We are glad to announce that we will soon host Professor Ingo Venzke, from the University of Amsterdam.

In March 2025 (5th, 12th, 20th, 25th), he will deliver four seminars on Legal Theory, sponsored by our Ph.D. Coordinator: a proactive participation from our Ph.D. Community is sincerely appreciated!

Here is all the info you might need, as well as the Syllabus.

The arc of the seminars on law in context starts from the need to contextualize law, and the problems that arise in doing so. The seminars lead, through the practice of interpretation and instances of lawmaking, to the question of whether and how law can play a transformative role in society. The seminars approach fundamental questions with a focus on how to address them in the practice, as well as in the academic practice of research, thinking and writing.

Syllabus:

1. Context: Causation and Contingency Background or further reading: Marks, S. (2009). False Contingency. Current Legal Problems, 62, 1–21; Painter, G. (2020). Contingency in International Legal History: Why Now? in I. Venzke & K. J. Heller (Eds.), Situating Contingency in the Course of International Law, Oxford University Press; Venzke, I. (2023). The Path Not Taken: On Legal Change and its Context in N. Krisch & E. Yildiz (Eds.), The Many Paths of Change in International Law (p. 309), Oxford University Press; Or: Venzke, I. (2021). Situating Contingency in the Path of International Law, in I. Venzke & K. J. Heller (Eds.), Contingency in International Law: On the Possibility of Different Legal Histories (pp. 3–19), Oxford University Press. 

2. Interpretation: Reading and Discussing Judicial Decisions Background or further reading: Venzke, I. (2022). The Practice of Interpretation in International Law: Strategies of Critique, in J. L. Dunoff & M. A. Pollack (Eds.), International Legal Theory: Foundations and Frontiers (pp. 305–325), Cambridge University Press. 

3. Lawmaking: What is the State? Background or further reading: Bogdandy, A. von, Goldmann, M., & Venzke, I. (2017). From Public International to International Public Law: Translating World Public Opinion into International Public Authority, European Journal of International Law, 28(1), 115–145; Palombella, G. (2013). The (re-)Constitution ofthe Public in a Global Arena, in C. Mac Amhlaigh, C. Michelon, & N. Walker (Eds.), After Public Law (pp. 286–309), Oxford University Press; Venzke, I. (forthcoming). The Many Faces of the State. Manuscript [to be distributed in due course]. 

4. Transformation: Relating Law to Justice Background or further reading: von Bernstorff, J., & Venzke, I. (2023). International Law and Justice, in A. Peters (Ed.), Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law.