- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
The Private is Political
30.09.2024
León Castellanos-Jankiewicz
Hendrik Simon
Despite its enormous growth in importance over the last 20 years or so, the History of International Law as an academic sub-discipline has so far widely neglected private international law....
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
Between War and Peace – On the Logic and Language of Imperial Violence. An Interview with Lauren Benton
13.09.2024
Lauren Benton
Hendrik Simon
The differentiation between war and peace is central to the historiography of international relations and international law. In her new book “They Called it Peace”, Lauren Benton shows how violence...
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- Symposium
- Interview
- International Law and the Political
Towards Realistic Universalism?, or: Provincializing Realism! An Interview with Matthew Specter
11.09.2024
Matthew G. Specter
Hendrik Simon
In his book The Atlantic Realists, Matthew Specter presents a genealogy of modern realism as a discourse between US-American and German intellectuals. An interview about the origins of the central...
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What #Ö Read during the Mid-Year Break (Part II)
10.09.2024
Hendrik Simon
Alicja Polakiewicz
Khaled El Mahmoud
Welcome to Part II of What #Ö Read during the Mid-Year Break (read Part I here). Reading KafKant at the End of “the End of History” (or Summer) Immanuel...
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
Global Histories of International Law’s Practice in Wartime
04.06.2024
Boyd van Dijk
Hendrik Simon
While we talked about the making of the 1949 Geneva Conventions in Part I of our interview with Boyd van Dijk, the second part is about more global histories of...
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
Ordering the Power to Protect and Destroy Civilian Lives
03.06.2024
Boyd van Dijk
Hendrik Simon
The four 1949 Geneva Conventions – the most important rules ever formulated for regulating warfare – were shaped by liberal humanitarianism and the idea of progress through international law. In...
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
On Struggle and Contextualised History
13.02.2024
Steven L.B. Jensen
Hendrik Simon
While we talked about new histories of social rights in Part I of our interview, the second part of the interview with Steven Jensen is about political history and the...
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
Against the Historiographical Hierarchization of Human Rights
12.02.2024
Steven L.B. Jensen
Hendrik Simon
Social and economic rights have often been considered part of so-called ‘second-generation rights’ – falsely, as Steven L. B. Jensen argues. Instead, he calls for a new historiography of social...
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- Symposium
- Media
- ReflectiÖns on 200 Years of the Monroe Doctrine
ReflectiÖns on 200 Years of the Monroe Doctrine
18.12.2023
Juan Pablo Scarfi
Hendrik Simon
With this post we start our new, open-ended symposium entitled ‘ReflectiÖns on 200 Years of the Monroe Doctrine’. On the 2nd December 1823, U.S. President James Monroe delivered his famous...
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- Symposium
- Interview
- International Law and the Political
Fetishizing the State: Gentili and the Myth of the Modern Laws of War
21.11.2023
Claire Vergerio
Hendrik Simon
According to international humanitarian law, the answer to the question of who is considered a legitimate actor of force is primarily the following: sovereign states. This state-centred answer is often...
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- International Law and the Political
Beyond Black and White: Normative Ambiguities and the Delivery of Cluster Bombs
12.07.2023
Elvira Rosert
Frank Sauer
Hendrik Simon
Following the decision by the United States of America to provide cluster bombs to Ukraine, a contentious public and academic discourse has emerged, centering on the legality and legitimacy of...
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- Symposium
- Interview
- International Law and the Political
Relapse into ‘Civilisation’?! A Narrative’s Continuity and Change
01.02.2023
Ntina Tzouvala
Hendrik Simon
Critical International Law has become increasingly influential in academic discourse. However, argues Ntina Tzouvala, there remain important blind spots. An interview on capitalism, racism, and the ongoing impact of ‘civilisation’....
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- Symposium
- Interview
- International Law and the Political
(Merging the) Fragments of Critical International Law
31.01.2023
Ntina Tzouvala
Hendrik Simon
Critical International Law has become increasingly influential in academic discourse. However, argues Ntina Tzouvala, there remain important blind spots. An interview on capitalism, racism, and the ongoing impact of ‘civilisation’....
