Articles written by Hendrik Simon on Völkerrechtsblog

#Ö: Our own News

Editorial #40: Are We Failing?, or: Defending International Law in Times of Polarization

04.12.2024

Hendrik Simon

Perhaps one would hope that the end of the year would bring optimism for the new year. However, the situation at the end of 2024 is depressing, especially with regard...

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....

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...

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...

#Ö: Our own News

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

Symposium
Interview
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...

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’....

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’....

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),...

Interview
Symposium
International Law and the Political

International Law and Class Dynamics

10.06.2022

Umut Özsu Hendrik Simon

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...

Interview
Symposium
International Law and the Political

Revolutions Are Not Made by Laws

09.06.2022

Umut Özsu Hendrik Simon

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...

Symposium
Interview
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...

Symposium
Interview
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...

Symposium
Media
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...

Symposium
Interview
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...

Interview

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...

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...

Interview
Symposium
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...

Symposium
International Law and the Political

International Law and the Political: Setting the Scene

17.09.2021

Hendrik Simon

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...

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...

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...

Book Review

Governing the world through information (law)

09.04.2020

Hendrik Simon

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....