A Just Empire?

Rome’s Legal Legacy and the Justification of War and Empire

in International Law

Commemorative Conference on Alberico Gentili (1552-1608)

New York University School of Law

March 13-15 2008

(Note: The program is provisional and remains subject to change. Speakers marked* are not yet

confirmed.)

Thursday:

Overview:

• Martti Koskenniemi (Helsinki/NYU): “Natural law between moral principle and raison

d'état:understanding the pre-history of international law”

Panel 1: Roman law and Roman imperialism in early modern international thought

• John Richardson (Edinburgh): “The meaning of imperium in the last century BC and the

• Clifford Ando (Chicago): “Studying the development of Roman doctrines on the laws of

• Benjamin Straumann (NYU): “The Corpus iuris civilis as a source of law between

Panel 2: Alberico Gentili’s De armis Romanis

• David Lupher (Puget Sound): “The model of Roman imperialism in De armis Romanis”

• Diego Panizza (Padua): “The argument of De armis Romanis”

Panel 3: Law, War and Empire in 16th and 17th century international theory

• Peter Schroeder (UCL): “Vitoria, Gentili, Grotius, and beyond: from universal bellum

• Martin van Gelderen (EUI): “The subject (civitas/respublica) of international thought in

• Partel Piirimae (Cambridge): “The impact of Gentili’s ideas on the 17th century”

• Chair: Annabel Brett (Cambridge)

Panel 4: Law, War and Empire in 16th and 17th century legal practice

• James Whitman (Yale): “Medieval battles and the law of war”

• Benedict Kingsbury (NYU): “Ius post bellum”

• Lauren Benton (NYU): “The many legalities of the sea in Gentili's Advocatio

Hispanica”

• Randall Lesaffer (Tilburg): “Confronting late 16th and early 17th centuries practice with

the Gentilian doctrine on self-defense and just war”

• Noah Feldman* (Harvard): “Just war and civil law”

• Commentator: John Witt (Columbia)

Saturday:

Panel 5: Law in 18th century European international political thought on war, commerce and

empire

• Petter Korkman (Helsinki): “Barbeyrac and the eighteenth century debate on human

rights and capitalism”

• Robert Howse (Michigan): “Montesquieu”

• Emmanuelle Jouannet (Paris I): “The disappearance of the concept of Empire in Vattel”

• Chair: Martti Koskenniemi (Helsinki/NYU)

• Commentator: Jennifer Pitts (Chicago)

Panel 6: Beyond Europe: Extra-European and Global Dimensions

• Anthony Pagden (UCLA): “Citizenship and sovereignty”

• David Golove (NYU) and Daniel Hulsebosch (NYU): “The status of the law of nations

in the early American republic”

• Liliana Obregón (Bogotá)

• Ileana Porras (Arizona State)

• Jeremy Waldron* (NYU): “The Jus Gentium”

• Karen Knop* (Toronto)

• Jose Alvarez* (Columbia)