International Law & Politics

The International Law and Politics Collaborative Research Network brings together a large group of junior and senior scholars, teachers, researchers and practitioners working on issues related to the politics of international legal thought, practice, method and history. The members of this CRN are based in institutions and organizations across the world, both in the Global North and South. They employ a wide variety of theoretical and empirical approaches, drawn from the discipline of international law and from many other disciplines, including anthropology, political science, history, political economy, sociology, international relations and cultural studies, in order to examine some of the most pressing problems related to the current global (dis)order and its normative underpinnings. The work of the members of this group manifests a diverse range of political inclinations. Their concerns range from practices of human rights and judicial activism to the development of Marxian, postcolonial, feminist and queer legal theory, and from the heterodox regulation of international finance and trade to the critical potential of international legal historiography. In this way, the CRN speaks directly to the increasing visibility of the discipline of international law as existing global, national and local legal orders come to be contested and reconfigured, and to the varied responses of scholars and practitioners to this reality.

The CRN aims to make a distinct contribution to the LSA and its program through the creation of a unique space in which ongoing research and collaboration in the broad area of international law and politics can be pursued on a continuous basis. The CRN will organize a series of interlinked panels and roundtables at LSA Annual Meetings, each year presenting work on a different theme connected with the network’s overall concerns and those of the LSA more generally. These meetings will help the CRN realize its objective of fostering inter-institutional and inter-generational collaboration throughout the year, supporting in particular the publication of work, the holding of public events, and the development of innovative and progressive approaches to research, teaching and international legal practice.