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- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
Can We Trust Each Other?
15.11.2022
Filipe dos Reis
Hendrik Simon
Interdisciplinarity still seems to be the order of the day. Despite its many advantages, it tends to be a sometimes-ambivalent undertaking: demanded in academia’s bureaucracies (for funding applications, no less),...
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
International Law and Class Dynamics
10.06.2022
In the face of massive crises and revealed ambiguities of the liberal international order, Marxist thought has experienced a significant revival in recent years—also in (international) legal thought. But what...
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- Interview
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- International Law and the Political
Revolutions Are Not Made by Laws
09.06.2022
In the face of massive crises and revealed ambiguities of the liberal international order, Marxist thought has experienced a significant revival in recent years—also in (international) legal thought. But what...
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- Symposium
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- International Law and the Political
On History, Responsibility and Critique
25.05.2022
Anne Orford
Sué González Hauck
Hendrik Simon
While in the first part of our conversation with Anne Orford we talked about the politics of "turning to history" in international legal scholarship, the second part is about possible...
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- International Law and the Political
Turning to History – A Political Project?
24.05.2022
Anne Orford
Sué González Hauck
Hendrik Simon
In the last 30 years, a considerable part of international legal scholarship has discovered a renewed interest in the history of international law. But is this 'turn to history' perhaps...
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- Symposium
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- To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth
Returning ‘To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth’
20.05.2022
Martti Koskenniemi
Ankit Malhotra
Christian Pogies
Hendrik Simon
Following the Völkerrechtsblog symposium on Martti Koskenniemi’s new book, our editorial board members Christian Pogies and Hendrik Simon were invited by Ankit Malhotra of the Jindal Society of International Law...
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- International Law and the Political
Sentiment without Sentimentality
08.04.2022
Gerry Simpson
Hendrik Simon
In his new book, Gerry Simpson engages with the ‘Sentimental Life of International Law’ (OUP 2021). But what does ‘sentiment’ – without sentimentality, as the author points out – mean...
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Aggression and the ‘Civilizational Turn’ in Russian Politics of International Law
25.02.2022
Lauri Mälksoo
Hendrik Simon
When waking up on 24 February, a glance at the news made it clear that our worst fears have been realized: Russia is waging an aggressive war against Ukraine. On...
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- Interview
- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
(Writing) International Legal Histories – Continuation of Politics by Other Means?
17.09.2021
Anne Peters
Raphael Schäfer
Hendrik Simon
Dear Professor Peters, dear Mr. Schäfer – to begin with the genesis of your anthology Politics and the Histories of International Law: How did this publication project come about? Where...
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- International Law and the Political
Völkerrechtsgeschichte (schreiben) – Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln?
17.09.2021
Anne Peters
Raphael Schäfer
Hendrik Simon
Liebe Frau Professorin Peters, lieber Herr Schäfer - um mit der Entstehungsgeschichte Ihres Sammelbandes „Politics and the Histories of International Law“ zu beginnen: Wie kam es zu diesem Publikationsprojekt? Wo würden Sie...
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- Symposium
- International Law and the Political
International Law and the Political: Setting the Scene
17.09.2021
With this blogpost we start our new interview series ‘International Law and the Political’. Regardless of one’s school of thought, it can hardly be contested today that international law is...
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- Symposium
- To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth
Legal Imagination as Bricolage
23.08.2021
Christian Pogies
Hendrik Simon
The publication of Martti Koskenniemi’s new book marks a much-anticipated event among scholars working on the Theory and History of International Law. This may come as little surprise, given that...
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- Book Review
- Symposium
- The Justification of War and International Order
Discourses of Power and Normativity
04.06.2021
Lothar Brock
Hendrik Simon
We would like to thank the contributors as well as the editorial team at Völkerrechtsblog, and particularly Sué González Hauck, for putting together this thought-provoking symposium on “The Justification of...
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Governing the world through information (law)
09.04.2020
Knowledge is power – power is knowledge. While this nexus certainly is a commonplace in the critical sociology of knowledge, it may actually never have been more topical than today....
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