We have compiled a list of upcoming conferences related to the fields of ethics and international affairs. We hope you find something that interests you!
Political Science Association (PSA) 66th Annual International Conference: Politics and the Good Life
Date: March 21-23, 2016
Location: Brighton, UK
Ever since thought was directed towards and attached itself to politics, the question of The Good Life has been a fundamental one. The ancient Athenians recorded their musings on politics, ethics and knowledge, and they developed both a descriptive and an evaluative vocabulary in order to assess different political forms of organisation. Most famously, Plato sought to align The Good with justice. This year’s PSA conference sets out to re-examine the notion of The Good afresh, and to consider its relevance and resonance to politics in the early twenty-first century.
The Asian Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy: "Justice"
Date: March 31 - April 3, 2016
Location: Kobe, Japan
Justice is one of, if not the most challenging, controversial and complex but also universal concepts at the root of all philosophical, ethical and religious discourse. How do theories of justice relate to the modern world? If a war crime is committed, how is the issue of justice to be handled? What would constitute “justice” in the commercial sphere? How can the notion of distributive justice be applied? Is the idea of justice as fairness itself not merely a tautology that avoids the question altogether?
Transitional Justice and Alternative Mechanisms for Peace
Date: April 8-9, 2016
Location: Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Studies, South Africa
In the aftermath of conflict, states sometimes resort to methods of ‘transitional justice’ to deal with the legacy of widespread human rights abuses. Some of these measures, such as South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), are non-judicial in nature, focusing on uncovering the truth concerning atrocities and fostering reconciliation in broken communities. South Africa’s TRC is generally hailed as a success. But its critics have objected to, amongst other things, the conditions for granting amnesties, the failure of perpetrators to show remorse, and a failure to offer victims a genuine opportunity to speak about their experiences. These concerns generalize to others forms of non-judicial mechanisms for peace. More generally, transitional justice concerns, amongst other things, punishment, collective responsibility, reparations, and forgiveness. While lawyers, policy-makers, and criminologists have done a substantial amount of work on these topics, philosophers have published comparatively little. This conference will explore theoretical approaches to these issues in philosophy and political theory.
23rd International Conference of Europeanists: Resilient Europe?
Date: April 14-16, 2016
Location: Philadelphia, PA
Since the financial crisis began in 2008, stresses and shocks of various sorts have posed dilemmas that challenge Europe’s resilience in economic, political, and cultural domains. How will European economies confront slow growth and austerity, as well as the atrophy of “social Europe” and the growth of inequality? How will demographic decline combined with immigration and assimilation affect the ethnic composition of Europe? Will the protracted Eurozone crisis and waning public support for European institutions and policies alter the viability of the European project? How will secular Europe confront the challenges of religious mobilization? How will European democracies confront the rise of nationalist parties and the valorization of “illiberalism” as viable political practice? Can Europe remain a “Normative Power,” a force for liberalism, democracy and the rule of law in the world, in the face of rising powers and resurgent authoritarianism?
Everyday Humanitarianism: Ethics, Affects and Practices
Date: April 14-15, 2016
Location: London School of Economics and Political Science, London, United Kingdom
In this ‘post-humanitarian’ age, solidarity is driven by converging logics of consumption and utilitarianism where doing good for others is about mundane micro-practices that aim at personal gratification, such as the click of the mouse or an e-signature. At the same time, moral universals and political questions of justice and equality may fade into the background or become treated as irrelevant. What are the everyday discourses and practices of humanitarianism today, its affects and their consequences? We are convening this international conference to explore this everyday humanitarianism and its ethics, affects, and practices by engaging new and ongoing scholarship in a number of fields (for example, studies of humanitarian interventions, disaster relief, charity, remittances, philanthropy, development aid, communications, and CSR).
Date: April 15-16, 2016
Location: School of Public & International Affairs, Virginia International University, Fairfax, VA
The conference will focus on power shifts in politics which can be causes or outcomes of conflict and emergencies and explore the global response to regional and international conflicts and emergencies. From the Middle East to the Far East, Europe to Africa, conflicts and emergencies deeply affect politics and policies. While xenophobia is on the rise in the West, Europe is facing an influx of new refugees, which causes further policy shifts in Europe. What are the major driving forces causing power shifts in politics? What are the responses to the refugee crisis? Do “humanitarian interventions” turns into catastrophes? Within this context, the CPCD’s goal is analyzing recent trends, identifying emerging approaches, and proposing new solutions.
