International Organizations and International Law
Mission Statement
Thematically, the section focusses on the interface between "International Organizations and International Law" and aims to highlight selected studies on international organizations, regionalism, world order, and issues of global governance and justice. It seeks to stimulate academic reflections on the research agenda and methods in the respective fields and to solicit contributions from members of the broader society, especially practitioners and experts.
The section "International Organizations and International Law" brings together PhD candidates and postdocs from the social sciences and law, and aims to promote new partnerships, academic exchange, and science communication with the general public through workshops, guest lectures, and panel discussions. The section organizes colloquia where its members present their ongoing research. The section is open to social, legal and political science perspectives; economic research approaches also enrich our discussions. Possible exemplary perspectives for the section's research approaches include international institutions, socio-legal approaches, comparative political science, and civil society research.
Individual researchers working in related areas at academic and non-academic research institutions can apply for membership. For this, contact the Section management team.
The Section ‘International Organizations and International Law’ endeavours to cooperate closely with the Section ‘Norms and Change in World Politics’.
Current and Upcoming Events
Call for Abstracts: International Organisations and Borders: Authority, Mobility, and Order in a Fragmenting World
📅 Date: November 12 – 13, 2026📍 Location: Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany📄 Format: Workshop & Panel Discussion
📝 Submission Deadline: June 30, 2026📩 Notification of Acceptance: July 15, 2026
This year’s GAWIO took place on October 29, 2025: The central themes this year were global power shifts, institutional adjustments, and the rise of authoritarian intergovernmental organizations. While much of the debate to date has focused on conflicts within the liberal order, our workshop aimed to broaden this perspective by incorporating a wider range of analytical viewpoints and empirical contexts.
In addition to eight engaging presentations by early-career scholars and established researchers from Germany and other countries, we had the honor of hearing Hendrik Simon deliver a keynote address on his book “A Century of Anarchy.”
We would like to extend our heartfelt thanks to Andreas Kruck, Janne Mende, Hendrik Simon, and Andrea Gawrich for their insightful comments, as well as to all participants for their contributions. Your engagement greatly enriched our discussions!
Many thanks also to Lidiia Shumska for her help in preparing and conducting the workshop.
Current research projects
- "The boundaries of EU's resilience policy vis-à-vis the domestic actors in Eastern neighborhood: case study of oligarchy in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine" (Denis Cenusa)
- "Labor policies in the post-Soviet space - a comparison of Georgia and Moldova" (Annemarie Ickler)
- "Resource Dependent Joint Programs: The European Union and Council of Europe in the Eastern Partnership and Western Balkans" (Fabian Schoeppner)
- "The Conceptual Limits of the Concept of Competition in the Context of International Relations: Definitions of Terms" (Fadi Bezkadi)
- "Civil Society within Authoritarian Regimes: Cases of Russia and Turkey" (Murad Nasibov)
- "Civil society under authoritarian rule" (Simon Rothers)
- "Cultural Cooperation in a Globalized World: The European Union and Mexico - studying EU Cultural Foreign Policy in Latin America" (Edith Ruvalcaba Galindo)
- "Non-democratic regionalism in International Relations: About the transformative impact of an emergent global actor" (Finn Freund)