This interdisciplinary conference invites graduate students and early career researchers to consider the genealogy of international law since 1750. It aims to identify new or unrecognised actors – including individuals, groups, and institutions as well as non-human agents – and their contributions to the practices, interpretations, and applications of international law. How did they establish or challenge norms, customs, and institutions? How were their practices, actions, and ideas shaped into law? The event aims to historicise the making of international law by bringing together junior scholars of history and law and to provide a forum for the exploration of new ideas and alternative perspectives, combining and building upon historical and social scientific approaches.

Programme

Day 1 – 27 November 2025

13:30 - Welcome coffee

14:00 - Institutional greetings: Dina WAKED (Sciences Po, École de Droit, École de la recherche) ; Guillaume PIKETTY (Sciences Po, CHSP)

14.15 - Keynote Lecture: Tamar HERZOG (Harvard University): “What is International Law and Who are International Actors? A View from the Sideline”

• Chair: Conor MULLER (University of Oxford / Sciences Po, CHSP)
• Discussants: Laurine MANAC’H (Université Paris I), Benjamin PETERS (Geneva Graduate Institute)

15:45-16:00 - Coffee break

16:00-18:00 - Panel 1: “Making international law in the shadows of (non-)sovereigns”

Chair: Amina HASSANI (Sciences Po, École de Droit / Geneva)

• Ayse POLAT (Oxford University), “Sans Patrie, Sans Protection: Statelessness and Non-Sovereignty in International Legal History, 
  1850-1900” 
• Soumya RANJAN GAHIR (Ravenshaw University), “Stateless Strategies: Palestinian Refugees and the Bottom-Up Making of International Law, 1948–1965”
• Meghashree DEV (National Law School of India University, Bengaluru), “Shadow Sovereigns: Women, Migrants, and the Making of International Law in Sikkim”

Discussants: Horatia MUIR-WATT (École de droit Sciences Po), Nicolas DELALANDE (Sciences Po, CHSP)

Day 2 – 28 November 2025

9:30 - Welcome coffee

10:00-12:00 - Panel 2: “Shaping the textualities of international law”

Chair: Clarisse ANCEAU (Sciences Po, École de Droit)

• Maarten MANSE (Linnaeus University), “Recasting the Terms of Empire: How Indigenous Translators and Scribe Mediated the Legal Vocabulary of Empire throughTreaty-making in Southeast Asia (c. 1750-1900)”
• Matthew CLEARY (Independent), “Cultural Brokers of International Law: Librarians, Rare Books, and the Global Competition for De Iure Belli ac Pacis”
• Nicole STYBNAROVA (Copenhagen Business School),  “Deceiving with a Sweet Banana: Petitioners in Trust Territories as Theorists of International Law”

Discussants: Jean d’ASPREMONT (Sciences Po, École de droit), David TODD (Sciences Po, CHSP)

14:00-16:00 - Panel 3: “Building collective visibilities within international law”

Chair: Giovanni ROGGIA (Sciences Po, CHSP / Roma Tre University)

• Apeike UMOLU (Cambridge University), “Pan-Africanism, Nationalism, and 19th Century Discourses on International Law-Making”
• Michelle M. ONG (Harvard University), “Reassembling the Global Black Armada, 1945-1949”
• Nhi Yen LE (Norwegian University of Science and Technology), “Migrant workers from French former colonies: Vietnamiese Migrant Unions within the emergence of EEC’s freedom of movement“

Discussants: Ville KARI (Tilburg University), Mohamed-Ali ADRAOUI  (Université Sorbonne Paris Nord)

16:00-16:30 - Coffee break

16:30-17:15 - Concluding Remarks

• Daniela Luigia CAGLIOTI (University of Naples Federico II)
• Chair: Lorenzo BONOMELLI (Sciences Po, CHSP / SSM Naples)

17:15 - Closure

Registration

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Organising committee

Clarisse ANCEAU (Sciences Po, Ecole de Droit), Lorenzo BONOMELLI (Sciences Po, CHSP/SSM Naples), Amina HASSANI (Sciences Po, Ecole de Droit/ Geneva), Conor MULLER (Oxford / Sciences Po, CHSP), Giovanni ROGGIA (Sciences Po, CHSP / Roma Tre University).

Scientific committee

• Daniela Luigia CAGLIOTI (Univ.  Federico II Napoli),
• Jean D’ASPREMONT (Sciences Po, Ecole de Droit/Manchester),
• Renaud MORIEUX (Cambridge), 
• Horatia MUIR WATT (Sciences Po, École de Droit), 
• Paul-André ROSENTAL (Sciences Po, CHSP),
• David TODD (Sciences Po, CHSP / CHEP),
• Dina WAKED (Sciences Po, École de Droit, École de la recherche).