Where is the congress held?

The congress is held in the city of Vitória, BRA.

What is the format of the congress?

The congress is an academic event, fostering debate and presentation of research in international law.

24th Brazilian Congress of International Law

Name: 24th Brazilian Congress of International Law
Start: 2026-08-26T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-08-29T00:00:00Z
Location: Vitória

Aug 26–29, 2026Vitória, BrazilIn-person

Starts in 18 daysRegistration open

The Brazilian Congress of International Law is an annual academic event held in Vitória, Brazil. It serves as a significant forum for scholars, practitioners, and students to engage with contemporary issues in international law. The congress facilitates the exchange of ideas, presentation of research, and networking among participants from various backgrounds.

Committees & topics

Topics
International Law and New Technologies · Emerging Technologies and the Reconfiguration of International Relations · Regulatory Challenges of AI, Data Governance, Biotechnology, Surveillance, Quantum Computing, and Autonomous Systems · Impacts of New Technologies on the Formulation, Interpretation, and Application of International Law · New Technologies and the Theoretical Structure of the International Legal System

Why it matters

This congress is crucial for the ongoing development and understanding of international law, particularly from a perspective rooted in the global South. It provides a platform for critical discussions on how international legal frameworks are interpreted and applied in diverse contexts, fostering a more inclusive and representative discourse. The event's consistent recurrence underscores its role in shaping academic and practical approaches to international legal challenges.

The gathering in Vitória, BRA, highlights the importance of regional contributions to global legal scholarship. By convening experts and emerging voices, the congress helps to identify new research avenues and practical solutions to complex international problems. This focus on engagement and intellectual exchange is vital for advancing the field.

How to prepare

Prospective participants should prepare by thoroughly researching the event's thematic areas and aligning their contributions with the congress's academic focus. Given the international nature of the event, understanding diverse legal traditions and perspectives, particularly those relevant to BRA, will be beneficial. Familiarity with methodologies for effective academic presentation and debate, as outlined in lessons such as "engagement-strategies" and "dynamic-analysis," can significantly enhance one's contribution.

Developing a nuanced perspective on how various stakeholders, including those sometimes overlooked as described in "hidden-stakeholders," influence international legal outcomes can enrich discussions. Participants should also consider how their research can contribute to broader international legal scholarship, engaging with the diverse viewpoints that such a congress attracts. Effective preparation involves not only academic rigor but also an appreciation for the multicultural and multidisciplinary environment of the event.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Brazil

As the host nation, BRA plays a central role in facilitating discussions on international law, often bringing a unique perspective informed by its position in South America and its engagement with global legal norms.

Role in topic

BRA provides the geographical and institutional setting for the congress, influencing the thematic focus and contributing significantly to the discourse on international law through its legal scholars and practitioners.

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

International Law and New Technologies

The relationship between international law and new technologies has evolved through successive waves of innovation, from the telegraph and radio that prompted the first multilateral communications regimes in the late 19th century, to nuclear energy, outer space, and the internet, each of which demanded new treaty frameworks or interpretive extensions of existing ones. The contemporary wave — artificial intelligence, biotechnology, cyber capabilities, and autonomous systems — has accelerated faster than the traditional treaty-making process, exposing structural lag in how international law absorbs technological change. Foundational instruments such as the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, the Outer Space Treaty (1967), and the ICCPR were drafted without these technologies in mind, and states now contest whether they apply by analogy or whether new lex specialis is required. Since the mid-2010s, fora including the UN Group of Governmental Experts on cyber, the CCW GGE on Lethal Autonomous Weapons, UNESCO's 2021 Recommendation on the Ethics of AI, and the 2024 UN General Assembly resolution on safe and trustworthy AI have produced soft-law instruments but little binding regulation. The Council of Europe's 2024 Framework Convention on AI was the first binding international treaty in the field, signaling that regional bodies may outpace universal ones. Today the core dispute is whether a fragmented, sectoral approach — applying existing IHL, human rights law, and trade law to new technologies — is adequate, or whether the international legal order needs a dedicated technology governance architecture.

