and the idea of a home, the contestation over land, and the persistence of forced evictions, discrimination and increasing segregation - from an international legal perspective. Drawing on my
'Implications of U.S. Foreign Aid Cuts and Reciprocal Tariffs for African Countries - A View from the Global South' - Prof Olabisi D Akinkugbe, University of Dalhousie
Lecture summary: President Trump’s decisive attack on foreign aid and USAID, leading to the restructuring of the latter and the closure of ongoing and future development aid work across the world, has left many vulnerable regions of the world in potential crisis. With some of the funds hitherto allocated to development aid in vulnerable Global South countries reallocated to national economic proje
The Current State of the Rules of International Law against Attempts to Acquire Territory by Force: A Practitioner's View
Based on his experience, but speaking in his personal capacity, Ambassador Tomohiro Mikanagi will discuss the current state of the rules of international law against attempts to acquire territory by force. When powerful States are not satisfied with the territorial status quo and are unwilling to give up their interests for the sake of international peace, there is an inherent difficulty in stoppi
The Secret Life of the Legal Adviser: Strategies of International Law-Making
Lecture summary: In 1963, Stanley Hoffmann told the American Society of International Law: “Since every Power wants to turn its interests, ideas and gains into law, a study of the ‘legal strategies’ of the various units, i.e., of what kinds of norms they try to promote, and through what techniques, may be as fruitful for the political scientist as a study of more purely diplomatic, military or eco
Athenia, or the Nuremberg Trial at Midpoint
Lecture summary: Early March 1946 marked a rough midpoint in proceedings before the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg. The prosecution had closed its case, with France and the USSR just having presented most of the trial’s eyewitnesses – two of them women. The defense opened just as Churchill gave his Iron Curtain speech. Elsewhere in Palace of Justice, personnel were going home even as
Submarines and Underwater Maritime Autonomous Vehicles: New Wine in Old Bottles?
Lecture summary: The regulation of submarines has rarely been an issue of focus in international law. Their military utility has influenced states’ willingness to develop rules that restrict their operations, both historically and in contemporary settings. So much is evident in examining current controversies over navigational rights of warships. Yet the types and uses of submarines are continuall
Reading International Law as Stories
Speaker: Prof Tamsin Paige, Deakin Law SchoolLecture summary: Stories serve an integral role in society as, among other things, a meaning making tool. As a method of meaning making, stories are relational and allow the storyteller to assist their audience in understanding ideas, concepts, and experiences that lie beyond their lived experiences. Using this understanding and starting point, I ask wh
Due Diligence at a Crossroads: The Old Road, the New Road, and the Bridge Between
Speaker: Dr Penelope Ridings, International Law CommissionLecture summary: In the last several decades, scholarly views of due diligence in international law have shifted from due diligence as a primary obligation under customary international law, to due diligence as a standard of conduct attached to a primary obligation. Thus, for example, due diligence is required to meet a State’s obligation o
The Systemic Function of General Principles
Speakers: Prof Mads Andenas & Prof Johann Ruben Leiss, University of OsloLecture summary: The lecture explores the systemic function of general principles in international law in light of the ongoing work of the ILC on general principles of law and recent practice of international courts and tribunals, such as the Climate Change Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice from 2025.
Russia, the Soviet Union, and Imperial Continuity in International Law
Lecture summary: Empire is a big theme in international law. At the same time, the historical discussion on imperialism and international law had focussed primarily on the West European Empires. This presentation examines Russian and Soviet historical engagements with international law through imperial ideas and practices. Of the doctrines of international law, the ideas of state identity (continu
Marxist Insights for International Law
Speaker: Prof Antonios Tzanakopoulos, University of OxfordNo lecture summary available.Chair: Prof Jan KlabbersThis lecture was given on 23 January 2026 and is part of the Friday Lunchtime Lecture series at the Lauterpacht Centre.
