The London Conference on International Law is a biennial event dedicated to exploring the latest developments in international law and providing participants with the highest-level insights from leading experts in the field. The conference will explore the effectiveness and limitations of existing legal principles and the ability of international law to address contemporary and future challenges. It will examine the defining content of public international law as we understand it today, questioning whether recent international events have exposed fault lines or whether it remains adequate to address the issues at hand. The conference will also seek to challenge preconceptions and assess whether the reach of international law extends further than commonly believed.
Please note that the following programme is subject to change.
09.00 – 09.45
Registration, networking and exhibition viewing
09.45
Introductory Remarks
10:00
PLENARY 1: Global Rule of Law
The rule of law is not merely a means to other ends but a value in its own right — one of the pillars on which a just and lasting peace is built. That pillar is under visible strain. The commitments of the Charter and the Universal Declaration are openly contested; the institutions built to give them effect are defunded, ignored, or defied; and the guarantees we had come to take for granted are now in question even in mature democracies.
These are not the concerns of lawyers alone: legal certainty and impartial adjudication are the unseen infrastructure of prosperity, the conditions under which people invest, trade, and build. And the rule of law rests, too, on a shared world of facts; when the information space is flooded with disinformation and trust in it gives away, so does the ground beneath both international law and peace.
This opening plenary will ask what it now means for 'every individual and every organ of society' to defend the rule of law, at home and abroad. How is it to be protected when authoritarian government is resurgent and the very institutions built to uphold it are being starved of funds or openly defied? Are its domestic and international faces drifting apart, or are they, as they have always been, bound to stand or fall together? And what does this moment ask of international lawyers — of all of us — when the architecture on which peace, prosperity and human dignity rest can no longer be assumed?
Chair: Professor Can Yeğinsu, Barrister, 3VB; Deputy Chair of the High Level Panel of Legal Experts on Media Freedom
Speakers: Maria Ressa, Journalist, Nobel Peace Laureate
Tim Otty KC, Barrister, Blackstone Chambers, Member of the Venice Commission
11.00 – 11.30
Refreshments, networking and exhibition viewing
11.30 – 13.00
PARALLEL PANELS 1 - 4
The traditional law of statehood is increasingly under strain. Low-lying island states are at risk of severe or even existential territorial loss due to rising sea levels. Prolonged occupations and conflicts are disrupting effective territorial control in certain areas. Disputes over the recognition of governments and competing claims to governmental authority continue to challenge international affairs. Contemporary practice is putting the traditional assumptions underlying the criteria of territory, government, and external relations to the test.
This panel examines three such stress tests in particular.
First, climate change and sea-level rise raise the prospect of severe or even existential territorial loss, challenging the territorial dimension of statehood itself.
Second, war, occupation, and prolonged conflict disrupt effective territorial control, raising questions about the relationship between effectiveness and the continuity of legal personality.
Third, recognition disputes and competing claims to governmental authority expose the tension between the formal criteria of statehood and the political realities of recognition and non-recognition. Bringing these strands together, the panel asks whether the traditional framework of statehood remains sufficient to explain contemporary practice, or whether the law of statehood is already being reshaped by new forms of territorial loss, contested authority and disrupted control.
Chair: Sir Michael Wood KC, Barrister, Twenty Essex
Speakers: Laura Rees-Evans, Partner, Fietta Law
Samarth Patel, Assistant Legal Advisor, FCDO
Professor Milena Sterio, Joseph C Hostetler-BakerHostetler Professor of Law and & Director, LL.M. Programme and International Law Center, Cleveland State University College of Law
Professor Sir Michael Evans KMCG, OBE, Principal, Regent's Park College, Oxford
This panel explores the plurality of means through which international disputes are managed and resolved, including adjudication, arbitration, conciliation, negotiation, and other diplomatic processes. It examines how these mechanisms interact, complement or supplement one another, and at times, operate in parallel.
The discussion will consider how different aspects of a single dispute may be addressed through various settlement processes, raising questions about coordination, effectiveness, and institutional design; as well as the advantages and limitations of different dispute settlement methods, including of adjudication and conciliation.
Drawing on recent developments, the panel seeks to move beyond institution-specific perspectives and to reflect on the means of peaceful settlement and on how complex disputes may be addressed and settled in a pluralistic institutional environment.
