Midtveisevalueringen gjennomføres i henhold til Retningslinjer for midtveisevaluering for doktorgradsprogrammet ved Det juridiske fakultet, UiO. Evalueringen består av en åpen seminardel (ca. 90 min.) og et lukket møte (ca. 30 min.). På det lukkede møtet deltar instituttleder (eller dennes representant), veileder/e samt kommentator/ene.
- Kommentator er professor Heikki Pihlajamäki, Helsinki
- Midtveisevalueringen ledes av Institutt for offentlig retts instituttleder, professor Ole Kristian Fauchald
- Hovedveileder er professor Dag Michalsen, Institutt for offentlig rett
- Medveileder er professor Ivar Alvik, Nordisk institutt for sjørett
Om stipendiaten
Nora Naguib Leerberg har en master i rettsvitenskap fra UiO (2013). Under studietiden tilbragte hun også ett semester ved Université de Strasbourg. Hun deltok under arbeidet med masteravhandlingen i forskergruppen "The transformation of international law and Norwegian sovereignty in 1814" ved Senter for grunnforskning (Centre for Advanced Study) på DNVA. Avhandlingen "The Legal Politics of Neutrality in the Age of Privateering – Martin Hübner’s Law of Neutrality and Prize" ble publisert i videreutviklet form som en bok i Oslo Studies in Legal History (Oslo: Dreyers forlag, 2015).
Leerberg har tidligere jobbet som vitenskapelig assistent ved Institutt for offentlig rett, primært tilknyttet forskergruppen Rett, samfunn og historisk endring, men også i en periode ved forskningssenteret PluriCourts (et senter for fremragende forskning).
Fra 2015 har Leerberg vært vitenskapelig ansatt ved Institutt for offentlig rett, først som forsker og siden som stipendiat. Hun gjorde mange bidrag til arbeidet med utgivelsen av "Grunnloven. Historisk kommentarutgave 1814-2020" og er forfatter av kapitlene om §§ 67, 68, 69 og 70.
Om avhandlingsprosjektet
This thesis will address how and why states have tried and often succeeded in avoiding war in the legal sense through the use of certain actions and ever-evolving legal vocabulary in the period stretching from 1815 to 1945 – the “very” long nineteenth century. A century that is significant to the field of international law because it links the newly developed Law of Nations of the 17th and 18th century with the modern International Law of our time.
The notion of interstate use of force in peacetime has involved a wide variety of international processes used by states to settle their international differences, with varying degrees of coercion. These enforcement measures extended from rather mild reactions such as withdrawal of diplomatic relations and suspension of commercial interaction, to the more persuasive display of force and warlike acts such as reprisals, blockades, embargoes, and even extensive use of armed force without formal declaration of war. This study concentrates on the measures of a forcible nature – examples where there is a clear use of force, since they form the crux of the question of how nations employ armed methods that are in fact “acts of war” yet legally avoid a so-called “state of war”.
The primary intention is to examine how states have honed the skill of avoiding a declared state of war to the extent it has almost turned into an art form – hence, the art of avoiding war. The idea is to write a “conceptual history” on the manifestation of the art of avoiding war as it presents itself in legal discourse, particularly in legal scholarship, often classified as measures short of war. The study proposes that this concept of measures short of war, was “created” by or in legal scholarship to explain a tension – to bridge a gap – between international legal doctrine and international behaviour (state practice). A primary objective is thus to critically analyse the historical context and legal implications of measures short of war from 1815 to 1945.
The study addresses the discourse of and on justifying war or the use of force “other than ‘war’”; and the limits of war and peace and normativity in the formation of the modern international order. The overall claim is that rather than “simply” justifying their actions, states were in fact attempting to avoid something else altogether. Namely, the legal implications of war. The thesis argues that the concept of “measures short of war” and its associated terminology during the 19th and 20th centuries should not be considered as indifference to war, but rather as avoidance—an avoidance scheme, as it were. This examination is therefore a theoretical discussion mostly driven through a taxonomy of actions and events devised as “measures short of war” as they were understood and discussed in legal literature from ca. 1750 to 1945.
To this end, the study falls in line with recent scholarship critiquing the traditional view of the nineteenth century as a paradigm shift in the normative order of international law. It considers and challenges prevailing notions of the nineteenth century as an era of legal lawlessness by demonstrating the normative constraints on state behaviour. The study engages with the subject of force short of war directly in relation to the development of the modern international legal order, which in many ways is the same as trying to clasp all of public international law at once.
Separating the action of using force short of war from its underlying motivations presents significant challenges, particularly from a historical perspective. This duality complicates the analysis, as the same set of actions can be interpreted differently depending on the motivations articulated, blurring the lines between legality, morality, and political necessity.