Avoiding Catastrophe: Linking Armed Conflict, Harm to Ecosystems, and Public Health
Date: May 4-6, 2016
Location: Montreal, QC, Canada
Gathering experts from the medical, epidemiological, veterinary, conflict management, biodiversity conservation, climate change and political science communities, this conference will pursue an integrated understanding of the catastrophic combination of prolonged armed conflict, environmental alterations such as biodiversity loss, and challenges to the provision of public health, including emergent infectious diseases, nutrition, and mental health issues.
HR NYC Conference 2016: Human Rights in an Age of Ambiguity
Date: June 13-15, 2016
Location: Fordham University, New York City, NY
The global political, economic, normative, structural and ideational landscape has undergone significant change in recent decades, with no signs of abating. There are new – or newly important – players, both state and non-state-based, which affect global political power asymmetries and inject competing ideas, interests, and priorities into the global political scene. New and evolving institutions and authority structures raise deep and profound questions about global (and regional and national) governance. These questions lead to an ambiguous global situation as norms, institutions and power structures are called into question and challenged on multiple levels. This combination of new players, political power asymmetries, institutions, along with deep material challenges to the contemporary global order, raises profound questions about the future of human rights norms and institutions, as well as the actual enjoyment of human rights across the globe.
Date: June 13-15, 2016
Location: Thessaloniki, Greece
This conference will critically examine key dimensions of two competing trends in contemporary life: on the one hand, the movement across borders of people, goods, services and information and, on the other hand, the reassertion of national, ethnic, racial and religious boundaries within national societies. The tensions between these two competing trends raise fundamental questions about the adequacy of existing explanatory frameworks and policy prescriptions in addressing the challenges posed to world order in a whole set of issue areas that include migration, forced displacement, inclusive governance, identity formation, human protection and accountability. Ongoing global debates on how to address these challenges range between calls for rethinking the moral relevance of borders and the hardening of social boundaries within national societies, and calls for the securitization of policy prescriptions so as to ensure sharper distinctions between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders.’
Date: June 15-18, 2016
Location: University of Trento, Trento, Italy
While significant sacrifices of sovereignty are requested of Euro-zone member states in terms of their budgetary decisions (and procedures), their mid-term macroeconomic objectives and their planned structural reforms, in foreign and security matters member states cling to, and possibly even claim back, shares of Westphalian sovereignty. Can these two opposed lines of development proceed any further without causing significant tensions and stress in the entire EU edifice? Can two equally significant aspects of state sovereignty and liberal democracy – the domestic and the foreign – be governed by such disparate institutional arrangements? Will the Union eventually recompose these two spheres or will they be driven further and further apart by dynamics that differentiate it into core and peripheral circles? And can internal regulatory and structural policies alone hold the European project together?
The International Law of Military Operations: Mapping the Field
Date: June 21-23, 2016
Location: Exeter, UK
Military deployments in the territory of other States are subject to a diverse range of rules under international law. In recent years, it has become increasingly common to refer to these rules as ‘operations law’ or the ‘international law of military operations’. Despite the growing popularity of the term, its meaning and utility remain uncertain. The conference will map the field by focusing on the scope and concept of operations law, its current challenges and future training needs. The event will offer a unique opportunity for legal advisors and others working in the area to engage with world-leading experts from the UK and abroad to debate some of the most pressing legal challenges facing military operations.
CEEISA-ISA 2016 Joint International Conference: The Politics of International Relations
Date: June 23-25, 2016
Location: University of Ljubljana, Ljubljana, Slovenia
As a field of study and as a discipline, international relations has traditionally been defined by contrasting it to domestic politics. Of course, the challenges to the “inside/outside-divide” at the heart of this definition are legion and helped to establish the degree to which the divide persists as an integral part of international relations as a discipline. Students of interdependence and globalization have discussed to what extent traditional notions of state sovereignty and autonomy have been challenged. Research on governance beyond the nation state or multi-level governance has explored the potential for authoritative rule-making to overcome collective action problems in issue areas as diverse as monetary politics, the environment and the nonproliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction.
