Master Class with Professor Larry May on doing research at the interface of international law and philosophy

On Friday 28 August 2009, the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies (Leiden University), in cooperation with the Amsterdam Center for International Law (University of Amsterdam), the Faculty of Law's Department of the Philosophy of Law (Radboud University Nijmegen), and the Institute for Philosophy (Leiden University), will organize a Master Class on the challenges and opportunities of research at the interface of law and philosophy. The Master Class will provide interdisciplinary researchers a good opportunity to meet and share their views with colleagues. The location of the Master Class will be Campus The Hague, which is located at Lange Voorhout 44, The Hague.

Philosophers and Lawyers
In 1950, Hans Kelsen wrote in The Law of the United Nations that ‘[i]t is not superfluous to remind the lawyer that as a ‘jurist’ he is but a technician whose most important task is to assist the law-maker in the adequate formulation of the legal norms.’ One may wonder whether researchers of international law ought to restrict themselves to being just a ‘jurist.’ Are they not allowed to engage in ‘philosophizing’ as well? And, vice versa, one may wonder whether philosophers - and political scientists – may also act as jurists.
The Master Class
On Friday 28 August 2009, the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies (Leiden University) and the Institute for Philosophy (Leiden University), in cooperation with the Amsterdam Center for International Law (University of Amsterdam) and the Philosophy of Law Section of the Faculty of Law (Radboud University Nijmegen) will organize a Master Class on the challenges and opportunities of doing research at the interface of law and philosophy. The Master Class will provide interdisciplinary researchers a good opportunity to meet and share their views. The location of the Master Class will be Campus The Hague, which is located at Lange Voorhout 44, The Hague.
Professor Larry May
Special guest of the Master Class is Larry May, who is currently W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee (USA). Larry May is a philosopher who has worked on conceptual issues in collective and shared responsibility, as well as normative issues in international criminal law. He has also worked in professional ethics and the Just War tradition. Larry May has a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research (New York), where he was Hannah Arendt’s last research assistant. He also has a JD in law. His writings have won various awards, and have been translated into French, German, Italian, Serbian, Japanese, Chinese, and Korean. Professor May has also lectured extensively around the world. He is former president of the American section of the International Society for Philosophy of Law. In addition, he has occasionally taken a criminal appeals case, and has worked on several death penalty cases in the United States.  
General Outline of the Programme
The day will be chaired by Larissa van den Herik, who is Associate Professor of Public International Law at Leiden University, and editor-in-chief of the LeidenJournal of International Law. Her research interests include international criminal law and the law on peace and security. The Master Class will consist of three parts.
Part I
Professor Larry May will tell the participants the story of his Werdegang. He will focus on the dilemmas that one faces when combining international law with philosophy. Since Professor May has extensive experience in both academia and practice, he will also speak about the oftentimes perilous relationship between theory and practice.
Larry May will be introduced by Pauline Kleingeld, who is Chair of Practical Philosophy and its History from Early Modern Times at Leiden Univerisy’s Institute for Philosophy. Professor Kleingeld’s academic interests are in Kant’s and Kantian philosophy, as well as in practical rationality, and cosmopolitanism.
Part II
Second, Professor Larry May will present a paper, to which a number of experts and the public may respond. The invited discussants are:
  • Thomas Mertens is Professor of Philosophy of Law at Radboud University Nijmegen. He is also Professor of Human Rights and Human Responsibilities at the Institute for Philosophy of Leiden University. In his research, Professor Mertens focuses on the relation between morality and the law, primarily from a Kantian perspective both in its systematic and its applied aspects. He also works on the questions of war and peace and seeks to determine our global responsibilities in this regard. 
  • Wouter Werner is Professor of Public International Law at VU University, Amsterdam. His main fields of interest are international legal theory, the interplay between international law and international politics and the international legal regime on the use of force. He has initiated an interdisciplinary research group on critical approaches to international relations and international law, which brings together scholars from international relations, military studies, legal philosophy and international law. 
  • Harmen van der Wilt is Professor of International Criminal Law at the University of Amsterdam. His research interests include concepts of criminal responsibility in international criminal law, harmonization of criminal law in Europe, and legal reactions to terrorism.
Part III
The third part of the programme consists of the actual Master Class, in which a restricted number of PhD students have the opportunity to discuss their work with Professor Larry May and the other participants.  
The Programme
11.00 - 11.15 Arrival with coffee and tea
11.15 - 11.30 Introduction
  • Pauline Kleingeld, Chair of Practical Philosophy and its History from Early Modern Times at Leiden University.
11.30 - 12.00 Lecture
  • Larry May, W. Alton Jones Professor of Philosophy and Professor of Law at Vanderbilt University, in Nashville, Tennessee (USA).
12.00 - 13.00 Lunch  
13.00 - 14.00 Paper presentation and discussion
  • Larry May
  • Wouter Werner (VU University, Amsterdam)
  • Harmen van der Wilt (University of Amsterdam)
  • Thomas Mertens (Leiden University/Radboud University Nijmegen; to be confirmed)
14.15 – 14.30 Coffee Break
14.30 – 16.00  Master Class
  • Opportunity for PhD Students and postdocs to present their research to Professor Larry May and their colleagues, and receive feedback.
  • General discussion
 
More Information and Registration
The Master Class is organized by Wout Cornelissen (Institute of Philosophy, Leiden University), David Moszkowicz (Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam), and Otto Spijkers (Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies, Leiden University).
For more information and to register, please send an email to Otto Spijkers (o.spijkers@law.leidenuniv.nl).  The deadline is 15 August 2009. As mentioned above, if you are a PhD Candidate and you wish to give a brief presentation of your research, please send us, when you register, a brief introduction of your research and a short CV.