Chair: Sir Christopher Greenwood, GBE, CMG, KC, Judge, International Court of Justice
Speakers: Chanaka Wickremasinghe , Legal Counsellor, FCDO
Joshua Kelly, Partner, Freshfields
Laurence Boisson de Chazournes, Arbitrator and Counsel, Matrix Chambers; Professor em., University of Geneva
Investor-State dispute settlement was conceived to take the politics out of investment disputes: to lift them out of inter-State diplomacy and resolve them, neutrally, before an arbitral tribunal. That design assumed a broadly cooperative international order. That order is giving way. Sanctions, economic security, decoupling, and open conflict have brought power politics back to the centre of the field, and with it a hard question: can a system built to depoliticize disputes hold its nerve when the disputes are themselves the products of geopolitics? This session maps the pressure points and asks whether ISDS can still carry the weight of the international rule of law.
Chair: Andrea Menaker, Partner, White & Case
Speaker Camilla Gamberini, Special Counsel, Withers
Andrea Bjorklund, Associate Dean of Graduate Studies, Full Professor and the L. Yves Fortier Chair in International Arbitration and International Commercial Law, McGill University
Professor Julian Arato, Professor of Law, University of Michigan
Professor Stephan Schill, Arbitrator, University of Amsterdam
This panel interrogates Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) at a moment when the rhetoric of a ‘multipolar’ world co-exists with deepening inequality, selective legality, and renewed imperial logics. It asks whether international law has genuinely fractured from its colonial past—or whether it is being re-deployed, once again, as a tool of discipline, exclusion, and strategic convenience.
Bringing together leading scholars and practitioners, the panel will reflect on possibilities for rethinking international law, including the adoption of decolonial methodologies, more inclusive approaches to global rule-making, and greater engagement with different legal systems.
Moving beyond critique as diagnosis, the panel challenges TWAIL to confront hard questions: whose power is being redistributed, whose agency is recognised, and whether Global South assertiveness is reshaping legal norms or merely navigating an unchanged hierarchy. The discussion probes amongst others the demands for reparations—for colonial legacies, environmental harm, conflict related violations, and economic injustice.
Chair: Professor Surabhi Ranganathan, Professor of International Law; Director of Postgraduate Education, University of Cambridge
Speakers: Dr Victor Kattan, Assistant Professor of Public International Law, University of Nottingham
Professor Ratna Kapur, Global Chair in Law and Professor of International Law, Queen Mary University London
Dr Parvathi Menon, Co-Director, Centre for the study of Colonialism, Empire and International Law, SOAS University of London
13.00
Lunch, networking and exhibition viewing
14.00 – 15.30
PARALLEL PANELS 5 - 8
Sea level rise presents one of the most profound legal and political challenges of the twenty-first century. As climate change accelerates coastal erosion and causes displacement of communities, fundamental questions arise regarding statehood, maritime boundaries, human rights and migration.
This panel brings together scholars and practitioners to discuss the evolving legal implications of sea level rise. By exploring existing legal frameworks and normative responses, the discussion will assess whether current international law is equipped to address the unprecedented challenges posed by sea level rise and identify pathways for addressing its effects.
Chair: to be announced shortly
Speakers: Professor Veronika Fikfak, Professor of Human Rights and International Law, University College London
Dr Nilüfer Oral, Director of the Centre for International Law, National University of Singapore
Conway Blake, Partner, Debevoise & Plimpton
Professor Jane McAdam AO, Scientia Professor of Law and Australian Research Council Laureate Fellow; Director, Evacuations Research Hub, Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law, UNSW Law & Justice
There has been much recent discussion about the need to reinforce respect for IHL; this panel will examine different perspectives, initiatives and approaches on promoting compliance with IHL obligations.
Chair: Paul Berman, Counsel for International Law, House of Lords
Speakers: Cordula Droege, Chief Legal Officer and Head of the Legal Division, ICRC
Emanuela-Chiara Gillard, Senior Research Fellow, Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict
International lawyers are representing clients under geopolitical, technological, and personal pressures as never before. What does it mean to practise international law in a world defined by volatility and velocity? How can lawyers advise on international law when the boundaries between law, policy and politics become ever fine?
This panel takes a grounded look at the lived realities of the Professoression, from personal risks to representing their clients, to the opportunities and challenges of using new technology, to the need to communicate law across diverse audiences and disciplines. And amidst all this, how to support our individual and collective wellbeing as a Professoression.
Chair: Paul McKell, Legal Director, FCDO
Speakers: Aarif Abraham, Barrister, Doughty Street Chambers
Daphne Hong, Solicitor General; Director-General - International Affairs Division, Attorney-General’s Chambers, Republic of Singapore
Daragh Murray, Reader in International Law and Human Rights, Queen Mary University of London
Joseph Klingler, Partner, Foley Hoag LLP
Geopolitical fragmentation, trade tensions, hostile and coercive tariff escalation, supply-chain disruptions and monopolisation, a proliferation of increasingly far-reaching and complex sanctions regimes, and international institutional paralysis have unsettled the assumptions that shaped international economic law for decades, testing the resilience and legitimacy of existing legal and institutional arrangements.