Eli Lauterpacht Lecture 2025 - - 'Hard Law in Times of Liquid Modernity: Treaty Law and Practice in the 21st Century' - Santiago Villalpando, Legal Advisor and Director of UNESCO
The speaker for the Eli Lauterpacht Lecture 2025 was Santiago Villalpando, Legal Advisor and Director of UNESCO.Lecture summary: Is international law facing a decline of treaties?In recent years, several authoritative voices have pointed out certain developments which seem to indicate that States are shifting away from treaty law-making for the governance of their international relations
International Police Cooperation in an Era of Rising Authoritarianism
Lecture summary: Over centuries and across continents, authoritarian governments have demonstrated a large appetite for international cooperation to target political opponents across borders. As the world’s premier body for international police cooperation, Interpol is not supposed to facilitate this kind of transnational repression -- and yet, in recent years, there is growing concern that a
Is the disorder of our times unprecedented?
Lecture summary: Most observers – at least in the West – agree that the twenty-first century has been particularly tumultuous. But while some explain the volatility of our times by reference to historical analogies, e.g. moments of power transition in the twentieth century, others claim that we are in a moment of polycrisis for which there is no precedent. In this talk I split the difference: main
The Globalisation of Climate Law: The Inaugural Lecture of the Hatton Chair in Climate Law
Harro van Asselt is the Hatton Professor of Climate Law with the Department of Land Economy, a Fellow and Director of Studies at Hughes Hall, and a Fellow with the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, University of Cambridge. He is also Professor of Climate Law and Policy at the University of Eastern Finland Law School, and an Affiliated Researcher with the Stockholm Environment Institute.The
International Organizations between Mission and Market
International organizations law has always revolved around the relationship between the organization and its member states. This has proven to be of some use, but leaves important gaps unaddressed. What, e.g., about purely international affairs (think judicial review, think relations between organs)? And it ignores the existence of a vast external world. By concentrating solely on the relations wi
HLML2025: Discussion and Q&A led by Professor Susan Marks
The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law.We will come together to celebrate the life and scholarship of our colleague and friend, Professor Karen
HLML2025: Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law: Continuing Conversations with Karen Knop - Session III Private and Foreign Relations Law
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2025: Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law: Continuing Conversations with Karen KnopWe will come together to celebrate the life and scholarship of our colleague and friend, Professor Karen Knop (1960-2022). Karen, until her untimely passing, was the Cecil A Wright Chair at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. A long-time friend of the La
HLML2025: Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law: Continuing Conversations with Karen Knop - Session II - Gender and Feminism
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2025: Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law: Continuing Conversations with Karen KnopWe will come together to celebrate the life and scholarship of our colleague and friend, Professor Karen Knop (1960-2022). Karen, until her untimely passing, was the Cecil A Wright Chair at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. A long-time friend of the La
HLML2025: Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law: Continuing Conversations with Karen Knop - Session I - History and Theory
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2025: Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law: Continuing Conversations with Karen KnopWe will come together to celebrate the life and scholarship of our colleague and friend, Professor Karen Knop (1960-2022). Karen, until her untimely passing, was the Cecil A Wright Chair at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. A long-time friend of the La
Rubber boats: Transnational legal encounters in the Mediterranean - Prof Tanja Aalberts
In the mare liberum, seafarers are protected by the age-old maritime duty to rescue anyone in distress at sea. This principle has also been codified in various treaties, including the 1974 Safety of Life at Sea (SOLAS) Convention. This convention was adopted in response to the Titanic disaster and mainly focuses on safety on board of commercial ships. But the most vulnerable people at sea now
State Immunity: Theory and Practice - Hussein Haeri KC, Withers
