Völkerrechtsblog welcomes blog post proposals for its upcoming symposium ‘Women in International Law Vol. 5’. The ‘Women in International Law’ symposium is an online symposium held annually in March and hosts blog posts, interviews, and/or podcasts on topics relating to women’s rights, feminist approaches to international law, and the struggles of women in international legal academia. For an overview of the symposium, as held in the previous years, see here, here, here, and here. Contributions to these past versions of the symposium were included in the blog’s most-read articles every year.
This year, the symposium will focus on ‘Motherhood and International Law’. The idea for the symposium’s thematic focus arose from an interview held on the occasion of another symposium on the blog. There the interviewee, Tania Atilano, stressed that ‘if we are serious about achieving gender equality in academia, we need to speak more openly about motherhood, caregiving, and academic careers’. In the context of that same symposium, pregnancy and motherhood were brought up also in other interviews. Hilary Charlesworth shared her special recollection of drafting the renowned article, ‘Feminist Approaches to International Law’, while being pregnant and then alongside her sleeping baby. Moreover, Angelika Nußberger shared the family-related considerations that she had while planning her academic steps following the completion of her doctoral studies. In light of all these remarks, the Organising Committee of the ‘Women in International Law’ symposium decided to devote this year’s edition to exploring how motherhood relates to both international law and legal academia.
To this end, we invite interested contributors to reflect on the following general themes:
1. The Role of Mothers in the Shaping of International Law
Mothers have been traditionally referred to or depicted as ‘heroines’ in art (see, e.g., here, here, here, and here) and literature (see, e.g., here and here). In (international) law in particular, mothers have made their presence loud and clear, especially when states have failed to protect, or have breached, the rights of their children. In this vein, mothers have fearlessly initiated litigation proceedings before various fora to seek justice for their children’s loss. Such proceedings have inter alia addressed the United Nations’ and the Netherlands’ failure to protect them from the Srebrenica genocide, the enforced disappearances and extrajudicial killings of their children, or their children’s femicide or their killing by members of a former political party/Nazi organisation. Which examples of such litigation, in your view, have had an impact on international law? In which fields or approaches to international law can this impact be traced?
2. The Role of International Law in the Protection of (Prospective) Mothers
The drafters of international and regional treaties have taken special consideration of motherhood and mothers. The ILO Maternity Protection Convention, as well as provisions in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women and the Maputo Protocol, are testaments to this. Similarly, even though their wording may not explicitly aim at protecting (prospective) mothers, various human rights treaties have been interpreted as doing so. Does international law manage to properly protect all mothers? What remains missing?
In this vein, how could the discriminatory gaps in the protection of the reproductive rights of specific groups of mothers, such as Black or Roma mothers, or of women in same-sex partnerships, be eliminated? Does international law impose any relevant obligations on States and/or directly on health care workers, thereby enhancing reproductive justice for all? Or does the jurisprudence of international and regional fora instead reinforce uneven and unequal protection of reproductive rights?
Similarly, it has been stressed that pregnant persons and mothers face not only physical but also mental health risks. These risks are further exacerbated during armed conflict and in post-conflict regions. How does international law protect mothers and pregnant persons in such circumstances? How could this protection improve?
3. Motherhood, Knowledge, and Legal Academic Career
Although motherhood can be influential for a scholar’s research activities, it also affects the development of their academic career. Caring responsibilities, which continue to be primarily associated with motherhood, intensify the challenges of maintaining a sustained presence of mothers in the fast-moving and demanding world of academic publishing. This, in turn, has been noted to take a toll on the perception of their productivity and work, and ultimately career progression, particularly among early-career researchers. Student mothers have also reported adverse implications for their academic performance, which have been understood as reducing their future earning potential.
Against this background, various questions arise. What is the relationship between motherhood and the inaccessibility of knowledge or epistemic injustice? How does this relationship affect knowledge production and reinforce gendered roles, gendered financial inequalities, and dependencies? How can academic institutions break the chain and better support (prospective) mothers?
4. Non-Motherhood and International Law
Alongside women’s progressively increasing decision to remain single or not to re-focus their lives around a partner, there has been a rise in non-mothers, in other words persons who choose or happen to be childfree. Meanwhile, non-mother academics have reported being persistently presumed as ‘natural’ caregivers due to their sex or gender, and that they feel expected by students and university staff to put in the time and energy that mothers are assumed not to have. In this sense, the message conveyed to women academics is clear: they should perform ‘caring responsibilities’ and are excused from doing so if they are already fulfilling such duties as mothers.
In light of the above, further questions arise. To what extent do international law and relevant jurisprudence protect the rights of non-mothers or one’s choice not to become a parent? Is the language of the relevant provisions and jurisprudence mindful of non-mothers’ choices and lifestyles? How does non-motherhood impact one’s personal academic trajectory, and what role does it play in reinforcing, challenging, or reshaping formal or informal hierarchies and power structures in legal academia?
The list of proposed topics and the questions outlined above is not exhaustive. Contributions addressing other issues that fall within the theme of ‘Motherhood and International Law’ are also welcome. Contributions viewing the symposium from a critical perspective (e.g., FAIL, TWAIL, SWAIL) are particularly welcome.
If you are interested in participating in the symposium, please send your contribution of approximately 1.500 words, in English and in line with our guidelines for authors, to katsoni@voelkerrechtsblog.org. Please mention ‘Call for Papers – WiL Symposium’ in the subject line. Submissions should also mention the affiliation of the authors.
Deadline for the submission of blogposts: Sunday, 8 February 2026
Notification on selected submissions: Sunday, 15 February 2026
Symposium: Monday, 2 March 2026 – Friday, 6 March 2026