With particular attention to international trade law, economic sanctions, and the role of international development finance institutions, this panel examines the changing architecture of international economic governance and asks how we moved from the relative confidence of global multilateralism to the current moment of contestation and uncertainty; how major actors—including the United States, the European Union, the BRICs—are reshaping the terrain of international economic law; and what role international law and institutions play in this evolving landscape.
By bringing together voices from government, academia, international organizations, business, and civil society, the panel aims to foster an integrated forward-looking conversation about the ongoing reshaping of international economic governance—grounded in institutional realities, attentive to questions of power and distribution, and candid about the challenges facing both the multilateral system and enterprises navigating divergent regulatory and geopolitical pressures.
Chair: Jenny Bates, Heywood Fellow, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford
Speakers: Michael Strauss, General Counsel, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Ignacio Garcia Bercero, Senior Fellow, Bruegel
Jeremy Stewart, Senior Associate, Clifford Chance
Professor Jennifer Hillman, Co-Director, Center for Transnational Legal Studies, Georgetown University Law Center
15:30
Refreshments, networking and exhibition viewing
16:00
PLENARY 2: The State of International Law and its Institutions
International institutions assume, and require, a shared commitment to international law that is now under serious strain.
States are withholding financial contributions, imposing sanctions on institutional staff, and challenging the authority of bodies whose legitimacy they once accepted — while the diffusion of power across an increasingly multipolar world raises crucial structural questions for the functioning of these institutions, and for international law more generally.
Against this background, this plenary panel takes stock: what resilience do international law and its institutions retain, and what would it mean for the international legal order if the answer is less than we had assumed?
Chair: Sally Langrish, Legal Adviser & Director General Legal , FCDO
Speakers: Ana Cristina Rodriguez Pineda, Guatamalan Ambassador to the Netherlands in the Hague
Elinor Hammarskjold, UN Legal Counsel
Lord Guglielmo Verdirame KC, Barrister, Twenty Essex
17:00
Drinks Reception – for all delegates
QEII Conference Centre
20:00
Conference Dinner
The Great Hall, One Great George Street
After-Dinner Speaker:
Philippe Sands KC, Professor of Law, University College London; Visiting Professor of Law at Harvard; Barrister, 11KBW
08:30
Networking and exhibition viewing
09:00
PLENARY 3: International Law Confronting Environmental Degradation and Climate Change: A View from the International Bench
This plenary panel will offer the audience a chance to participate in a unique, moderated conversation between judges from the European Court of Human Rights and Inter-American Court of Human Rights, in which they reflect on the evolving role of international adjudication in addressing environmental degradation and climate change.
The panel will explore how these two courts are engaging with climate- and environment-related disputes. The discussion will highlight points of convergence and divergence in how courts conceptualize environmental harm, state responsibility, due diligence and the protection of present and future generations. The discussion will also challenge its panellists to assess what human rights courts can learn from each other and from other international courts and domestic courts grappling with these issues, both in advisory proceedings and in the contentious cases that are likely to follow.
By convening judges from two leading human rights courts that have opined on climate change in a single dialogue, the panel aims to offer a rare, reflective perspective on how international courts understand their role in an era of environmental transformation - and how international law itself may be shaped by judicial engagement with climate change in the years ahead
Chair: Elizabeth Wilmshurst CMG KC, Distinguished Fellow, International Law Programme, Chatham House
Speakers: Judge Hugh Mercer KC, Judge, European Court of Human Rights
Judge Diego Moreno Rodriguez, Judge, Inter-American Court of Human Rights
10:00
PLENARY 4: International Law and Technology: Adaptation and Accountability
The theme of this International Law and Tech panel discussion is 'Adaptation and Accountability', with a particular focus on cyber and AI. In this session, panellists will explore ways in which international law is keeping pace with technology, including through the agreement of treaties, standards, and policies, and the establishment of multilateral and multistakeholder processes for negotiation and dialogue. Panellists will also consider how to ensure that justice systems are relevant and robust in the new technological environment; the need for regulatory coherence over fragmentation; and issues of responsibility and remedy for harms caused by AI.
