We Know it When We See it: Solidarity in International Legal Discourse. A Workshop on Competing Solidarities

With every crisis, the question of solidarity imposes itself anew. It matters whether this question is answered in terms of a legal principle, a fundamental value or an ethical ideal, as does the presupposed interrelation between these dimensions. The financial crisis of 2008, the refugee reception crisis of 2015 and the current combination of pandemic and recession suggest as much. While the term ‘solidarity’ is frequently used in exhortations for the pooling of resources, it is less clear what its referent is, and this, in turn, is part of its authoritative appeal. This much is clear: asking the question of solidarity always means to ask and the question of the right balance between structure and actor, collective and individual, state and market. We intend to gather a group of scholars in law, the humanities and social sciences with a track history in thinking solidarity to explore the histories of solidarity in international law, the discourses engulfing it and the limits drawn around it during a one-day workshop. Our goal is to bring together a plurality of perspectives to identify a productive and narrowly circumscribed research question that might guide the production of a joint edited volume.