Lecture summary: This lecture will explore the parameters of State immunity at the international level and as reflected in different national legal systems (including England & Wales, the United States and others). It will include an overview of foundational and more recent jurisprudence in international and domestic courts, and will give particular focus to select aspects of State immunity in
Explaining Sudan’s Catastrophe: From Popular Revolution to Coup, War and Famine
Summary: This talk explains Sudan’s descent into a horrific war that is the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. The war has displaced over 11 million people, involved the targeting of civilians, including especially women, in mass violence, and precipitated a hunger crisis affecting over 24 million people, with over 630,000 currently facing famine. How, after a momentous civilian uprising in 2018-1
Property Rights at Sea - Prof Richard Barnes
Lecture summary: Property is a fundamental legal institution governing the use of things: who may own what, how and why. Given that such questions extend to a wide range of natural resources essential to human well-being, such as food, water and shelter, then it is reasonable to assume that human rights should play an important role in shaping property rights discourse and practice. And yet this a
(Non-)Defining 'Gender' in the Crimes Against Humanity Draft: Possibilities, Alliances, and Strategies
Panel: '(Non-)Defining 'Gender' in the Crimes Against Humanity Draft: Possibilities, Alliances, and Strategies'Feminist activists, country representatives, and other civil society actors have debated how to define “gender” in international criminal law (ICL) for at least three decades. In the Rome Conference that established the International Criminal Court (ICC) and its Statute in 1998, defining
Governing Sovereign Debt Crises: The Case for International Sovereign Insolvency Law - Dr Karina Patrício Ferreira Lima
Sovereign debt crises have surged since the end of the Bretton Woods system and currently threaten a lost decade for many countries across the world. Indermit Gill, in the World Bank Group’s 2024 International Debt Report, describes the situation in many of the poorest countries as a ‘metastasising solvency crisis that continues to be misdiagnosed as a liquidity problem’. Despite their severe soci
The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice' - Dr Arman Sarvarian
Speaker: Arman Sarvarian, University of SurreyDate: Friday Lunchtime Lecture: Friday 31 January 2025Dr Arman Sarvarian will speak about his forthcoming monograph The Law of State Succession: Principles and Practice to be published by Oxford University Press in April. The product of seven years’ labour of approximately 170,000 words, the work includes a foreword by Professor August Reinisch of the
Potential Legal Limitations on a Russia-Ukraine Peace Agreement: Gregory Fox
Speaker: Gregory Fox, Wayne State UniversityDate: Friday Lunchtime Lecture - Friday 24 January 2025Summary: Does international law place any constraints on a possible Ukraine-Russia peace agreement? While we can only speculate about its contents, two aspects appear certain: Ukraine will be asked to relinquish (at a minimum) territory now occupied by Russia, and it will only contemplate entering in
Friday lecture: 'International Law, Marxist State Theory, and the Many Ends of Decolonization' - Prof Umut Özsu, Carleton University
Lecture summary: Many political economists, economic historians, and historical sociologists understand the transition from the 1970s to the 1980s as involving a shift from debates about inflation, oil shocks, floating currencies, and the New International Economic Order to neoliberalism's political and ideological breakthrough, first in the industrialized states of the North Atlantic and shortly
LCIL-CILJ Annual Lecture 2024: 'In the shadow of trade: a critique of Global Health Law' - Prof Sharifah Sekalala, University of Warwick
Lecture summary: In this talk Sharifah Sekalala examines this critical moment in the making of Global Health Law, with two treaty making processes: the newly finalised revisions of the International Health Regulations and ongoing negotiations by the Intergovernmental Negotiation Body for a possible pandemic Accord or Instrument, as we well as soft-law proposals for the World Health Organization pr
Friday Lecture: 'Global Re/Ordering Through Norms - A Methodological Stocktake' - Prof Antje Wiener, University of Hamburg
Lecture summary: The United Nations Charter order (UNCO) and the co-evolved liberal international order (LIO) are contested with a heretofore unknown force. The steep rise in contestations in the realm of public politics rather than the courtroom demonstrates a shift from normal contestation as a source of legitimacy and ordering towards deep contestation as a political challenge of foundational e
Friday lunchtime lecture: 'The Rapidly Progressing Proposal for an International Anti-Corruption Court' - Judge Mark L Wolf
