From February 8 to 9, 2018, the Albrecht Mendelssohn Bartholdy Graduate School of Law (University of Hamburg) in conjunction with Professor José Manuel Barreto Soler (Universidad de los Andes, Universidad Externado) organizes a conference on the history of international law in Latin American. The conference title is roughly borrowed from Alejandro Álvarez' very influential (but also controversially discussed) article "Latin America and Inernational Law" from 1909. Insprired by his work, we aim at exploring the complex relationship between Latin America and international law in the past centuries.
In the last few years, questions concerning Latin America's historic relationship to international law have moved to the focus of academic attention. Several outstanding treatises have been published on and conferences have dealt with this topic. But its study is still a comparably recent academic field (especially in Europe). The conference shall contribute to its further sharpening and to the creation of new perspectives on the study of the history of international law in Latin America.
We therefore invite early as well as established academics working in the field of the history of international law in Latin America to participate in this event and to present and to discuss new ideas in this framework. We look forward to your proposals and to welcome you in Hamburg next year.
We would like to invite everybody interested in the study of the history of international law in Latin America to participate in our call and to submit proposals for contributions on any of the listed subtopics (see below).
Please send your application in one single PDF file including
- your proposal of around 300 - 500 words and
- a brief CV (indicating also your institutional affiliation)
until December 3, 2017, to matthias.packeiser@uni-hamburg.de
The selection of speakers will be based on the quality of their abstracts and the abstract's suitability to the overall topic of the conference.
Selected candidates will be informed by December 8, 2017.
At the conference, each speaker will be granted 20 mins for his/her presentation. Each presentation will be followed by 10 min-discussions.
Unfortunately, we are not able to cover travel or accomodation costs.
List of Subtopics:
1. International Law in the Americas before Independence
- The conquest of America and the formation of modern international law
- Spanish Derecho Indiano and natural rights
- International law and the colonisation of the Americas by other European Empires (Portuguese, Dutch, French, British, et al.)
- International law and resistance to imperialism (Las Casas, Suárez, Vieira, Guamán Poma, et al.)
- Etc.
2. International Law and the Independence in the Americas
- Decolonization under 19th century international law
- European and U.S. reactions to Latin America's independence
- Toussaint Louverture, Miranda, Bolívar, Santander, O'Higgings, et al.
- Etc.
3. International Law, United States' Imperialism and Latin America
- Hemispherism, inter-Americanism, and Pan-Americanism
- U.S. interventions and imperialism (e.g. the Mexican-American War)
- The Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary
- Etc.
4. The Particularity of Latin American International Law
- The discussion on the existence of an independent sphere of international law (Alejandro Álvarez, Amancio Alcorta, Rafael F. Seijas, Manuel de Sá Vianna, Jesús María Yepes, et al.)
- Latin American particularities in international law (uti possidetis, compulsory arbitration for the settlement of State to State disputes, norms limiting the right of foreign interventions, et al.)
- Etc.
5. International Law, Globalisation, and Latin America
- Latin America's role in international law in the 19th and early 20th century
- Trade as a motor of international integration? Law as a motor of peace?
- Legal equality (e.g. the Second Hague Peace Conference)
- Prohibition of the use of force to collect sovereign debt
- Etc.
6. New Latin American Approaches to International Law?
- Creole, Mestizo, Decolonial international law, etc.
7. Germany and the History of International Law in the Americas
- Karl V, Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, the conquest of America, and the colonisation of Venezuela, New Granada, and the River Plate
- German colonial companies, El Dorado and colonial accumulation of capital: The Welser Bank in Klein Venedig
- German philosophy, international law, and the colonisation of America: Kant, Hegel, Marx, and Schmitt
- Etc
