The Role of Blogs
Völkerrechtsblog Conference "Opening Access, Closing the Knowledge Gap? International Legal Scholarship Going Online"
International law is, by definition, a global discipline. Yet in practice, scholarly discourse often remains hampered by the borders of national publishing cultures and fora. The voices that are most audible internationally often come from the same (Western) elite institutions. The internet with its unprecedented communicative potential offers a unique chance to make international legal scholarship more inclusive, participatory – and simply more international. Nonetheless, old dynamics of center and periphery have not been overcome. The COVID-19 pandemic further increased the use of digital technologies for global scientific exchange and collaborations, highlighting their potential and revitalizing debates about open access (OA) and inequalities in knowledge production and dissemination. For those engaged in Open Access debates, the steps taken by publishers and academic institutions during the pandemic showcased the wealth of available possibilities – and their promise for advancing international legal scholarship.
On 8 and 9 September 2022, Völkerrechtsblog held its first ever conference “Opening Access, Closing the Knowledge Gap? International Legal Scholarship Going Online”. It took place in hybrid format at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (Heidelberg).
This panel discusses 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 panel on the publishing infrastructure and the internationalization of international law here and the panel on open educational resources, digitalization and education in International Law here.