Lecture summary: Grand corruption – the abuse of public office for private gain by a nation's leaders (kleptocrats) - has devastating consequences. As then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said, the amount lost to corruption each year is enough to feed the world's hungry 80 times over. Grand corruption contributes to climate change and is a major impediment to ameliorating it. The
The Eli Lauterpacht Lecture 2024: 'The Right to Self Determination: Chagos, the Caribbean and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)' - Judge Patrick Robinson
Lecture summary:
Part 1 of the Lecture focuses on the development of the right to self-determination as a rule of customary international law and its application to the Chagos Archipelago, Africa and the Commonwealth Caribbean. The adoption of Resolution 1514 by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 14, 1960 was a decisive element in the development of the customary character of t
Friday Lecture: 'The Duty to Cooperate and the Role of Independent Expert Bodies: The Case of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom and the Media Freedom Coalition of States' - Can Yeginsu
Lecture summary: At a time where questions abound about the state and future of international cooperation and compliance across the international legal system, this lecture will consider the new partnership of countries established in 2019 to promote and protect media freedom globally – the Media Freedom Coalition of States. The Coalition offers a new paradigm that seeks to answer some of the syst
Book launch: The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law (Second Edition)
Professor Daniel Bodansky’s seminal and widely acclaimed book The Art and Craft of International Environmental Law was first published in 2010. In contrast to other general works on international environmental law, the book focused on the processes of developing, implementing, and enforcing international environmental law rather than on legal doctrine. In order to comprehensively analyse these pro
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Staging international law: order and disorder in an inter-agency meeting' - Prof Guy Fiti Sinclair, Auckland Law School
Lecture summary: A growing body of interdisciplinary scholarship explores overlaps and interactions among different normative and institutional branches of international law. This lecture contributes to this scholarship through a case study of relations among international organizations in the mid-1960s, when several emerging political fault lines – between East and West, between ‘developed’ and ‘
LCIL Friday Lecture: ''Mistakes' in War' - Prof Oona Hathaway, Yale Law School
Lecture summary: In 2015, the United States military dropped a bomb on a hospital in Afghanistan run by Médecins Sans Frontières, killing forty-two staff and patients. Testifying afterwards before a Senate Committee, General John F. Campbell explained that “[t]he hospital was mistakenly struck.” In 2019, while providing air support to partner forces under attack by ISIS, the U.S. military killed d
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Elephants not in the room: Decoupling, dematerialisation and dis-enclosure in the making of the BBNJ Treaty' - Dr Siva Thambisetty, LSE
Lecture summary: This lecture examines the treatment of marine genetic resources (MGR) in the negotiations and the text of the new Treaty on Biodiversity Beyond National Jurisdiction (BBNJ). The Treaty provides a coherent governance framework for MGR including an unexpected techno-fix to the most longstanding problem of biodiversity governance, some normative novelty on principles, and a trendsett
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Natural Resources in International Law - The Political Economy of Sovereignty and the Postcolonial Order' - Prof Sigrid Boysen, Helmut Schmidt University
Lecture summary: From European colonialism to the ‘post’colonial constellation, modern international law has developed in parallel with the changing legal forms of industrialised countries’ access to the natural resources of the global South. Following this development, we can see how imperial environmentalism was translated to the transnational law of natural resources. The historic perspective a
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2024: 'International Borders in an Interdependent World' - Lecture 3: 'Where Cooperative Border Governance (Should) Lead: Interstate Borders as Though People Mattered' - Prof Beth Simmons, University of Pennsylvania
The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture was given by Prof Beth Simmons, University of Pennsylvania.Summary: The Golden Age
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2024: 'International Borders in an Interdependent World' - Lecture 2: 'Treaties and Neighbors: Recovering the Cooperative Roots of International Bordering' - Prof Beth Simmons, University of Pennsylvania
The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture was given by Prof Beth Simmons, University of Pennsylvania.Summary: The Golden Age
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lectures 2024: 'International Borders in an Interdependent World' - Lecture I: 'Setting the stage: Border Anxiety in an Interdependent World' - Prof Beth Simmons, University of Pennsylvania
The Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture is an annual three-part lecture series given in Cambridge to commemorate the unique contribution to the development of international law of Sir Hersch Lauterpacht. These lectures are given annually by a person of eminence in the field of international law. This year's lecture was given by Prof Beth Simmons, University of Pennsylvania.Summary: The Golden Age
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Re-Imagining International Monetary and Financial Law' - Prof Michael Waibel, University of Vienna
Lecture summary: This lecture considers what Josef Kunz termed “swings of the pendulum” in international monetary and financial law and the formal and informal institutions in these related fields. International monetary law exploded in importance after the Second World War with the creation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and a global system of managed exchange rates. With the collapse o
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Victimhood: Gender as Tool and Weapon' - Prof Vasuki Nesiah, NYU GALLATIN
Lecture summary: This paper looks at the political purchase of International Conflict Feminism (ICF) in helping constitute the normative framework guiding and legitimizing laws and policies advanced under the rubric of Countering Violent Extremism (CVE). It attends to how these have intersected with the work of the international criminal court (ICC) in new modalities of lawfare that have taken pla
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'International Law and Communications Infrastructure: A History' - Dr Daniel Joyce, Faculty of Law & Justice, UNSW Sydney
Lecture summary: This research examines international law’s longstanding entanglement with communications infrastructure. There is increasing concern regarding the rise of private global power in the form of global digital platforms and their model of information capitalism. This paper responds by focusing on historical connections between international law and infrastructure as a means of examini
Friday Lecture: 'Reclaiming Agency: Indigenous Peoples and the Turn to History in International Law' - Dr Lucas Lixinski, UNSW Sydney
Lecture summary: In this talk, Lucas Lixinski examines the erasure of Indigenous perspectives from the literature on the turn to history in international law. Considering the turn to history’s promise to offer alternative imaginations by recovering history, it is somewhat surprising and disappointing that so much of this turn is narrated from the perspective of colonisers. Lixinski unpacks the imp
LCIL Lecture: 'Maritime crimes and the 'interdiction' of ships without nationality' - Prof Loureiro Bastos, University of Lisbon
Lecture summary: After the conclusion of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the entry into force of its Article 108, the subject of maritime crimes has experienced many important developments. Indeed, at present, States have to deal with criminal actions which did not exist in the classical International Law of the Sea. Relevant examples include kidnapping and hostage-taking a
LCIL-CILJ Annual Lecture 2023: 'Trade Law Policing on the Factory Floor: Next Generation Agreements and their Corporate Accountability Tools' - Prof Kathleen Claussen, Georgetown Law
The LCIL and Cambridge International Law Journal (CILJ) are pleased to invite you to the LCIL-CILJ Annual LectureLecture summary: Recent pathbreaking trade agreements empower trade policymakers to target foreign companies in novel ways and to police corporate due diligence in global supply chains rather than seek to change foreign government behavior as used to be their purview. This repurposing o
Friday Lecture: 'The 'Common Law Method': British Approaches to the Development of International Law' - Dr Devika Hovell, LSE
Lecture summary: For better or for worse, the ‘English school’ or ‘British tradition’ of international law has eluded systematization or definition. The lecture pursues the argument that it is possible to identify clear synergies in the mainstream legal method of British international lawyers, focusing on British approaches to the doctrine of self-defence. It should not be surprising that this met
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Exiting the Energy Charter Treaty under the Law of Treaties' - Dr Tibisay Morgandi, Queen Mary University of London & Professor Lorand Bartels, University of Cambridge
Lecture summary: The Energy Charter Treaty was concluded in 1994 on the assumption that fossil fuels could continue to be used for the foreseeable future. This article examines how ECT contracting parties can now withdraw from this treaty for climate change reasons without being subject to its 'sunset' clause, which protects existing investments for 20 years. It evaluates several strategies, inclu
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'The Evolving UN Climate Regime: (Professed) Ambition at the cost of (Real) Equity?' - Professor Lavanya Rajamani, University of Oxford
