Transnational litigation networks are groups of public and private actors where participants act through legal submissions and pleadings before international fora, with the aim to pressure states to ensure justice. History shows that transnational litigation networks rise with the need for cross-border political and social mobilization against certain policies of states, while cross-border interaction between actors of the same interest strengthen the potential legal and political pressure. The workshop aims to conceptualise the contextual preconditions, namely the legal, historic, social, and political origins of transnational litigation networks by speakers of different disciplinary background. It does so in two panels. The first panel theorizes the rise of international lawyers’ professional and litigation networks as a historic phenomenon of the interwar period, while the second focuses on contemporary transnational litigation networks before the European Court of Human Rights and beyond.
PROGRAM:
2:00 - 3:30 PM
Panel 1: Interwar history of international lawyers’ professional and litigation networks
Chair:
Prof Ivan Ermakoff (University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA)
Speakers:
Dr. Karin van Leeuwen (University of Maastricht, Faculty of arts and Social Sciences, The Netherlands), Organizing legal internationalism: the Institut de droit international, the International Law Association and the League of Nations, 1919–1939 (online)
Dr Michel Erpelding (University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg), ‘Mixed’ Lawyers as Agents and Proponents of Transnational Litigation in the Interwar Period (online)
Dr Antal Berkes (University of Liverpool, UK / IAS CEU, Hungary), Transnational Litigation Networks before the Permanent Court of International Justice
4:00 - 6:00 PM
Panel 2: Transnational litigation networks before the European Court of Human Rights and beyond
Chair:
Mariam Begadze (CEU / CEU DI, Hungary)
Speakers:
Prof Kanstantsin Dzehtsiarou (University of Liverpool, UK), Third Party Interventions in the European Court of Human Rights and Strategic Response by the Member States
Dr Barbara Grabowska-Moroz (CEU DI, Hungary), Role of the civil society organizations in litigating the rule of law backsliding in Strasbourg
Dr Eszter Polgári (CEU DI / Háttér Society, Hungary), Joining forces in LGBTQI cases before the European Court of Human Rights
Dr Dorjana Bojanovska Popovska (CEU DI, Hungary), The invisible middle-man: The role of transnational conservative networks in the process of reversed secularization
Workshop convener:
Dr Antal Berkes
Junior Core Fellow, Institute for Advanced Study, CEU
Senior Lecturer in Law, Liverpool University
Image source: Creative image 1329183101, available at https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1329183101/photo/global-communication-network.jpg?s=612x612&w=0&k=20&c=UHNXRe2Na7RjX5kVSi2P02-IreCCL3TzcM25nCfz9D8= (visited on 5 March 2024)
