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ESIL NEWSLETTER

SPRING-SUMMER 2026

 

Dear all

The northern summer has arrived in many parts of Europe with a vengeance. As heatwaves and la canicule dominate the news, many ESIL members may long for a break. International law, too, has continued to make headlines. In the course of the past months, the ‘cornerstone rules’ imposing constraints on military force have continued to be tested. Recent events have also prompted debate about legal questions that might not have been on everyone’s radar for a while, from the legal regime governing the passage through straits to the right to strike. In the meantime, the UN has held one set of elections (Security Council) and gears up for more (Secretary-General, ICJ). ECHR member States, in the Chișinău Declaration adopted in mid-May, have underlined the independence of the Strasbourg court, but at the same time set out legal views that may not fully accord with its jurisprudence on “migration-related issues”. And ITLOS is preparing for proceedings that truly qualify as international administrative law, as two deep-seabed-mining contractors are challenging measures adopted by the International Seabed Authority (see here and here). International law continues to be made, unmade and moulded at a fast pace.

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Looking back

ESIL events are opportunities to keep up with developments, while also offering longer-term perspectives. IGs are key to ESIL’s programme of activities — for a list of recent and forthcoming events, check out the ‘IG section’ of our website; there is so much going on.

Looking back at the past few months, let me flag two other events: one is part of our ongoing activities, the other marks a new initiative.

 

The 2026 Research Forum

Our annual Research Forum brought 72 ESIL members to Cracow in early April for reflections on “Sustainable International Law”. We met under the watchful eye of Nikolaus Copernicus (whose portrait hangs in the University’s beautiful Aula), to discuss sustainability in its diverse dimensions: as a concept aiming to bridge ecological and economic demands in the ‘Brundlandt sense’, but also as a challenge to the discipline, whose resilience and adaptability are tested. Whether the Research Forum has brought about changes of perspective worthy of a Copernicus, I do not know. But it was enriching, rewarding, and extremely well-organised. My thanks to all speakers and participants, to the programme committee and above all to our local hosts for their hospitality and generosity.

 

ESIL Conversations

ESIL Conversations are a new initiative, accompanying the (equally new) Rapid Response Roundtables I mentioned in the last Newsletter: a series of online events addressed to an overarching theme, ideally animating reflection, not just during a one-off event, but across a series of discussions. The first series focused on “Multilateralism in Times of Unilateralism”, with online events addressing new treaty projects (like the Convention on Crimes against Humanity), challenges to global health governance, and the future, if any, of the UN. The format is an experiment, and I believe it is worth your while: Ideally, ESIL Conversations will become a regular feature of the ESIL annual calendar — a space for meaningful engagement with key legal issues. I am very grateful to Giulio Bartolini and Patrycja Grzebyk, who have convened the first series, and to all speakers and participants! The recordings of ‘round 1’ are available on the ESIL website — do have a look, and re-connect with Conversations you may have missed.

 

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Looking ahead

ESIL is now entering summer mode - but this is less a summer recess than the preparation for a busy post-summer season. Our annual conference in Málaga is only 2 months away: from 3-5 September 2026, we will meet to discuss International Law and Conflict: An Enduring Tension? Registrations remain open on the conference website. And looking at the main conference programme and the list of IG workshops, you really should register, as it promises to be a great meeting, offering diverse angles on one of the perennial challenges of our discipline. I look forward to seeing many of you at our flagship event of the year!

 

Quite apart from reflections on International Law and Conflict, this year’s annual conference will be important for the governance of our Society. 2026 is an election year: on 4 September 2026, the ESIL General Assembly will elect up to seven Board members for a four-year term. Machiko Kanetake and Giulio Bartolini, who have kindly agreed to act as election officers, have set out the process in an email to all ESIL members and on the ESIL website. The website also features information about the 12 candidates running for election, and about what they hope to bring to the Board. Please have a look and make up your mind. While its work is not always fully visible, the Board (as Article 17 AoA put it) is “charged with the management of the Society”. Biannual elections are your chance to shape how our Society is ‘managed’ in the coming years — so please, whether you are in Málaga or not, make sure to use your vote.

 

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As I complete this message, the temperature scale has reached 40 degrees centrigrade. And so I am now really signing off, in the most literal sense, with my warmest wishes for the summer season.

 

Christian J. Tams

 

The Museum of International Law: A Walk-In Textbook

 

Why a Museum of International Law?

As international lawyers, we engage with international law primarily in textual form. We study treaties, judgments, resolutions, pleadings and commentaries. But international law is also material. It leaves traces in objects, buildings and artefacts that reveal how international law shapes the everyday lives of people across space and time.

Together with a group of LLM students, I founded the Museum of International Law at Lund University in 2024 with two aims. First, to show, in a concrete and tangible manner, how international law affects ordinary human beings. International law often appears abstract and distant, especially to members of the general public. International law seems to happen somewhere else: in courtrooms in The Hague, conference halls in Geneva or at the UN in New York. A life vest recovered from Lesbos, a diplomatic passport, or a fragment of the Berlin Wall demonstrate that international law is not merely a system of abstract rules but something that structures movement, violence, protection and belonging in everyday life.