Key players

Emerging Technologies and the Reconfiguration of International Relations

Emerging technologies are reshaping the material basis of international power. Semiconductors, AI compute, undersea cables, satellite constellations, and rare-earth supply chains have become strategic chokepoints, prompting export controls (notably the 2022 and 2023 US restrictions on advanced chips to China), industrial policy revivals such as the US CHIPS Act and the EU Chips Act, and a wave of 'friend-shoring' and technology alliances including AUKUS Pillar II, the US-EU Trade and Technology Council, and the Quad's critical and emerging technology working group. These developments mark a shift from the post-Cold War assumption that globalization would diffuse technology benignly toward a more contested logic of techno-geopolitical blocs. The reconfiguration extends beyond great-power competition. Middle powers such as Brazil, India, South Africa, and the UAE are pursuing 'digital non-alignment,' seeking strategic autonomy in AI, data infrastructure, and space access. International organizations face questions about whether the WTO, ITU, and UN system can still serve as neutral standard-setters when key technologies are simultaneously commercial goods, weapons platforms, and instruments of social control. The core dispute is whether emerging technologies will entrench a bipolar US-China order, enable a multipolar 'multi-stack' world, or fragment global governance into incompatible regulatory zones.

Key players

Regulatory Challenges of AI, Data Governance, Biotechnology, Surveillance, Quantum Computing, and Autonomous Systems

Each of these technology domains presents distinct regulatory problems but shares a common difficulty: they are dual-use, cross-border, and evolve faster than legislative cycles. AI regulation has crystallized around three models — the EU's risk-based AI Act (2024), the US's sectoral and executive-order approach, and China's vertical rules on recommender systems and generative AI. Data governance is fragmented between GDPR-style regimes, data-localization mandates, and free-flow frameworks such as the OECD principles and the now-revised EU-US Data Privacy Framework. Biotechnology faces renewed scrutiny after debates over gene editing (the 2018 He Jiankui case) and pandemic-origin investigations, with the Biological Weapons Convention lacking a verification mechanism and the WHO Pandemic Agreement still under negotiation. Surveillance technology is governed unevenly: the 2021 revelations on Pegasus spyware and successive UN Special Rapporteur reports have pushed for export controls under the Wassenaar Arrangement, but enforcement is weak. Quantum computing raises distinct concerns around 'harvest-now-decrypt-later' attacks on encryption, prompting NIST's post-quantum cryptography standards (2024) and nascent discussions of quantum export controls. Autonomous systems — lethal autonomous weapons in the CCW GGE, autonomous vehicles in UNECE WP.29, and autonomous maritime vessels at the IMO — illustrate how 'meaningful human control' has become a contested cross-cutting principle. The unifying regulatory challenge is how to coordinate without freezing innovation, and how to ensure Global South participation in standard-setting dominated by a handful of jurisdictions and firms.

Key players

Impacts of New Technologies on the Formulation, Interpretation, and Application of International Law

New technologies are altering not only what international law regulates but how it is made, read, and enforced. On formulation, the classical treaty process — negotiation, signature, ratification — struggles to keep pace with technologies that change within months. States and international bodies have increasingly turned to soft-law instruments (the UNESCO AI Ethics Recommendation, the Bletchley and Seoul Declarations on AI safety, ICRC guidance on autonomous weapons), multistakeholder processes (the IGF, the Christchurch Call), and 'minilateral' frameworks (G7 Hiroshima AI Process). This has raised debate over whether such instruments amount to emerging customary law or merely defer hard regulation. On interpretation, the 2013 and 2015 UN GGE reports affirmed that existing international law, including the UN Charter and IHL, applies to cyberspace, and the Tallinn Manual process attempted to translate this into operational rules — but states still disagree sharply on thresholds for use of force, attribution, and sovereignty in cyber operations. The application of IHL principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution to autonomous weapons and AI-enabled targeting (debated in Gaza and Ukraine) is contested. On application and enforcement, technologies such as satellite imagery, open-source intelligence, and AI-assisted evidence analysis (used by the ICC, IIIM-Syria, and the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar) are reshaping international adjudication and fact-finding, while also raising chain-of-custody and authentication challenges in an era of deepfakes.

Key players

New Technologies and the Theoretical Structure of the International Legal System

Beyond doctrinal questions, new technologies are pressing on the deep theoretical assumptions of the international legal order: state-centrism, territoriality, the public/private divide, and the sources doctrine codified in Article 38 of the ICJ Statute. Cyberspace, orbital infrastructure, and AI systems operated by transnational firms blur the link between law and territory, complicating jurisdiction, attribution, and sovereignty. Major private actors — hyperscale cloud providers, AI labs, satellite operators — exercise quasi-public functions yet sit outside the traditional subjects of international law, reviving debates about international legal personality first raised in the Reparations advisory opinion (1949). Scholars and states are debating whether the system needs new sources (e.g., recognition of multistakeholder norms as a form of soft custom), new subjects (algorithmic systems, indigenous peoples, future generations), and new principles (digital sovereignty, data as a global commons, intergenerational equity). The fragmentation diagnosed by the ILC in 2006 is intensifying as tech-specific regimes proliferate — AI, cyber, space, biosecurity — each with its own institutions, principles, and dispute mechanisms. The core theoretical dispute is whether the Westphalian, state-consent-based architecture can be retrofitted to govern technologies that are inherently transnational and privately controlled, or whether a more pluralist, polycentric conception of international law is emerging in practice and requires explicit recognition.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for 24th Brazilian Congress of International Law.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Bhagwant Mann Launches Punjab Campaign Summit

