What is the primary focus of the New Voices in International Law workshop?

The workshop's primary focus is to provide early-career researchers at the college level with a platform to present their ongoing work in international law and receive constructive feedback.

Where is the New Voices in International Law workshop located?

The workshop is located in the city of Dublin, Ireland.

New Voices in International Law – Early-Career Researchers Workshop

Name: New Voices in International Law – Early-Career Researchers Workshop
Start: 2026-05-22T00:00:00Z
End: 2026-05-22T00:00:00Z
Location: Dublin

May 22, 2026Dublin, IrelandIn-person

Registration open

The "New Voices in International Law – Early-Career Researchers Workshop" is an academic event held in Dublin, Ireland, focused on supporting emerging scholars in the field of international law. It provides a platform for early-career researchers to present their ongoing work, receive constructive feedback from peers and established academics, and engage in substantive discussions on a variety of international legal topics. The workshop aims to foster intellectual exchange and contribute to the development of new perspectives within the discipline.

Committees & topics

Topics
International Law in Europe · Collective Defence in NATO and the EU · Violence at the European Union's External Borders · Intersectional Discrimination Before the European Court of Human Rights · The Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities · Apartheid as an International Crime · United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies · Allegations of Israeli Apartheid Under International Law

Why it matters

This workshop is crucial for the advancement of international law as a dynamic and evolving field. By specifically targeting early-career researchers, it ensures that new ideas and methodologies are given a dedicated space for development and critique. The feedback mechanism is particularly vital, as it helps refine research questions, strengthen arguments, and improve the overall quality of scholarly output before publication. This process is fundamental for maintaining the rigor and relevance of international legal scholarship.

Furthermore, the workshop's emphasis on fostering intellectual exchange contributes to a more collaborative and interconnected academic community. Such interactions can lead to interdisciplinary approaches and novel solutions to complex global challenges. For instance, discussions might touch upon how international law addresses issues like climate change, human rights, or cybersecurity, reflecting the multifaceted nature of contemporary international relations. The insights gained and connections made at such events can significantly influence future research trajectories and policy recommendations.

How to prepare

For participants, thorough preparation is key to maximizing the benefits of this workshop. Researchers should arrive with a well-developed presentation of their work, clearly articulating their research questions, methodologies, preliminary findings, and any specific areas where they seek feedback. Engaging with the work of other participants beforehand can also facilitate more meaningful discussions and provide a broader context for their own contributions.

From a diplomatic perspective, understanding the nuances of international law is paramount. Diplomats often rely on legal frameworks to navigate complex negotiations, draft treaties, and advocate for their national interests. Events like this workshop, while academic in nature, can offer insights into emerging legal theories and interpretations that may eventually influence state practice and international policy. Staying abreast of these 'new voices' can provide a strategic advantage in anticipating future legal challenges and opportunities in international relations. For example, a diplomat might gain insight into evolving interpretations of sovereignty or the use of force, which are critical for effective engagement strategies.

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Ireland

As the host nation, Ireland provides a neutral and academically rich environment for international legal discourse.

Role in topic

Ireland, through its academic institutions in Dublin, plays a significant role in facilitating international legal scholarship and fostering intellectual exchange among early-career researchers. Its commitment to academic freedom and international cooperation makes it an ideal location for such a workshop.

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom, with its strong legal traditions, contributes significantly to international legal scholarship.

Role in topic

The United Kingdom has a long-standing tradition of contributing to international law through its universities and legal professionals. Early-career researchers from the United Kingdom often bring diverse perspectives rooted in common law principles and a history of engagement with international institutions.

United States

The United States is a major contributor to international legal theory and practice.

Role in topic

The United States, with its numerous law schools and think tanks, is a significant source of international legal scholarship. Researchers from the USA frequently explore topics related to international human rights law, international criminal law, and the role of international organizations, often bringing a perspective shaped by a global superpower's engagement with international norms.

Germany

Germany is a key player in the development of public international law and European Union law.

Role in topic

Germany's academic institutions are prominent in international legal studies, particularly in public international law and European Union law. German early-career researchers often contribute rigorous analytical approaches and engage with complex theoretical questions concerning state sovereignty, international institutions, and human rights.

