Russian Approaches to International Law

16:30 – 17:00 Registration
17:00 – 18:45 Russian Approaches to International Law

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkboSGR1YQw[/youtube]

• Lauri Mälksoo, Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu and Director of the Estonian Foreign Policy Institute
• Discussant: Maria Issaeva, Maria Issaeva, Managing Partner, Threefold Legal Advisors LLC, Moscow
• Moderator: Veronika Bílková, Coordinator of the Centre for International Law of the Institute of International Relations

The following issues were discussed in Professor Mälksoo's talk:

• Does contemporary Russia have a specific understanding of international law, and if so, how has this understanding evolved historically?
• Can Russia's concept of international law mainly be explained by Russia's claims to Great Power status, or are there further cultural and 'civilizational' forces that are to be taken into account in this case?
• What is the relationship between international legal scholarship and state practice in Russia?
• What features have been characteristic of the post-Soviet Russian practice of international law in the context of jus ad bellum, human rights law and international economic law?

You can download the invitation here.

About the speakers

Lauri Mälksoo, the Director of the Institute of Constitutional and European Law at the University of Tartu, has been Professor of International Law at the University of Tartu since 2009. He was elected the director of the new Institute of Constitutional and International Law at the faculty in 2010. He has published widely on the history and theory of international law and Russian approaches to international law. Since 2009, his work has been supported by a grant awarded by the European Research Council to study the contemporary Russian understanding of international law and human rights. Since 2008, he has been a member of the executive board of the European Society of International Law and was the organizer of ESIL’s 4th Research Forum, which took place in May 2011 in Tallinn, Estonia (see www.uttv.ee, inserting the keyword ‘ESIL’ to access its video recordings). He is the program director of the Martens Summer School of International Law at the University of Tartu and also the Law Faculty’s representative in the university’s interdisciplinary centre CEURUS (Centre for EU-Russia Studies). His research interests lie primarily in the field of history and theory of international law (including human rights law) and comparative international law (especially the concept of international law and human rights in Russia and Asia).

Maria Issaeva advises on a broad range of subjects pertaining to the European Convention of Human Rights and other issues of public international law. Her professional experience includes holding the position of senior lawyer at the Registry of the European Court of Human Rights, serving an associate in finance and litigation practice at White & Case, and managing an independent business project and a company advising on a wide range of legal issues in the area of business & human rights and public international law. Maria has also administered the Russian section of one of the world's largest legal education projects. Furthermore, since 2007, Maria has held the position of the Russian National Administrator for the Jessup Competition, one of the world's oldest and largest international moot court competitions. In 2009, she received the Outstanding National Administrator Award from ILSA, the worldwide organiser of the Competition. Maria is the author of several publications on the issues of individual protection before international judicial bodies, exhaustion of domestic remedies before the European Court of Human Rights, enforcement of ECtHR judgments, and legal education projects.