The Museum’s second objective is to highlight the contingency of international law. International law looks the way it does because particular people, institutions and historical moments shaped it in particular ways. Borders shift, maps change, empires collapse and passports lose their validity. International law is neither natural nor inevitable. By displaying objects connected to international law across different periods and places, the Museum invites reflection on why international law developed as it did and how it might have looked otherwise. This second dimension is directed especially at international lawyers, students and scholars interested in international law’s historical and political conditions.

 

The Museum as a walk-in textbook

The collection and physical layout of the Museum function as a walk-in textbook of international law across four dimensions.

The first dimension concerns international law’s sources. The Museum displays historic textbooks, early editions of major treaties and foundational legal instruments such as the Treaty of Versailles, the League of Nations Covenant, the UN Charter and the Geneva Conventions.

A second dimension concerns international law’s personal and material scope. In this regard, the Museum is building up a collection of passports (especially of passports of states that no longer exist), including diplomatic and UN passports, alongside objects connected to international law’s material scope: a piece of the moon, manganese nodules, oil, sugar, luggage tags. These objects invite visitors to reflect on how international law regulates movement, extraction, ownership and access across the globe.

The third dimension concerns what international lawyers would broadly describe as secondary rules and institutions. The Museum includes objects connected to the ICJ and international adjudication more broadly. These include architectural drawings submitted during the competition to construct the Peace Palace, diplomatic number plates and artefacts connected to important international cases. The Museum’s growing S.S. Lotus collection, for example, includes ship logbooks, postcards and personal items connected to the 1927 Lotus Case.

The final dimension focuses on selected substantive topics of international law. War is represented through German and Soviet helmets from the Battle of Stalingrad, bottles melted by the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki, and a White Helmet from the Syrian White Helmets. Borders are explored through a large fragment of the Berlin Wall (1961) and life vests recovered from Lesbos in 2025. Maritime law appears through a Maersk model container ship and a medieval textbook on maritime commerce.

We bring all of our objects to life by researching not only their material past but also showing how they affected the lives of individuals in Sweden and around the world. We also include and relate to objects not physically present within the Museum by creating international law walking tour guides that allow participants to discover how international law shaped landscapes and cityscapes around the world.    

 

Is international law being put into a museum?

The idea of a Museum of International Law occasionally provokes scepticism. Does placing international law in a museum imply that it is dead or obsolete? No. It means taking international law seriously as a phenomenon and object of study. Museums preserve those things societies consider important enough to examine, interpret and debate. Everything we display at the Museum relates of course to events, conflicts and legal arrangements that have already occurred. But this does not render them irrelevant: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” (W. Faulkner) International law’s past continues to structure its present. Norms, concepts, and borders established decades ago continue to affect lives today. Wars leave legal and material traces that endure long after the violence ends. Recognising and understanding international law’s past is a precondition for consciously shaping its future. 

 

Visit us and share your ideas!

We hope to be able to officially open the Museum in early 2027. But visits can already be arranged by contacting the Museum directly. We warmly welcome colleagues, students and members of the public interested in visiting the collection or discussing possible collaborations. I also invite you, dear readers of this contribution, to suggest objects connected to international law for inclusion in the museum’s collection. We are especially interested in and in need of objects related to international law beyond Europe.

The Museum aims to be a vibrant place of study, research, and conversation. We hope to welcome you to Lund before too long!

ESIL BOARD ELECTIONS 2026

ESIL BOARD ELECTIONS 2026

WATCH THE PRESENTATIONS OF THE CANDIDATES

SPREAD THE WORD!
THE ESIL MEMBERSHIP CAMPAIGN CONTINUES THROUGHOUT 2026

ESIL FLAGSHIP EVENTS

ESIL JOINT EVENTS

ESIL SUPPORTED EVENTS

ESIL CONVERSATIONS AND RAPID RESPONSE ROUNDTABLES

ESIL TEACHING CORNER AND TEACHING CORNER WEBINARS

ESIL LECTURES

ESIL BOOK SERIES

The ESIL Book Series publishes high-quality volumes on various international law themes. The good news is that the ESIL Board has broadened the scope of the ESIL Book Series beyond the themes of ESIL Annual Conferences and ESIL Joint Events.

Proposals based on IG events, other ESIL events, and ESIL members' proposals within the scope of the Book Series are welcome. Potential editors are welcome to contact the General Editor to help shape the future of ESIL scholarly publications.

ESIL PROCEEDINGS

The ESIL Proceedings feature papers presented at ESIL events (Annual Conferences, Research Fora, and Interest Group events).

Publication in the ESIL Proceedings enables authors to disseminate their work widely and reach broader audiences without the usual delays associated with more traditional means of publication. Publication in the ESIL Proceedings does not prevent the subsequent publication of papers in academic journals or edited collections.

ESIL Proceedings are included in the EUI CADMUS Research Repository, and all the papers presented at previous events until 2024 are available here.

For further information, please do not hesitate to write to esil.papers@gmail.com.

ESIL REFLECTIONS

The ESIL Reflections offer up-to-date reflections on current issues in international law in the form of short papers that at argue one particular point that may trigger further debate in the scientific community.

The Reflections cover a wide range of topics relating to current developments in international law and practice as well as theoretical reflections in a way that is relatively accessible to non-experts. The aim is to foster discussion between ESIL members and international law scholars and practitioners more generally – in Europe, but also beyond. ESIL.

ESIL Members who have an interest in contributing are encouraged to visit the dedicated webpage for further information.

ESIL INTEREST GROUPS

 PRE-ANNUAL CONFERENCE WORKSHOPS