Community interests under international law
This conference aims at providing insights on the role and function of international law in a framework of increased global governance by focusing on how ‘community interests’ are articulated and protected and global public goods are provided.
Judge Simma, judge on the International Court of Justice from 2003 until 2012, has noted that community interests embody a consensus according to which respect for certain fundamental values is not left to the free disposition of States individually or inter se, but is recognized and sanctioned by international law as a matter of concern to all States.
He has pointed out the development of international law from bilateralism to protection of community interests and multilateral treaties serving as the vehicle par excellence of community interests.
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Contemporary global challenges
Over time these community interests have come to encapsulate some of the contemporary global challenges facing the international community, including ensuring global human security, managing shared natural resources and countering climate change, and protecting world cultural heritage.
While displaying different degrees of normative intensity and institutional development, these broad areas of international law and governance involve the provision of different global public goods.
Challenges and prospects
The comprehensive impact of community interests visible today also reveals a fundamental tension in contemporary international law – the tension between the need to make international law adequately express and support what are assumed to be universally held moral beliefs and the need to make it firmly reflect its political context.
The presentations in this conference will focus primarily on and try to address the following three questions:
- Can international law mediate effectively between competing sovereign and collective concerns?
- What are the main challenges and prospects of realizing community interests through and across international law?
- What improvements are necessary to the normative framework and the operating system of international law to ensure an optimal protection of community interests?
The submission deadline for Call for papers is expired.
But, you can read the Call for papers at the research group's webpage, follow the link below:
Human Rights, Armed Conflicts, and the Law of Peace and Security.
Please contact Gentian Zyberi if you have any inquiries.