Lecture Summary: This lecture will discuss recent developments in the UN Climate Regime, focusing in particular on the mismatch between the increasing emphasis on temperature goals and target-setting under the Paris Agreement and its treatment of equity and fairness in delivering these goals and targets.Lavanya Rajamani is a Professor of International Environmental Law, Faculty of Law, University
Snyder Lecture 15: 'Embracing Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Disclosure: What the US Can Learn From the UK and the EU' - Prof Donna M Nagy, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Lecture summary: Just over a year ago, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sought public comments on a bold and thoughtfully framed rule proposal for the enhancement and standardization of climate-related disclosure. It was a move that signaled to many that the US was finally responding to the global shift amongst investors and asset managers toward the integration of ESG data into fun
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture 2023: 'Capitalism and the Doctrines of International Law' - Lecture 3: 'Reframing Doctrines' - Dr B S Chimni, Jindal Global University
Lecture 3: 'Reframing Doctrines'A series of three lectures by Dr. B.S.Chimni, Distinguished Professor of International Law, O.P. Jindal Global University. Previously, he was for over three decades Professor of International Law, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Between 2004-2006 he was the Vice Chancellor of the W.B. National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture 2023: 'Capitalism and the Doctrines of International Law' - Lecture 2: 'Exploring Nexus' - Dr B S Chimni, Jindal Global University
Lecture 2: 'Exploring Nexus'A series of three lectures by Dr. B.S.Chimni, Distinguished Professor of International Law, O.P. Jindal Global University. Previously, he was for over three decades Professor of International Law, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Between 2004-2006 he was the Vice Chancellor of the W.B. National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata. He h
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture 2023: 'Capitalism and the Doctrines of International Law' - Lecture 1: 'Mapping the Terrain' - Dr B S Chimni, Jindal Global University
Lecture 1: 'Mapping the Terrain'A series of three lectures by Dr. B.S.Chimni, Distinguished Professor of International Law, O.P. Jindal Global University. Previously, he was for over three decades Professor of International Law, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Between 2004-2006 he was the Vice Chancellor of the W.B. National University of Juridical Sciences, Kolkata.
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'The Institutions of Exceptions' - Prof Julian Arato, University of Michigan Law School
Lecture summary: International economic law binds the state in relation to markets – most prominently with respect to cross-border trade in goods and services (trade) and the cross-border flow of capital (investment). The core tension to be managed in treaty design involves the balance between economic disciplines and the sovereign’s reserved regulatory authority – between liberalization and polic
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Oil and water: The inherent incompatibility of international investment law with climate action' - Dr Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, Essex Law School
Lecture Summary: The survival of our planet requires swift and targeted climate policies to adapt, mitigate and repair. Scientists and political elites acknowledge the urgency to reduce our reliance on coal and fossil fuels to achieve the necessary reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Academics have been studying the impacts of investment treaty protections on climate action and argued that inve
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'The Behavioural Turn of the United Nations and its Implications for International Law' - Prof Anne van Aaken, University of Hamburg
Lecture summary: United Nations (UN) and several UN Agencies have started to use behavioural sciences in order to achieve their policy goals, including for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). While it is to be appreciated that insights on actual behavior inform policy making of international actors, they raise scientific and normative considerations warranting caution. First, for th
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Competing Theories of Treaty Interpretation and the Divided Application by Investor-State Tribunals of Articles 31 and 32 of the VCLT' - Judge Charles N Brower, Twenty Essex
Lecture summary: It is alleged that the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (VCLT) embodied the victory of Sir Gerald Fitzmaurice’s preference to interpret treaties based on the “ordinary meaning of the words” over Sir Hersh Lauterpacht’s view that one instead should seek to ascertain the treaty parties’ “actual intentions.” But is that so? If, as VCLT Article 31(1) provides, the focus is to
