Bonavero Discussion Group: Book Launch: Latin American International Law in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 2024)
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This is event is being co-organised by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and the Oxford Public International Law Research Group.
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About
Latin America has been a pivotal site for influential and innovative developments in international law since the colonial era. Throughout much of the twentieth century, Latin American politics were entangled with the political and economic interests of the United States. Today, as the global order shifts, scholars and legal practitioners are grappling with the current restructuring and potential transformation of international relations—and what this means for international law in the region. This collection of essays brings together a group of highly regarded scholars to present a broad survey of Latin America’s approaches and contributions, historically and presently, to the field of international law. Comprehensive, diverse, and multidisciplinary, the book covers recent developments in environmental regulation, internet regulation, Indigenous rights, LGBTIQ rights, and public health, among others. It also considers more traditional themes, such as law and development, the doctrine of non-intervention, human rights, and jurisdictional disputes in the Spanish colonies. A timely publication covering an ever-evolving region, Latin American International Law in the Twenty-First Century explores the role of Latin American politics on the world stage. Theories, perspectives, and methods of international law are expertly interwoven with those of sociology, political science, anthropology, philosophy, history, and economics to present a dynamic and multifaceted work of scholarship.
This roundtable will feature presentations by volume co-editors and chapter contributors.
Discussants
Alejandro Chehtman is Dean and Professor of Law at Torcuato Di Tella Law School, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He teaches and writes in the field of Public International Law, International Criminal Law, International Humanitarian Law, Transitional Justice and Constitutional Law, with special interest in philosophical and empirical issues. Alejandro is the author of The Philosophical Foundations of Extraterritorial Punishment, and co-editor of Latin American International Law in the 21st Century (with Sergio Puig and Alexandra Huneeus), both published by Oxford University Press. He has published in leading journals including the European Journal of International Law, Harvard International Law Journal, Legal Theory, and the Journal of International Criminal Justice, among many others. He is currently working on a book project on a Theory of Asymmetrical Warfare, to be published by Oxford University Press in 2026.
Sergio Puig de la Parra holds the joint Chair in International Economic Law at the European University Institute (EUI), where he is affiliated with both the Law Department and the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies. Since March 2025, he has also served as the Director of the Max Weber Programme at EUI. Puig specializes in international economic law, with a focus on investment and trade law, business and human rights, and empirical legal methods. Prof. Puig has contributed extensively to leading journals and has co-edited the Journal of International Economic Law since 2020. His book, At the Margins of Globalization: Indigenous Peoples and International Economic Law, examines the intersection of Indigenous rights and international economic law. In his most recent book is Latin American International Law in the Twenty-First Century (co-edited with Chehtman and Huneeus)
Louise Fawcett is Professor of International Relations and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. She is also a director of the Oxford Martin School Programme ‘Changing Global Order’.
Ezequiel Gonzalez-Ocantos is Professor of Comparative and Judicial Politics in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford, and Professorial Fellow of Nuffield College. His most recent book is Prosecutors, Voters, and the Criminalisation of Corruption in Latin America (Cambridge University Press).
Chair
Başak Çalı is head of research at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and Professor of International Law. Previously, she was professor of international law and founding director of the Centre for Fundamental Rights at the Hertie School, Berlin. She holds a permanent visiting professorship from the I-Courts Centre for Excellence at the University of Copenhagen and is a fellow the University of Essex Human Rights Centre and the Hertie School. She has held visiting professorships in Ankara, Oslo, Paris, and Natolin and serves on the board of a number of journals.
Her expertise concerns international law and human rights. She has published widely in the fields of authority of international law, standards of review in international law, the relationship between international law and domestic law, European human rights law, UN human rights law and comparative international human rights law. She has pioneered the study of bad faith violations of human rights law (Wisconsin International Law Journal, 2018), and is the author of 'Authority of International Law: Obedience, Respect and Rebuttal' (OUP 2015), editor of International Law for International Relations (OUP, 2010), co- editor of Legalisation of Human Rights: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Human Rights and Human Rights Law (Routledge 2006), Migration and the European Convention on Human Rights (OUP, 2021) and Secondary Rules of Primary Importance: Standards of Review, Causality, Evidence and Attribution before International Courts and Tribunals (OUP, 2022).
She is the principle investigator of ‘Deep Impact through Soft Jurisprudence? The Contribution of United Nations Treaty Body Case Law to the Development of International Human Rights Law’ (German Science Council 2023-2026) and co-investigator of ‘Frames: Framing Reality and Normativity in European Human Rights Law: Climate Change, Migration, and Authoritarianism (Volkswagen Foundation 2023-2025).
As a legal practitioner, Başak is a co-founder of the European Implementation Network, Europe’s leading civil society organization that advocates for the full and effective implementation of human rights judgments. She has acted as an expert on the European Convention on Human Rights since 2002 and has trained judges, prosecutors, lawyers and police officers in the implementation of the European Convention on Human Rights across the Council of Europe. She has acted as a legal representative or advisor in cases before the European Court of Human Rights.
