Conference: Opening Access, Closing the Knowledge Gap?

The internet with its unprecedented communicative potential offers a unique chance to make international legal scholarship more inclusive, participatory – and simply more international. The COVID-19 pandemic further increased the use of digital technologies for global scientific exchange and collaborations, showcasing the wealth of available possibilities – and their promise for advancing international legal scholarship. Is the digitalization of scholarly communication thus a chance to finally overcome the multiple existing barriers? Or have they just moved to a different place?

These and further questions were discussed at the first Völkerrechtsblog conference which took place in hybrid format on 8 and 9 September 2022 at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg.

Publishing Infrastructure and the Internationalization of International Law

This panel discusses the publishing infrastructure and the internationalization of international law and consists of the following presentations:

• Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín (Geneva Graduate Institute): Arminius Rex: On the Postcolonial Uses of Imperial Languages in, and beyond, International Law
• Stewart Manley (University of Malaya): On the Publication of International Law Scholarship from the Global South
• Raffaela Kunz (MPIL/Collegium Helveticum) & Monika Plozza (University of Lucerne): Does the Right to Science require Open Access in the Digital Era?

Chair: Sué González Hauck

Open Educational Resources, Digitalization and Education in International Law

This panel addresses open educational resources, digitalization and education in International Law and consists of the following presentations:

• Tamsin Paige (Deakin Law School): A Reflection on Accessibility in Education
• Valentina Chiofalo (Freie Universität Berlin) & Max Milas (University of Münster): OpenRewi in a Closed Academy: Opening the Teaching of Law
• Paul Stewens (Geneva Graduate Institute): Beyond the Classroom: On the Value of International Law Blogs for Students

Chair: Justine Batura

The Role of Blogs

This panel highlights the role of blogs and consists of the following presentations:

• Olabisi Akinkugbe (Schulich School of Law, Dalhousie University) & Vellah Kedogo Kigwiru (Technical University of Munich’s School of Social Sciences and Technology/Guest Researcher, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition): The Role of Blogs in Decentering Africa’s Role in the International Legal Discourse: The Case of AfronomicsLaw Blog
• Shubhangi Agarwalla (International Law and Global South Blog/Sidley Austin): Petitioning the Indian Government for Increased Legal Capacity in International Law: Blogging as an Everyday Practice of Relationship Making
• Sué González Hauck (DeZIM Institut) & Erik Tuchtfeld (MPIL): Völkerrechtsblog

Chair: Sissy Katsoni

Please find the conference program here.