Colloquium: ‘Thinking Gender, History and International Law’

Panel I: History-writing: Feminist Methodologies and Feminist Methods

These three papers reimagine international law’s methodologies and historiography through feminist perspectives. They expose how dominant legal histories marginalize women, racialized groups, and non-Western traditions, advocating for intersectional, decolonial, and plural feminist approaches to recover silenced voices and challenge entrenched power structures in legal scholarship.

• Maria Drakopoulou: Clio's International Travels: an excursus. (University of Kent, School of Law)
• Solange Mouthaan: “Finding our foremothers: stories of colonial racialisation through the burial record of the European cemetery in Peneleh, Surabaya” (University of Warwick, School of Law)
• Paula Balmaceda & Gina Heathcote: “Plural Feminisms, Archive and Epistemologies of IL” (Newcastle University, School of Law)

Discussant: Laura Lammasniemi

Chair: Paola Zichi

Panel II: Decolonial Legal History and Gender Justice

This panel critiques the Eurocentric roots of international law by highlighting gendered and anti-colonial perspectives from China, Latin America, and the Middle East, challenging Western narratives, recovering marginalized voices, and advocating for a decolonized legal historiography that centers local agency and gender justice in global legal orders.

• Ningning Liu: "Negotiating Women’s Rights to Political Participation: Western Ideals, Confucianism, and Feminist Struggles in Semi-Colonial China (1840-1920)” (Queen’s University Belfast, School of Law)
• Dina Haddad: “Women’s Rights and International Law in the Middle East: Temporality, Coloniality, and Development” (Centre d’Histoire et Anthropologie du Droit, Paris 10 Nanterre)

Discussant: Michelle Burgis-Kasthala

Chair: Serena Natile

Panel III: Gendered Orders and Global Governance

This panel examines how international law and governance are shaped by gendered, colonial, and economic forces. Through feminist analysis of historical and contemporary struggles—from interwar activism to 1970s legal imaginaries and Nordic state feminism—it explores collective efforts to challenge structural inequality and promote substantive gender justice.

• Paola Zichi: “Rethinking Emancipation: Relational Solidarity, Voluntary Servitude, and Feminist Contestations of League of Nations Governance” (University of Warwick, School of Law)
• Miriam Bak McKenna: “Beyond Formal Equality: Nordic Welfare Feminism at the UN 1945-1975” (Roskilde University, Department of Social Sciences and Business)
• Claerwen O-Hara: “Feminism, International Law and the Global Economy: Sketches of Alternative Legal Imaginaries from the 1970s” (The University of Melbourne, School of Law)

Discussant: Serena Natile

Chair: Christine Schwöbel-Patel

Panel IV: Feminist Visions of Justice: Between Movements and Institutions

This panel explores how feminist movements have shaped international institutions since the 1970s, focusing on CEDAW, reproductive justice in Europe, and postcolonial trauma. It critiques persistent biases in legal systems, examines the paradoxes of institutional power, and calls for intersectional, decolonial approaches to advance transformative gender justice.

• Saadiya Alam: “The Historiography of the 1990s and the Impact of this on the CEDAW Committee” (Birkbeck Law School)
• Chaar-Lee Lewis: “Recognising the Necessity of Acknowledging Intergenerational Trauma in International Human Rights Instruments: A Case Study on Femicide in Jamaica” (University of Leicester)
• Selin Altay: “Bringing Reproductive Justice to the Judgements of ECtHR through Polymorphous Queer Biokinships” (Ruhr-University Bochum, Institute for International Law of Peace and Armed Conflict)

Discussant: Loveday Hodson

Chair: Aisel Omarova

Panel V: Historical and Contemporary Challenges to Children’s Rights

The panel examines how international child rights frameworks have evolved amid shifting economic and political forces. Talks trace the ILO’s changing child labour strategies, critique persistent inequities in the ICESCR and the ICCPR, and address Russia’s abduction of Ukrainian children, highlighting the ongoing tension between legal protections and global politics.

• Ludovica Aricò: “The International Action Against Child Labour: a Mirror of the Evolving International Dynamics” (Università degli Studi di Padova)
• Aisel Omarova: “Children’s Rights to Life, Protection, and Consent in the ICESCR and the ICCPR: Evolution of the Drafting Process” (University of Warwick, School of Law; Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University)
• Natalia Krestvoska: “Returning Ukraine’s Children: Can Mediation Help?” (National University ‘Odesa Maritime Academy’)

Discussant: Naomi Lott

Chair: Daniel Lowe

Panel VI: Gendered Harm, Structural Violence and Feminist Tribunals

This panel explores the intersections of gender, governance, and violence in global contexts—from Gaza’s gendered governance under genocide, to the evolution of feminist tribunals as strategies against patriarchal law, to the overlooked experiences of male victims of sexual violence in Rwanda—offering critical feminist perspectives on law, testimony, and gendered harm.

• Nivedita Joon: “In the Courts of Women: Feminist Tribunals, Gender Experts and the Making of the International Women’s Movement (1976-1995)” (Geneva Graduate Institute, International History and Politics department)
• Anna Goppsill: “Interpreting sexual violence and masculinity in the tribunal space: Male victims of sexual violence at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda” (University of London, School of Advanced Study)
• Michelle Burgis-Kasthala and Matilde Placci: “Out of the Frying Pan and into the Fire: The Collapse of Gender Governance in Gaza” (University of Edinburgh, Law School)

Discussant: Christine Schwöbel-Patel

Chair: Marina Veličković

Keynote: Parvathi Menon and Leila Ullrich

Concluding Remarks