2023 ASIL Annual Meeting

2022 Annual Meeting content can be found here.

2023 Annual Meeting

March 29 - March 31, 2023
Washington Hilton
1919 Connecticut Ave NW
Washington, DC 20009

2023 Annual Meeting Theme: The Reach and Limits of International Law to Solve Today's Challenges

International law seems to be perpetually in crisis. Profound questions abound regarding its functions, utility, relevance, and ability to provide solutions in a complex and changing world. The past few years have presented us with multiple challenges – from trade wars to a global pandemic to the worsening of climate change to the invasion of Ukraine – which have led some to question the role and value of international law as a tool for solving modern day crises.

As international lawyers, it is incumbent on us to question underlying assumptions and to revisit the aims of international law and its ability to provide solutions to crises, big and small. It is worth reflecting on the more modest wins of international law, and to query the reach – as well as the very real limits – of what international law is, and what it can do. It is only in challenging and questioning the reach and limits of international law that we can, as a community, navigate, and ultimately strive to reinforce and strengthen its importance.

The 2023 ASIL Annual Meeting Committee seeks to elicit a more nuanced assessment of the role of international law in the world today, and the often incremental way in which it interacts, effects change, and succeeds – or fails – as a tool to address real-world global problems. We invite topics across a broad spectrum of sectors as well as across practice areas, academia, and civil society. We encourage submissions that address niche and overlooked aspects of international law, together with the core areas implicated by today's pressing crises, in order to explore the full range of challenges facing international law and society today, including those identified in the "Cross-Cutting Topics" included below.

Sessions that are selected will be assigned to a substantive track:
  • International Human Rights, Humanitarian Law, and Criminal Justice
  • Transnational Litigation, Arbitration, and Dispute Resolution
  • International Trade, Investment, and Finance
  • International Organizations, Global Governance, and Global Health
  • Security, Foreign Relations, and Use of Force
  • Environment, Sea, Space, and Sustainable Development
Within these tracks, topics may address any subject in line with the theme, including but not limited to one of the following Cross-Cutting Topics:  
  • Regional Approaches to International Law
  • Interdisciplinarity and International Law
  • The Compliance Challenge
  • Decentering, Decolonizing, and Addressing Race, Gender, and Sexuality in International Law
  • War, Peace and Anti-impunity
  • Multilateralism in International Law

Program Ideas Sought

From March 29-31, 2023, the American Society of International Law will convene its 117th Annual Meeting. The ASIL Annual Meeting Committee (chaired by Jennifer Permesly, Priya Pillai, and Sergio Puig) welcomes the submission of ideas for sessions on the theme, "The Reach and Limits of International Law to Solve Today’s Challenges."

To suggest an idea for the 2023 Annual Meeting, please use the following form. Deadline is July 18, 2022.

 

Submitter Information

 

Suggested Track

 

Details

Please provide a description of the idea you think the Annual Meeting Committee should consider. (500 words max)

Submitters should not contact any potential speakers in advance, as the Society follows strict guidelines on speaker selection to ensure diversity across various dimensions.

Please provide a description of how the proposed idea would be presented at the 2023 Annual Meeting. We especially value submissions for debates, simulations, mock trials, and other non-traditional formats. Please also include descriptions of specific case-studies or questions you think might be addressed, and any relevant upcoming events that will make the session timely in March 2023.


Selection criteria:
The Annual Meeting Committee welcomes submissions addressing this year’s theme both within and across the many sub-fields of international law. Drawing on the submitted ideas, the Committee will create a program with the following goals in mind:

  • coverage of a breadth of timely international law topics of interest to ASIL members;
  • participation by individuals from a variety of backgrounds; and
  • a vibrant exchange of ideas through the use of innovative program formats.
The Committee will prioritize submissions that utilize formats other than traditional panels, such as interviews, question-and-answer roundtables, lectures, debates, poster sessions, or the use of multimedia or interactive audience participation features.

The Committee will also prioritize novel or cutting-edge topics in international law. In addition, the Committee is committed to expanding diversity in the issues and voices represented at the Annual Meeting.

Important note on how the ASIL Annual Meeting program is developed:
The Annual Meeting Committee appreciates the work required to submit an idea for a substantive session, and it takes seriously the submitters' views on areas of focus and format for the Annual Meeting. Nonetheless, given the number of submissions expected, the inevitable similarities between some proposals, and the goals and themes articulated above, not all session ideas can be accepted into the program as submitted. Please understand that the Committee reserves (and commonly must exercise) the right to accept but significantly modify session submissions, which may result in omitting proposed participants (including the author), adding new participants, combining multiple submissions, or modifying a session's description, focus, or goals.