Topics & background

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

International Law in Europe

International law in Europe is shaped by an unusually dense web of overlapping legal orders: the European Union's autonomous legal system, the Council of Europe's human rights regime anchored in the European Convention on Human Rights (1950), and the broader corpus of public international law administered through the UN, the OSCE, and tribunals such as the ICJ and ICC. This architecture emerged from the post-1945 settlement and was deepened after 1989, when the eastward enlargement of the EU and Council of Europe extended common standards across the continent. The CJEU's doctrines of direct effect and supremacy, alongside the ECtHR's evolutive interpretation of the Convention, have produced a distinctive 'constitutionalized' regional order. That order is now under visible strain. Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to its expulsion from the Council of Europe and reopened questions about aggression, state responsibility, and reparations, including proposals for a special tribunal and the use of frozen sovereign assets. National constitutional courts in Germany, Poland, and elsewhere have challenged the primacy of EU law, while the UK's withdrawal and debates over ECHR derogation in migration cases have tested the durability of European legal commitments. For early-career researchers, the live debates concern how European institutions absorb geopolitical shocks, whether regional human rights protection can withstand backsliding, and how the EU's external action — sanctions, trade conditionality, and the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime — interacts with general international law.

Key players

Collective Defence in NATO and the EU

Collective defence in Europe rests on two distinct but increasingly entwined commitments: Article 5 of the 1949 North Atlantic Treaty, under which an armed attack on one ally is considered an attack on all, and Article 42(7) of the Treaty on European Union, which obliges member states to provide aid and assistance to a fellow member that suffers armed aggression. Article 5 has been invoked only once, after the 9/11 attacks, while Article 42(7) was invoked by France in 2015 after the Paris attacks. Both clauses sit alongside Article 51 of the UN Charter on self-defence and the UNSC's primary responsibility for international peace and security. Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine transformed the operational meaning of these provisions. Finland and Sweden abandoned long-standing non-alignment to join NATO, the Alliance returned to forward defence on its eastern flank, and the EU's Strategic Compass and European Peace Facility channelled unprecedented lethal aid to a non-member. Hybrid threats — sabotage, cyberattacks, GPS jamming, and instrumentalized migration — have raised the question of when sub-threshold acts trigger collective response. Debates over the credibility of the U.S. security guarantee under shifting administrations have further pushed European states toward autonomous defence capabilities. Legal questions for researchers include the relationship between Article 5 and Article 42(7), the threshold for 'armed attack' in cyber and hybrid contexts, the lawfulness of assistance to Ukraine under the law of neutrality, and how collective defence interacts with UN Charter constraints on the use of force.

Key players

Violence at the European Union's External Borders

Allegations of violence and unlawful pushbacks at the EU's external borders have grown steadily since the 2015–16 migration surge. Reports by the Council of Europe's Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants, and investigative outlets have documented systematic returns at the Greek-Turkish land and sea borders, violence along the Croatia–Bosnia route, and deaths at the Spanish enclave of Melilla in June 2022. The OLAF investigation into Frontex and the resignation of its executive director in 2022 confirmed the agency's involvement in concealing fundamental rights violations. These practices sit in tension with the prohibition of refoulement under the 1951 Refugee Convention, Article 3 ECHR, and the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as the collective expulsion prohibition in ECHR Protocol 4. The ECtHR's jurisprudence — from Hirsi Jamaa v. Italy to N.D. and N.T. v. Spain — has produced an uneven framework that some governments read as permissive. The 2024 EU Pact on Migration and Asylum introduced accelerated border procedures and a 'crisis' regulation that critics argue institutionalizes practices long contested as unlawful, while cooperation agreements with Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt extend enforcement extraterritorially. Key legal debates concern state responsibility for acts at sea and in transit countries, the jurisdictional reach of the ECHR, the legality of externalization arrangements, and the accountability of EU agencies for fundamental rights violations.