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'After Mythology: Contemporary Challenges for the Law of International Organisations' - Prof Eyal Benvenisti, University of Cambridge
Lecture summary: After 1945, the United Nations – and international organizations (IOs) more generally – were widely embraced as the ideal, democratic means to resolve international conflicts and promote global welfare. Sharing this almost feverish enthusiasm, a Western-controlled International Court of Justice adopted a deferential attitude toward IOs. The law it developed exuded confidence in th
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Gender and the international judge: misfits on the bench' - Dr Loveday Hodson, University of Leicester
Lecture summary: It is widely recognised that there is a dearth of women judges sitting on international courts and tribunals. In this lecture, particular attention will be paid to the question of why the lack of judicial parity matters. It will be argued that the dearth of women judges is both symptom and cause of the highly gendered way in which international law and international institutions o
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Digital Rights and the Outer Limits of International Human Rights Law' - Prof Yuval Shany, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Lecture summary: The lecture will explore the extent to which key normative and institutional responses to the challenges raised by the digital age are compatible with, or interact with, changes in key features of the existing international human rights law (IHRL) framework. Furthermore, it will be claimed that the IHRL framework is already changing, partly due to its interaction with digital huma
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture 2022: 'International Law Futures' (Lecture 3): 'Replenishing the International Law Endowment in the Planetary Epoch' - Prof Benedict Kingsbury, NYU
A series of three lectures by Benedict Kingsbury, New York University. Vice Dean and Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law Director, Institute for International Law and Justice Faculty Director, Guarini Institute for Global Legal Studies.
Benedict Kingsbury’s broad, theoretically grounded approach to international law closely integrates work in legal theory, political theory, and history. His cu
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture 2022: 'International Law Futures' (Lecture 2): 'Infrastructure, Data & AI' - Prof Benedict Kingsbury, NYU
A series of three lectures by Benedict Kingsbury, New York University. Vice Dean and Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law Director, Institute for International Law and Justice Faculty Director, Guarini Institute for Global Legal Studies.
Benedict Kingsbury’s broad, theoretically grounded approach to international law closely integrates work in legal theory, political theory, and history. His cu
Hersch Lauterpacht Memorial Lecture 2022: 'International Law Futures' (Lecture 1): 'Futurities: International Law as Planning' - Prof Benedict Kingsbury, NYU
A series of three lectures by Benedict Kingsbury, New York University. Vice Dean and Murry and Ida Becker Professor of Law Director, Institute for International Law and Justice Faculty Director, Guarini Institute for Global Legal Studies.
Benedict Kingsbury’s broad, theoretically grounded approach to international law closely integrates work in legal theory, political theory, and history. His cu
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Compensation under International Law and the International Law Commission' - Martins Paparinskis, UCL
Lecture summary: ‘Is there an international law of remedies?’ asked Cambridge’s very own Christine Gray in 1985. The United Kingdom was sceptical in the 1993 UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee, with a particular reference to compensation: ‘The international law of remedies was piecemeal and undeveloped … . Many of the authorities culled by the [International Law Commission’s] Special Rapporteur
Lunchtime Lecture: 'The Inner Logic of International Law' - Adil Ahmad Haque, Rutgers Law School
Lecture summary: How does international law change? Must international law await change by external political intervention from outside the legal system? Or does international law provide reasons for its own development to those empowered to develop it? To address these questions, we should draw on an unlikely source. Joseph Raz was one of the greatest legal philosophers of all time. But he wrote
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Why Systemic Integration Matters Now' - Professor Campbell McLachlan KC
Lecture summary: What explains the persistence of the idea of international law’s systematicity in view of its decentralised nature, constantly dependent upon the shifting consent of states and the vagaries of political will? To what extent can its systemic character endure and adapt as the tectonic plates of geo-politics shift? In this lecture, Campbell McLachlan critically re-examines the eviden
