Workshop at the occasion of the
2019 ESIL Research Forum, Göttingen
3rd April 2019, 13:00 – 16:30
Zentrales Hörsaalgebäude, Platz der Göttinger Sieben 5, 37073 Göttingen

The ESIL Interest Group on International Organisations gladly presents the programme of the workshop on the theme of international organisations and the rule of law. The Coordinating Committee has received many excellent submissions in response to the call for papers – and competition was fierce. We congratulate those who made it to the programme and thank all those who submitted abstracts.
The workshop will take place on the afternoon of Wednesday 3rd April 2019. The workshop is organized in two panels, which will cover, firstly, theoretical and political questions relating to the rule of law and international organisations and, secondly, three case studies addressing the rule of law in relation to the EU and the World Bank.
Justification
For some time it has been an article of faith within the international legal academy that the realisation of an international rule of law requires the creation of international institutions capable of securing the fair and impartial administration of international justice against the recalcitrance of independent sovereign states. Indeed, from one perspective at least, it is very easy to see the decentralized institutional character of the international legal order as the central obstacle to the realisation of the rule of law in international affairs. With the ‘move to institutions’ from the start of the twentieth century, then, it has been equally easy to conceive of many new international organisations – from the League and the United Nations to the World Bank and the ICC – as an effort to restructure international relations more in accordance with the precepts of an international rule of law.
As mid-twentieth century reformist enthusiasm has given way to post-Cold War cynicism and scepticism, however, it appears increasingly to be the case that the growing number and normative influence of international organisations increasingly threatens values most associated with the rule of law. Indeed, given concerns over the fragmentation and deformalisation of international law associated with the move towards what we now call ‘global governance’ international lawyers increasingly propose rule of law-inspired proposals for institutional containment and restraint.
An Ambivalent Engagement: International Organisations and the International Rule of Law
Programme
13h00 | Welcome and Introduction
Sufyan Droubi |
First Panel | Theoretical and Political Questions | |
Richard Collins | Chair | |
13h00 | Moise Jean | La politique internationale de l’état de droit. Entre paradoxe et instrumentalisation |
13h15 | Sean Shun Ming Yau and Francisco Lobo | The trajectory of jus cogens development at the International Law Commission and its consequences for the international rule of law: dynamics and challenges |
13h30 | Mariela Apostolaki | Legal orders of international organizations and the international legal order: Separate or Interconnected? |
13h45 | Dimitri van den Meerssche | Discussant |
14h00 | Q&A |
14h40 | Coffee Break |
Second Panel | Case Studies | |
Catherine Brölmann | Chair | |
15h00 | Eva Kassoti | The EU and the Precarious Balance between Autonomy and the International Rule of Law: The Potential and Limitations of Consistent Interpretation |
15h15 | Lisa Louwerse | Mind the gap: the element of legality in the EU’s conceptualisation of the rule of law in its enlargement policy |
15h30 | Nazım Sinan Odabaşi | The World Bank’s Understanding of the Rule of Law and the New Environmental and Social Framework |
15h45 | Arnaud Louwette | Discussant |
16h00 | Q&A |
16h40 | Update on the Works of the IG-IO
Sufyan Droubi |
Panelists and Discussants
Arnaud Louwette, Maître de conferences, Centre de Droit International, Université Libre de Bruxelles
Dimitri van den Meerssche, Researcher, Asser Institute
Eva Kassoti, Senior Researcher in European and International Law, Academic coordinator of CLEER, T.M.C. Asser Institute
Francisco Lobo, Legal Theory Professor, Diego Portales University, International Criminal Law Professor, Adolfo Ibáñez University.
Lisa Louwerse, Ph.D. Candidate, Leiden University, Senior Lecturer in Law, The Hague University of Applied Sciences
Mariela Apostolaki, PhD Candidate, University of Manchester
Moise Jean, Doctorant en droit public, Université Paris X Nanterre, Chercheur, Max Planck, Luxembourg
Nazım Sinan Odabaşi, Ph.D. Candidate, Istanbul Bilgi University
Sean Shun Ming Yau, PhD Researcher, Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam; Research Assistant, UN International Law Commission
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