Chair: Professor Philippa Webb KC, Founder and Director, Oxford Institute for Technology and Justice; Twenty Essex
Speakers: Robert Spano, Partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP
Kaja Ciglic, Senior Director, Digital Diplomacy, Microsoft
Sir Geoffrey Vos, Master of the Rolls
Professor Yuval Shany, Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in Public International Law, Faculty of Law, Hebrew University, Jerusalem
11:00
Refreshments, networking and exhibition viewing
11:30 - 13:00
PARALLEL PANELS 9 – 12
Geopolitical changes over the last decade or so have seen a very significant proliferation in States’ willingness to assert national security concerns to justify actions which would otherwise conflict with their international commitments.
This panel examines the increasing securitisation of different policy areas (economic regulation, nationality law and migration, anti-terrorism measures), and the implications for legal doctrine, institutional competence, and judicial review. It focuses on how expanding and increasingly fluid conceptions of security are reshaping legal categories and decision-making across domestic, regional, and international legal orders. Bringing together doctrinal, comparative, and theoretical perspectives, the panel interrogates the extent to which these developments reflect a legitimate legal adaptation to contemporary security challenges or risk eroding legal certainty, accountability, and the authority of (international) law.
Chair: Tim Eicke KC, Barrister, Essex Court
Speakers: Dr Mona Paulsen, Assistant Professor of Law, London School of Economics
Ted Posner, Partner, Baker Botts LLP
Professor Elspeth Guild, University of Liverpool, School of Law and Social Justice
Frank Hoffmeister, Director, Head of Legal Department, European External Action Service (EEAS)
The past years have seen an increase the instances of cross-border military force, prompting in renewed debate about the relevance of the Charter regime centred around Art. 2(4).
Proceeding from recent conflicts, the panel will offer reflections on resilience and evolution of the Charter’s 'cornerstone rule’.
Chair: Professor Christian Tams, Professor of Public International Law; King's College London; President, European Society of International Law
Speakers: Professor Janina Dill , Professor of Global Security,Blavatnik School of Government of the University of Oxford
Professor Heike Krieger, Chair for International and Public Law, Freie Universität Berlin
Sir Daniel Bethlehem KCMG, KC, Barrister, Twenty Essex
The panel examines the relevance and importance of international human rights law (IHRL) in today’s contested and increasingly transactional global order, focusing on its role as a stabilising force that safeguards not only the interests of individuals but also of states and the international legal order more broadly.
The panel assesses whether international human rights law as we know it today is not only a values-based project constructed from the ashes of the Second World War, but, like international law as such, a pragmatic choice, critical to long-term international peace, security and stability. Rather than an obstacle to achieving these ends, the panel will ask whether international human rights law is essential to securing them.
Against a backdrop of geopolitical disruption, security threats, democratic backsliding, and economic inequality, the panel explores:
Chair: Yasmine Ahmed, Senior Director, Regional Human Rights Impact, Amnesty International
Speakers: Irina Schoulgin Nyoni, Sweden's Ambassador for Human Rights
Professor Katja Ziegler, Sir Robert Jennings Professor of International Law; Co-Director, CELI, University of Leicester
Silvain Aubrey, Head of Economic Justice, Human Rights Watch
Hina Shamsi, Lead of the National Security Team, ACLU
Geopolitical changes over the last decade or so have seen a very significant proliferation in States’ willingness to assert national security concerns to justify actions which would otherwise conflict with their international commitments.
This panel examines the increasing securitisation of different policy areas (economic regulation, nationality law and migration, anti-terrorism measures), and the implications for legal doctrine, institutional competence, and judicial review. It focuses on how expanding and increasingly fluid conceptions of security are reshaping legal categories and decision-making across domestic, regional, and international legal orders. Bringing together doctrinal, comparative, and theoretical perspectives, the panel interrogates the extent to which these developments reflect a legitimate legal adaptation to contemporary security challenges or risk eroding legal certainty, accountability, and the authority of (international) law.
Chair: Prof Antonios Tzanakopoulos, Professor of International Law University of Oxford Faculty of Law
Speakers: Professor Astrid Kjeldgaard Pedersen, Professor of International Law and Head of the Centre for Law and Security (CERES), Faculty of Law, University of Copenhagen
Eran Sthoeger, Attorney and Consultant in International Law; Lecturer, Columbia University
Professor Yas Banifatemi, Lawyer, Gaillard Banifatemi Shelbaya Disputes Professor, University of Paris
13:00
Lunch, networking and exhibition viewing
13:15 - 13:55
Careers in International Law Seminar
For students and young professionals exploring international law careers.