The Eli Lauterpacht Lecture 2022: 'Does the Metaverse Dream of Electric Rights? International Law in the Era of Late Social Media' - Prof Noah Feldman
The Eli Lauterpacht Lecture was established after Sir Eli's death in 2017 to celebrate his life and work. This lecture takes place on the first Friday lecture of the Centre at the start of the Michaelmas Term in any academic year. The Eli Lauterpacht Lecture for 2022 will be delivered by Professor Noah Feldman.Noah Feldman is Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law, Chairman of the Society of Fellows,
The Future of International Law: Judge Christopher Greenwood KC
Judge Christopher Greenwood KC lectures on' The Future of International Law' at the celebratory event of the Dr Ivan and Francesca Berkowitz Seminar Room Opening on Thursday 6 October 2022.For more about the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, see: https://www.lcil.cam.ac.uk/
Evening Lecture: 'Move, see, listen, imagine international law (or not)' - Dr Sofia Stolk, Asser Institute in The Hague, University of Amsterdam
This lecture is is part of the Art, Architecture and International Law seminar series which is being launched this academic year. The series is designed to bridge the worlds of art, architecture and international law. It explores the different ways in which art and architecture and international law intersect. It also demonstrates that international law exists well beyond the written word.Lecture
Online Discussion: 'New Critical Engagements with Humanitarian Law and International Justice'
Friday, 18 March 2022 - 2.00pmThis event, divided into two panels, showcases recent scholarship in international criminal law and international humanitarian law. Transcending disciplinary boundaries and theoretical traditions whilst harnessing extensive archival research and deeper empirical data, these scholars’ work reimagines two venerable legal fields anew through more robust historicizing and
LCIL/CELS Webinar: Rapid Response Webinar on the War in Ukraine
The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law (LCIL) and the Centre for European Legal Studies (CELS) held an online Rapid Response Seminar on the War in Ukraine on 7 March 2022.
On the 24 February 2022 Russian troops launched a fully-fledged invasion of Ukraine after force had been used between the two countries in February 2014 with the annexing of Crimea by Russia. The UN General Assembly in it
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Facebook as the New Sovereign? International Law’s Continued Struggle to Regulating Transnational Corporate Human Rights Abuses' - Prof Surya Deva, Macquarie University
Lecture summary: The history of corporate human rights abuses is much older than the history of international human rights law. The activities of colonial corporations are a case in point. However, the relation between the state and corporations has changed significantly over the years. Unlike colonial corporations deriving their powers from the Royal Charters, transnational corporations (TNCs) of
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'How should we think about agility?: Regulatory agility and new landscapes of global regulatory governance' - Prof Andrew Lang, University of Edinburgh Law School
Lecture summary: In December 2020, the UK and five partners signed the 'Agile Nations Charter', reflecting its participants commitment to 'a more agile approach to rule-making ... to unlock the potential of innovation.' Around the same time, the World Economic Forum published a toolkit on 'Agile Regulation for the Fourth Industrial Revolution'. The aspiration for regulatory agility is everywhere.
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Current challenges regarding deep sea mining and protection of ocean life beyond national boundaries' - Kristina M Gjerde, Senior High Seas Advisor, IUCN
Lecture summary: The legal regime for deep seabed mining in the international seabed Area is a rare example of the international community joining forces to regulate a potential new industry in the interests of humankind as a whole. As set forth under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), the international seabed Area and its mineral resources are the “common heritage
LCIL Friday Lecture: 'Defending Social Rights during and beyond multiple global crises: Reflections on emerging challenges to the Right to Adequate Housing' - Prof Balakrishnan Rajagopal, Professor of Law and Development, MIT
Lecture summary: The talk will draw upon my recent report submitted to the UNHRC earlier this year.
See: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/Issues/Housing/Pages/CFI_20years_SR_adequate_housing.aspx
Balakrishnan Rajagopal is currently a Professor of Law and Development at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). A lawyer by training, he is an expert on ma
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