In this EJIL: The Podcast! Luíza Leão Soares Pereira, Fabio Costa Morosini and Artur Simonyan join Editor-in-Chief Sarah Nouwen. Inspired by their articles on Brazilian textbooks as Markers and Makers of International Law and on International Lawyers in Post-Soviet Eurasia, the conversation explores how students encounter international law during their studies, whether a study of textbooks in Brazil and Post-Soviet Eurasia leads to similar findings as Anthea Roberts’s pathbreaking study on how international law is taught in the states that are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and whether international lawyers in Brazil and Post-Soviet Eurasia feel part of what Oscar Schachter once called an invisible college of international lawyers. The gender citation gap also comes up.
Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or TuneIn. It is also available on several other platforms as well, and through aggregator apps on your phone or tablet. We would appreciate listeners leaving a rating or review on the platform of their choice, as this will help promote the podcast.
EJIL: The Podcast! Episode 29: Echoes from the Invisible College
Written by Sarah NouwenIn this EJIL: The Podcast! Luíza Leão Soares Pereira, Fabio Costa Morosini and Artur Simonyan join Editor-in-Chief Sarah Nouwen. Inspired by their articles on Brazilian textbooks as Markers and Makers of International Law and on International Lawyers in Post-Soviet Eurasia, the conversation explores how students encounter international law during their studies, whether a study of textbooks in Brazil and Post-Soviet Eurasia leads to similar findings as Anthea Roberts’s pathbreaking study on how international law is taught in the states that are the five permanent members of the UN Security Council and whether international lawyers in Brazil and Post-Soviet Eurasia feel part of what Oscar Schachter once called an invisible college of international lawyers. The gender citation gap also comes up.
Please subscribe to the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or TuneIn. It is also available on several other platforms as well, and through aggregator apps on your phone or tablet. We would appreciate listeners leaving a rating or review on the platform of their choice, as this will help promote the podcast.
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Guljakhon says
November 6, 2024
Thank you for the talk, Sarah! :)
For me, coming from Uzbekistan (a post-Soviet country), my journey with international law (IL) began over 25 years ago with the Jessup Moot Court Competition. Back then, I didn’t speak any English at all, so everything—from our materials to our briefs—had to be translated from Russian into English. Luisa, let me shake your hands and give a warm Jessup hugs)) Jessup forever! These days, I often serve as a judge, although currently only at the national and regional levels.
I agree about the limitations of international law textbooks in the former Soviet Eurasia, and that definitely needs to change. I know of at least one project in Kazakhstan where our generation of international lawyers is planning to publish an IL textbook. However, I slightly disagree with Artur—I believe IL has been developed through the work of international human rights courts and UN treaty bodies, which provide judgments, views, and concluding observations to all countries, including former Soviet states. So, all states have one IL, and even similar people in these bodies. I don’t think Russian politicians have their own version of IL; rather, they—like many others, unfortunately—seem to manipulate international norms for their own purposes. But again - it’s not different law, but manipulation with the law…
In my PhD research, I was surprised to find how, during the Cold War, the USSR’s attempts to limit IL paradoxically ended up strengthening it. Now, more than three decades after the USSR’s dissolution, with each country independently managing its international relations with the West, I don’t believe there’s a different international law in former Soviet Eurasia. But what I do see clearly is that the world seems to be forgetting the essence of IL norms. This unfortunate trend seems to stem from a persistent blurring of law and politics, and I’m not sure how much we can do to change it.
So, it was an interesting thoughts and thank you, Sarah, once again!:)