Key players

Intersectional Discrimination Before the European Court of Human Rights

Article 14 of the European Convention on Human Rights prohibits discrimination in the enjoyment of Convention rights, and Protocol 12 extends this to any right secured by law. Yet the ECtHR has historically analysed discrimination claims one ground at a time — race, sex, religion, disability — rather than recognising how overlapping identities produce distinct harms. The concept of intersectionality, developed by Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989 to describe the compounded discrimination experienced by Black women in U.S. employment law, has slowly entered European human rights discourse through scholarship, NGO interventions, and treaty body practice, particularly under CEDAW General Recommendation 28 and the CRPD. The Court has gestured toward intersectional analysis in cases such as B.S. v. Spain (2012), involving a Black migrant sex worker subjected to police violence, and in cases on Roma women's forced sterilisation in Slovakia (V.C., N.B., I.G.). However, it has rarely named intersectionality explicitly or developed a coherent doctrine. Critics argue that single-axis reasoning under-protects applicants whose claims cannot be disaggregated, and that the Court's comparator-based approach is ill-suited to compound discrimination. Recent cases on racialised gender-based violence, disabled migrants, and LGBTQ+ minority claimants are testing whether Strasbourg will follow the Inter-American Court, which has more openly embraced intersectional reasoning. The research agenda concerns doctrinal evolution, evidentiary standards, the use of statistical evidence after D.H. v. Czech Republic, and how the Court's institutional structure shapes its capacity to engage with intersectional claims.

Key players

The Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities

Women and girls with disabilities face compounded discrimination that international law has been slow to recognise. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (1979) and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (2006) developed on largely parallel tracks until the CRPD explicitly addressed the situation of women with disabilities in Article 6 and recognised intersectional discrimination in subsequent General Comments. CEDAW General Recommendation 18 (1991) and the joint statements by the CEDAW and CRPD Committees have progressively elaborated obligations on forced sterilisation, reproductive autonomy, gender-based violence, and access to justice. Documented violations remain widespread: institutionalisation, non-consensual sterilisation and abortion, denial of legal capacity under Article 12 CRPD, disproportionate rates of gender-based violence, exclusion from sexual and reproductive health services, and barriers to political participation. The ECtHR's judgments in cases such as I.G. v. Slovakia and the CRPD Committee's views in cases such as Moya v. Spain have begun to articulate state obligations, while the dismantling of substituted decision-making regimes in jurisdictions like Peru, Colombia, and Spain offers comparative models. Legal questions include the relationship between Article 12 CRPD and guardianship regimes, the scope of reproductive rights for women with disabilities, the obligation to provide accessible gender-based violence services, and how UN treaty bodies can coordinate to address overlapping obligations.

Key players

Apartheid as an International Crime

Apartheid emerged as a concept in international law to describe the institutionalised system of racial segregation imposed in South Africa from 1948 to 1994. The UN General Assembly condemned the practice from the 1950s, and the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid defined it as inhumane acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group over another and systematically oppressing them. The 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court codified apartheid as a crime against humanity in Article 7(1)(j) and 7(2)(h), confirming its status as a peremptory norm and a basis for individual criminal responsibility. Despite codification, no individual has yet been prosecuted for apartheid as such, and the crime has been described as a 'dormant' category. Recent practice has revived debate: human rights organisations, UN Special Rapporteurs, and the ICJ's 2024 Advisory Opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory have engaged the apartheid framework, as have analyses of the situation of Rohingya in Myanmar. South Africa's 2023 ICJ application against Israel under the Genocide Convention, while not framed in apartheid terms, has reignited scholarly and political attention to racially structured systems of domination. Research questions concern the relationship between the 1973 Convention and the Rome Statute, the meaning of 'racial group' in international criminal law, the threshold between persecution and apartheid, and the prospects for prosecution at the ICC or under universal jurisdiction.

Key players

United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies

The UN human rights treaty body system comprises ten committees of independent experts that monitor implementation of the core international human rights treaties, beginning with CERD in 1969 and expanding through the ICCPR and ICESCR Committees, CEDAW, CAT, CRC, CMW, CRPD, CED, and the SPT. Their functions include reviewing state party reports, issuing General Comments, and — where states have accepted optional procedures — considering individual communications. The system grew incrementally and now produces a substantial body of authoritative interpretation that informs domestic litigation, regional courts, and other UN organs. The system has long faced structural challenges: chronic backlogs, late state reporting, fragmented working methods, under-resourcing, and uneven implementation of recommendations. The 2014 General Assembly Resolution 68/268 sought to strengthen and harmonise the bodies, and the ongoing 2020 review process (the '2020 vision') has produced proposals for a predictable review cycle, digital working methods, and aligned methodologies. The COVID-19 pandemic accelerated some reforms while exposing capacity gaps. Concerns persist about state reprisals against individuals cooperating with treaty bodies and about the perceived legal weight of their views and General Comments, an issue addressed by the ICJ in Diallo (2010). For researchers, the central questions concern the legal status of treaty body output, the prospects for consolidating procedures or even merging bodies, the relationship with the Universal Periodic Review and Special Procedures, and how to improve implementation at the national level.