Join us for a fun and insightful lunchtime panel discussion that delves into the world of international law careers. Whether you are a law student, a practicing lawyer considering a shift to international law, or simply interested in the field, this panel will provide you with the knowledge and inspiration to navigate an international law career.
Chair: Rashmin Sagoo, International Lawyer and Writer
Speakers: Naomi Davey, Legal Director, FCDO
Sonia Sceats, CEO, British Institute of International and Comparative Law
Joanne Neenan, Director – Public International Law, Clifford Chance
14:00 - 15:30
PARALLEL PANELS 13 - 16
How do the courts of the United Kingdom engage with international law and what part do their decisions play in its development and application? When a court determines the content of a customary rule, the status of an unincorporated treaty or the scope of an immunity, its reasoning can travel well beyond the instant case, shaping how international law is understood and applied at home and, at times, abroad.
This panel examines that relationship through three areas in which it is especially visible: customary international law, unincorporated treaties, and the law of immunities. Drawing on perspectives from the bench, the Bar, the academy — and on recent cases — the session will consider how domestic courts identify and apply international rules, the weight they accord to the international obligations the United Kingdom has assumed, and the part their decisions play in the wider international legal order, at a time of significant change.
Chair: Doug Wilson, Treasury Solicitor, HM Procurator General and Permanent Secretary, Government Legal Department
Speakers: Lord David Lloyd-Jones, Justice, Supreme Court
Dr Cameron Miles, Barrister, 3 Verulam Buildings
Professor Devika Hovell, London School of Economics
Camille Boileau, Barrister, Essex Court Chambers
This panel will discuss specifically issues of coercion, intervention into domestic affairs and the concept of sanctions.
Chair: Catherine Holmes, Legal Director, FCDO
Speakers: Marko Milanovic, Professor of Public International Law University of Reading
Priya Urs, Junior Research Fellow, St John's College, Oxford
Lothar Ehring, Senior Expert, DG Trade, European Commission
Impunity for international crimes such as genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression remains a significant barrier to global justice, leading to many perpetrators evading prosecution. The presence of safe havens continues to pose a threat to international peace and security. The International Criminal Court (ICC) and national courts utilising universal jurisdiction are working to hold individuals accountable for these crimes, but they face challenges such as political interference, limited resources, and non-cooperation by states, contributing to a culture of impunity.
Several states have implemented legislative reforms to eliminate the requirement of citizenship or residence of the alleged perpetrator in order to prosecute individuals for grave international crimes using the principle of universal jurisdiction. This panel will specifically address the role of domestic courts in addressing the 'accountability gap', with a discussion of some recent cases in foreign jurisdictions, as well as the amendments which were recently proposed to the International Criminal Court (ICC) Act 2001 as part of the adoption of the Crime and Policing Act 2026 in the UK.
Chair: Baroness Helena Kennedy of The Shaws LT KC
Speakers: Sir Howard Morrison KCMG, CBE, KC, UK’s Advisor to the Ukrainian Prosecutor General
Dr Ewelina Ochab, Senior Programme Lawyer, International Bar Association's Human Rights Institute
Natalie von Wistinghausen, Specialist Lawyer for Criminal Law, NVW Law
Alice Lacourt, Legal Counsel, Commonwealth Secretariat
Power in the international system is no longer organized solely through states. Corporations, armed groups, NGOs, Indigenous communities, and other nonstate actors now exercise agenda-setting, standard-making, and enforcement capacities that shape outcomes across security, humanitarian action, climate governance, the global economy, and development.
These entities also make claims on the basis of international law and are increasingly regulated by international legal norms. This panel explores how international law is remade in a multi-actor world - how doctrine, institutions, and practice adapt to account for nonstate actors. It will clarify both the promise and the limits of international law in accounting for the changing power structures within the international community and draw lessons for the practice of international law.
Chair: Ahila Sornarajah, Legal Counsellor, Deputy Director, Agent to the European Court of Human Rights, Head of Europe, Human Rights, and Trade Team, FCDO
Speakers: Andrew Cannon, Partner, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer
Mustafa Qadri, Director, Equidem
Dr Klara Polackova Van der Ploeg, Associate Professor, Stetson University College of Law
Jelena Aparac, Independent Governance & International Law Advisor
15:30
Refreshments, networking and final exhibition viewing
15:45
PLENARY 5: PLENARY 5: In Conversation with the Attorney General of England and Wales the Rt Hon Lord Richard Hermer KC
Full details will be announced soon, please check back later.
16:30
Closing remarks
Sally Langrish, Legal Adviser & Director General Legal, FCDO
16:45
END OF London Conference on International Law 2026