Centers & Programs
Program in the History and Theory of International Law
This Program encourages scholarship and teaching on topics in the history and theory of international law that are vital to deepening an understanding of the field. The premise of the Program is that the future development of international law depends on sustained theoretical work, including careful historical study, and that collective efforts are needed to enhance worldwide research and teaching in these areas. The Program holds periodic conferences and workshops, sponsors a refereed working paper series, hosts visiting fellows (including faculty from other disciplines, and post-docs), supports research and publications, provides a center bringing together people interested in these fields, and each year offers a set of courses in these areas at the Law School.
Program in the History and Theory of International Law Workshop to discuss a paper presented by Lauri Malksoo (center front). Front: Professor Jennifer Pitts ( Princeton Politics), June Burbank (NYU History), Lauri Malksoo (Tartu, Estonia & Visiting Global Alberico Gentili Fellow in the Program in History and Theory of International Law), Martti Koskenniemi (NYU), Benedict Kingsbury (NYU), Back: NYU Law Graduate Students and Visiting Scholars – Katie Gustafson, James Cockayne, Benjamin Straumann, Robert Dufresne, Nehal Bhuta, Vik Kanwar, Margaret Young.
The Program is directed by Professor Benedict Kingsbury in cooperation with Hauser Global Law Professor Martti Koskenniemi.
Professor Kingsbury’s regular Fall seminar on the history and theory of international law focuses on the development of ideas of international law in Western traditions of political and legal thought over the period 1500-1800 (Vitoria, Gentili, Grotius, Hobbes, Pufendorf, Vattel, Rousseau, Kant etc), then on the interaction of these ideas with practice during periods of U.S. and European expansion and international institutionalization.
Professor Koskenniemi teaches a full course every two years, and visits NYU frequently for other events. He teaches (Spring Semester 2007) a course on International Law and Politics, related to the publication by Cambridge University Press in 2006 of the second edition of his book From Apology to Utopia. Professor Koskenniemi’s course on the history and practice of international law since 1870, further developing themes in his prizewinning book The Gentle Civilizer of Nations, is offered periodically.
Professors Benedict Kingsbury and Mattias Kumm, together with other colleagues, periodically offer an IILJ International Law Theory Seminar, concentrating on modern theories of international law, but including also discussions of traditions connected with Bentham and Madison.
Additional courses are taught periodically by Professors Thomas Franck, David Golove, Mattias Kumm, Liam Murphy and Joseph Weiler, as well as Global and Adjunct faculty. Regular participants in program activities include Professors Philip Allott (Cambridge), David Armitage (Harvard), Charles Beitz (Princeton), Lauren Benton (NYU History), Nathaniel Berman (Brooklyn Law School), Jane Burbank (NYU History), Andrew Hurrell (Oxford), Karen Knop (Toronto), Jennifer Pitts (Princeton), and Masaharu Yanagihara (Kyushu).
March 14-15, 2008
"A Just Empire? The Roman Origins of Modern International Law."
Program in the History and Theory of International Law. (details to be announced)
The Program recently convened an interdisciplinary weekly discussion group on International Law in Times of Empire.
Workshops convened by the Program have discussed: methodologies in biographic approaches to the history of international law; NYU Professor Thomas Nagel's work on global justice; Grotius' concept of the state of nature in the era of Dutch expansion and relations between trade, natural resource extraction and violence.
Read working papers from the Program in the History and Theory of International Law
The Political Theory of Alberico Gentili (1552-1608) and its Relation to the Subsequent Works of Hugo Grotius was the subject of workshops at NYU in Fall 2005 and Fall 2006 with guest lecturer Diego Panizza (University of Padua). Comments by IILJ Visiting Fellow Benjamin Straumann.
The Program hosts visitors who are in residence for one semester or for the academic year.
Current Visiting Fellows. Also see Visiting Fellows and Doctoral Researchers from past years.
About Visiting Fellowships in the Program in History and Theory of International Law
