Early-career members
ESIL is committed to fostering collaboration and mentoring opportunities for emerging scholars and professionals across its activities. We strive to ensure that key ESIL events and activities are organised in an inclusive manner, to reflect ESIL’s commitment to promote scholarly co-operation and excellence at the highest levels, whilst remain open to all and ensuring a respectful and welcoming environment.
To that end, ESIL has embedded opportunities for emerging scholars across all of its activities. The ESIL Annual Conference regularly sees early-career scholars presenting in the main conference as well as side events, and there are several specific events (networking, career support and mentoring) developed for early-career scholars. What is more, ESIL’s premier early-career event, the ESIL Research Forum, is a small, intensive scholarly event aimed specifically at emerging academics, so they can present and discuss their research and receive feedback from established ESIL members and their peers in a robust, constructive and supportive environment.
ESIL has recently launched an announcement for the Early-Career Network, an early-career committee. The Committee will liaise directly with the Board to promote the active engagement of emerging scholars and practitioners in ESIL’s activities and events and also spearhead a number of initiatives specifically of interest to the latter with the support of the Society. These may include organising side events during the ESIL Annual Conference, running sessions focused on professional skills development, and facilitating mentorship opportunities for early-career international lawyers.
ESIL warmly encourages any emerging professionals interested in international legal scholarship to participate in our activities, whether the Annual Conferences and/or Research Fora, the events of our Interest Groups, and various ESIL Joint Events and ESIL Supported Events that are held throughout the academic year.
ESIL Interest Groups are well-tailored for active involvement, with many early-career scholars being elected convenors. Interest Groups hold events in specialised areas of international law, often in conjunction with the main ESIL events, and often in collaboration with other partners. We encourage early-career scholars to approach convenors of ESIL Interest Groups with ideas or proposals.
Besides scholarly events, ESIL also offers a range of initiatives to support early-career scholars. You will find relevant links on this page.
Student Membership rates, at substantial reductions, are available for members who are enrolled full-time at a recognised institution of higher education, whether at the undergraduate, postgraduate or doctoral level. Student members can benefit from the student membership at a discounted rate, and will be entitled to the full benefits of Society membership.
Further information is available on the individual membership page.
In line with ESIL’s goals of encouraging high-level scholarship, developing a greater awareness and understanding of international law, and promoting early career researchers, the ESIL Board awards the ESIL Young Scholar Prize (YSP) at each ESIL Annual Conference for an outstanding paper submitted and presented by an early-career scholar. The Prize was first awarded in 2015.
The Prize consists of two years’ free membership of the Society, plus a contribution towards the costs of travel and accommodation at the conference.
The winner of the ESIL Young Scholar Prize is announced in the Conference Programme and the Prize certificate is awarded during the Conference Dinner. The Prize-winning paper is invited to submit their paper for publication (subject to successful peer review) in the European Journal of International Law.
The Teaching Corner is an online resource exclusively for ESIL members to share syllabi, module outlines, reading lists, and other international law teaching materials and tools. Our idea is to encourage the dissemination of sample materials and good practice amongst ESIL members, and especially to provide support for early-career researchers who may be designing a course for the first time. By seeing the innovations and ideas of others, we hope to nurture and inspire innovative teaching both in Europe and beyond, and support each other in teaching preparations.
Access to the Teaching Corner (for ESIL members only)
How to access the Teaching Corner on https://esil-sedi.eu/teaching-corner: If you have been a member of ESIL for some time, you should have received a login username and password in the monthly ESIL Updates. If you have lost the credentials or are a new member and do not know the password yet, please contact esil.secretariat@eui.eu.
- Gergo Barna Balázs
- Helga Molbaek-Steensig
- Emma Nyhan
- Matina Papadaki
- Silvia Karin Steininger
- Special Session on Engagement and Mentoring: A Conversation with Early Career Researchers.Informal discussion convened by Neha Jain, Gleider Hernández, Pierre d’Argent, Evelyne Schmid, Silvia Steininger, Gail Lythgoe and Jessica Schechinger.