Key players

Allegations of Israeli Apartheid Under International Law

The application of the crime of apartheid to Israel's policies has moved from the margins of legal scholarship to the centre of international debate over the past decade. Reports by the UN Special Rapporteurs on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories (notably those of Michael Lynk in 2022 and Francesca Albanese), the UN ESCWA report (2017), and detailed studies by B'Tselem (2021), Human Rights Watch (2021), and Amnesty International (2022) have concluded that Israeli policies in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and in some analyses within Israel itself, meet the legal definition of apartheid under the 1973 Convention and the Rome Statute. Israel rejects these characterisations, arguing that its policies are security-driven and that the apartheid framework is legally and historically inapposite. The debate intensified following the ICJ's July 2024 Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences arising from Israeli Policies and Practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which found Israel's continued presence in the OPT unlawful and identified policies amounting to systemic discrimination, with several judges explicitly invoking apartheid. South Africa's separate proceedings under the Genocide Convention, the ICC prosecutor's pursuit of arrest warrants, and the ongoing conflict following 7 October 2023 have intertwined apartheid claims with broader questions of occupation, self-determination, and accountability. Research questions include the evidentiary threshold for establishing institutionalised racial domination, the geographic scope of any apartheid analysis (Israel, OPT, or both), the implications of the ICJ Advisory Opinion for third-state obligations under Common Article 1 of the Geneva Conventions, and the prospects for accountability at the ICC.

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for New Voices in International Law – Early-Career Researchers Workshop.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

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Lessons

Bite-sized lessons to build the basics

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Engagement Strategies

Dynamic Analysis

Stakeholder Mapping Workshop

Courses

Guided courses that go deeper on the topic

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

Ireland College May 2026

By committee

Frequently asked questions

New Voices in International Law – Early-Career Researchers Workshop

May 22, 2026Dublin, IrelandIn-person

Registration open

Committees & topics

Topics
International Law in Europe · Collective Defence in NATO and the EU · Violence at the European Union's External Borders · Intersectional Discrimination Before the European Court of Human Rights · The Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities · Apartheid as an International Crime · United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies · Allegations of Israeli Apartheid Under International Law

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Where the most-relevant 4 countries stand on the core issues in play. Click through for the full country profile.

Ireland

As the host nation, Ireland provides a neutral and academically rich environment for international legal discourse.

Role in topic

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom, with its strong legal traditions, contributes significantly to international legal scholarship.

Role in topic

United States

The United States is a major contributor to international legal theory and practice.

Role in topic

Germany

Germany is a key player in the development of public international law and European Union law.

Role in topic

Topics & background

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

International Law in Europe

Key players

Collective Defence in NATO and the EU

Key players

Violence at the European Union's External Borders

Key players

Intersectional Discrimination Before the European Court of Human Rights

Key players

The Rights of Women and Girls with Disabilities

Key players

Apartheid as an International Crime

Key players

United Nations Human Rights Treaty Bodies

Key players

Allegations of Israeli Apartheid Under International Law

Key players

Resources

News, lessons, and country profiles to prep for New Voices in International Law – Early-Career Researchers Workshop.

Recent reporting to ground your prep

India's 131st Amendment Bill

Supreme Court Upholds Election Commission Dis

Hilton-Becerra Race Sets Up High-Stakes Clash

Supreme Court's Voting Rights Impact on 2026

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

Advanced Negotiation

Multilateral Negotiation

Policy Brief Writing

Conflict Resolution

Ireland College May 2026

By committee

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

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Frequently asked questions

Committees & topics

Why it matters

How to prepare

Country perspectives

Topics & background

Resources

Related conferences

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Frequently asked questions