Lecture and Workshop series: Method, methodology and critique in international law

In recent decades, the field of international law has seen a multiplication of methodological approaches, a growing variation in methods and a critical reflection on central epistemological and stylistic registers. Changes in the course of the discipline have thereby often been fueled not by new substantive claims in existing (doctrinal, analytical or political) controversies, but through the emergence of different modes of seeing, thinking and writing.

The aim of the new Asser lecture and workshop series is to explore various new ways of ‘doing’ international legal scholarship. This includes a focus on the opportunities, pitfall and politics of varying methodological approaches, their embedded epistemological, sociological or philosophical commitments as well as the particular technical crafts they demand.

Researchers participating in the workshops will not only gain a better grasp of how to position themselves in an increasingly complex methodological landscape. They will also enhance their understanding of what is at stake in the various ‘turns’ that are continuously performed in international law (such as the ‘turn’ to practice, history, discourse, political economy, critical sociology, materiality, geography or aesthetics to name but a few).

Please click here if you wish to receive details on future workshops in this series.

Programme: 'Method, methodology and critique in international law'

16 December 2020 – 14.00 CET.

Introducing the Asser workshop series on method, methodology and critique in international law – Dimitri Van Den Meerssche and Wouter Werner

20 January 2021 – 11.00 CET.

Political economy – John Haskell and Ntina Tzouvala

17 February 2021 – 14.00 CET.

Historiography – Rose Parfitt and Nehal Bhuta

17 March 2021 – 14.00 CET.

Postcolonialism and critical race theory – Luis Eslava and Ayça Çubukçu

21 April 2021 – 14.00 CET.

Critical sociology and discourse analysis – Frédéric Mégret and Antoine Vauchez