32nd ANZSIL Annual Conference | International Law: Silence, Forgetting and Remembrance

International law can often seem relentlessly caught in the present: focussed on immediate crises and treating current priorities as inevitable or common-sense. It can also, driven by its own logic and language, rule certain subject matters or experiences ‘out of bounds’ as being irrelevant or non-legal.

What is unknown to, or excluded from, international law? What doctrinal fields, subject matters, actors and objects, and approaches are we at risk of forgetting or ‘un-knowing’? Once, universal disarmament, or at least arms limitation, was seen as a core goal of international law. Now, in a period of major international conflicts such goals once again appear to have a contemporary flavour and relevance. What can other forgotten or neglected histories of international law teach us about our present circumstances?  What do we most need to remember?

On the question of silence we may ask: Who is given a voice in international law? What subjects are marginalised as irrelevant by international law? Why are some subjects easier to speak about than others? Papers could explore the perception of the Global South finding its voice in international courts and tribunals in matters ranging from climate change to the Genocide Convention, the involvement of international courts in ongoing conflicts, and the continued failure of international law to give adequate protection to the natural environment in the Anthropocene.