Europe's June Heatwave: Infrastructure Crisis

Japan's Dilemma Over Hormuz Mine Clearance

Ukraine Drone Strikes Crimea Power Grid

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Media & Press Relations

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

By committee

Frequently asked questions

24th Brazilian Congress of International Law

Aug 26–29, 2026Vitória, BrazilIn-person

Starts in 18 daysRegistration open

Committees & topics

Topics
International Law and New Technologies · Emerging Technologies and the Reconfiguration of International Relations · Regulatory Challenges of AI, Data Governance, Biotechnology, Surveillance, Quantum Computing, and Autonomous Systems · Impacts of New Technologies on the Formulation, Interpretation, and Application of International Law · New Technologies and the Theoretical Structure of the International Legal System

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 1 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Brazil

Role in topic

Topics & background

The background behind each topic and the actors that shape it.

International Law and New Technologies

Key players

Emerging Technologies and the Reconfiguration of International Relations

Key players

Regulatory Challenges of AI, Data Governance, Biotechnology, Surveillance, Quantum Computing, and Autonomous Systems

Key players

Impacts of New Technologies on the Formulation, Interpretation, and Application of International Law

Key players

New Technologies and the Theoretical Structure of the International Legal System

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for 24th Brazilian Congress of International Law.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

Bhagwant Mann Launches Punjab Campaign Summit

Europe's June Heatwave: Infrastructure Crisis

Japan's Dilemma Over Hormuz Mine Clearance

Ukraine Drone Strikes Crimea Power Grid

Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

Hidden Stakeholders

Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Media & Press Relations

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

The states in play, with the data that shapes their stance

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

Country dossier

By committee

24th Brazilian Congress of International Law

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

International Law and New Technologies

Emerging Technologies and the Reconfiguration of International Relations

Regulatory Challenges of AI, Data Governance, Biotechnology, Surveillance, Quantum Computing, and Autonomous Systems

Impacts of New Technologies on the Formulation, Interpretation, and Application of International Law

New Technologies and the Theoretical Structure of the International Legal System

Resources

24º Congresso Brasileiro de Direito Internacional

8º Seminário de Graduação e Pós-Graduação em Relações Internacionais da Associação Brasileira de Relações Internacionais - ABRI

XIX Seminário Internacional da Rede Ibero‑americana de Investigação sobre Globalização e Território (RII)

Border Management & Technologies Summit AMERICAS 2027

LAAD Defence & Security 2027

IAME Brazil 2027 Conference

Frequently asked questions

24th Brazilian Congress of International Law

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

International Law and New Technologies

Emerging Technologies and the Reconfiguration of International Relations

Regulatory Challenges of AI, Data Governance, Biotechnology, Surveillance, Quantum Computing, and Autonomous Systems

Impacts of New Technologies on the Formulation, Interpretation, and Application of International Law

New Technologies and the Theoretical Structure of the International Legal System

Resources

24º Congresso Brasileiro de Direito Internacional

8º Seminário de Graduação e Pós-Graduação em Relações Internacionais da Associação Brasileira de Relações Internacionais - ABRI

XIX Seminário Internacional da Rede Ibero‑americana de Investigação sobre Globalização e Território (RII)

Border Management & Technologies Summit AMERICAS 2027

LAAD Defence & Security 2027

IAME Brazil 2027 Conference

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

24º Congresso Brasileiro de Direito Internacional

8º Seminário de Graduação e Pós-Graduação em Relações Internacionais da Associação Brasileira de Relações Internacionais - ABRI

XIX Seminário Internacional da Rede Ibero‑americana de Investigação sobre Globalização e Território (RII)

Border Management & Technologies Summit AMERICAS 2027

LAAD Defence & Security 2027

IAME Brazil 2027 Conference

Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

24º Congresso Brasileiro de Direito Internacional

8º Seminário de Graduação e Pós-Graduação em Relações Internacionais da Associação Brasileira de Relações Internacionais - ABRI

XIX Seminário Internacional da Rede Ibero‑americana de Investigação sobre Globalização e Território (RII)

Border Management & Technologies Summit AMERICAS 2027

LAAD Defence & Security 2027

IAME Brazil 2027 Conference

Frequently asked questions