ISA Asia-Pacific Conference 2016
Date: June 25-27, 2016
Location: City University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China
The rise to political and economic prominence of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and India, along with other members of the BRICS, has constituted a powerful challenge to the dominance of Western powers and ideas in world politics. However, both Asian superpowers - like Japan and the East Asian ‘Tiger’ economies before them - have as yet been unable to re-shape International Relations (IR) theory and practice. The rise of Asia more generally has led to a proliferation of national schools of IR (such as the Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Indian) which have attempted to challenge the hegemony of Western ideas and theories in the discipline yet have left the traditional ontology of IR intact. This conference will investigate the ways in which IR (as both practice and theory) is being transformed in the Asia-Pacific.
The European Conference on Ethics, Religion & Philosophy: "Justice"
Date: July 4-6, 2016 (Abstract submission deadline: May 1, 2016)
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom
Justice is one of, if not the most challenging, controversial and complex but also universal concepts at the root of all philosophical, ethical and religious discourse. How do theories of justice relate to the modern world? If a war crime is committed, how is the issue of justice to be handled? What would constitute “justice” in the commercial sphere? How can the notion of distributive justice be applied? Is the idea of justice as fairness itself not merely a tautology that avoids the question altogether?
24th World Congress of Political Science: Politics in a World of Inequality
Date: July 23-28, 2016
Location: TBD
Both recognition issues and inequalities have become central to today’s politics. Regional, religious, cultural and other identities have been mobilised and demand political recognition and inclusion. At the same time, increased reliance on markets and indeed the very creation of global markets has made it harder to address North/South issues or for national polities effectively to address inequality. The 2016 IPSA World Congress will be a timely occasion on which to refocus the attention of political scientists on issues of redistribution and recognition in all their complexity. It is an opportunity to once again demonstrate the relevance of political science to political practice.
Harvard Project for Asian and International Relations (HPAIR) 2016 Asia Conference: "Empower."
Date: August 19-23, 2016
Location: Hong Kong, China
Challenges of our time are not defined by our limitations, but serve as a platform to gather ideas, to maximize capacities, to delegate resources, to innovate spirits, and to embrace our world. With the theme of empowerment, together, we ignite curiosity, bridge divides, and discover room for innovation. Our five in-depth tracks address a wide spectrum of issues from humanity’s most urgent needs to its very paramount of aspirations. Focusing on knowledge application through our new and improved HPAIR Impact Challenge, HPAIR Asia Conference 2016 Hong Kong aims to empower our delegates to make a difference in the communities around them and the world as a whole to create a movement of change.
Date: August 7-11, 2016
Location: Johannesburg, South Africa
This conference is intended to create an opportunity for academics and practitioners to reflect on developments in state practice that prove or disprove North – South divisions in the interpretation and application of international law in areas of mutual concern. Our objective is to attract participants from as many regions of the world as practically possible, and especially from the African continent which is under-represented in the work and membership of the ILA. The conference theme and the work of the specialist committees that will be presented at the conference will be of relevance not only for scholars and practitioners of international law. Judges, prosecutors, political scientists, scholars in international relations, NGO’s, social scientists and economists may find the programme equally stimulating.
10th Pan-European Conference on International Relations: "International Relations in World Society"
Date: September 7-10, 2016
Location: Yaşar University, İzmir, Turkey
International relations always take place in a dense social environment, and like this social environment they are the result of a complex historical evolution. The interest in historical international relations has motivated debates, among others, on international relations as being a decidedly modern phenomenon, on the ‘expansion’ of international society, on ‘uneven and combined development’, etc. The link between international relations and their social environment has been discussed both in light of various concepts and theories of society (world society, international society), as well as in terms of international relations constituting a form of social practice or practices. In terms of discussions about International Relations as a discipline, the aim is to explore the grounds on which an independence of international relations as a specific form of social relations can be observed.
Date: September 8-10, 2016
Location: Rīga, Latvia
The conference will provide an opportunity to discuss the crisis of international law, the international law of crisis, and also different biases and assumptions that contribute to questions about crisis. Questions that will be discussed include: In times of crisis, how does international law work? More specifically: How is international law rising to the challenge of contemporary crises, of capturing old and factually new phenomena and dealing with them in a normative context? What is the role of international lawyers in addressing the old and new crises? What role is assumed by (regional) organizations and the European Union in particular as well as non-state actors in this context of multiple tensions and multiple visions of the past and the future? This focus invites legal and interdisciplinary approaches to address these issues more generally as well as in different specialised areas of international law.