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• 'Not a Target': The 2025 Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel (Webinar)

  • When
    25 Mar 2026
  •  
    4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
  • Location
    Webinar (online via Zoom)

  The ANZSIL International Peace and Security Interest Group (IPSIG), together with the IHL Advisory Committee of Australian Red Cross (Vic Division), and the New Zealand Centre for Public Law, are pleased to present this webinar.

  The statistics on attacks on humanitarian personnel recorded in the Aid Worker Security Database are grim reading: 388 major attacks in 2025 with the majority of the victims being national staff. Attacks have occurred in conflicts throughout the world, including in Gaza, Sudan, South Sudan, Ukraine and Yemen. Humanitarian personnel are subjected to increasing levels of violence for just doing their work – caring for those affected by armed conflict. This situation has led to the ICRC’s campaign and short film, ‘Not a Target’.

  Deeply concerned by this trend, in 2024 the Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs, Senator the Hon Penny Wong, announced an initiative to adopt a new instrument designed to strengthen the international community’s commitment to protect humanitarian workers and provide practical steps for action. One year later, in September 2025, the Declaration for the Protection of Humanitarian Personnel was launched at the United Nations in New York.

  This seminar brings together experts to discuss the practical and legal challenges associated with the protection of humanitarian workers. The speakers will explain the background to the Declaration and consider how it applies the existing international legal framework and the way it may be implemented in practice.

  Date/Time: Wednesday 25 March 2026, 4PM-5PM AEDT/6PM-7PM NZDT

  Speakers:

  Dr Helen Durham (RedR)

  Giri Kowtal (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia)

  Yvette Spero (Australian Red Cross)

  Chair: Associate Professor Marnie Lloydd Victoria University of Wellington

  Further information about the event and the speakers, as well as registration details, is available via the registration button below.

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• The Functions of International Adjudication and International Environmental Litigation: ANZSIL Book Prize Seminar

  • When
    14 May 2026
  •  
    7:00 PM - 8:00 PM
  • Location
    Online

  Register

  The ANZSIL History and Theory of International Law Interest Group is pleased to bring you this webinar on Dr Josh Paine's book, awarded an honourable mention in the 2025 ANZSIL Publication Prizes.

  The Functions of International Adjudication and International Environmental Litigation uses environmental disputes as a focus to develop a novel comparative analysis of the functions of international adjudication. The book focuses on three challenges confronting international tribunals: managing change in applicable legal norms or relevant facts, determining the appropriate standard and method of review when scrutinising State conduct for compliance with international obligations, and contributing to wider processes of dispute settlement. The book compares how tribunals manage these challenges across four key sites of international adjudication: adjudication in the World Trade Organization and under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, International Court of Justice litigation, and investment treaty arbitration. It shows that while international tribunals perform several key functions in the contemporary international legal order, they are subject to significant constraints. Ultimately, the book makes a genuine contribution to literature on the role of international adjudication in international law.

  Date/Time: Thursday 14 May 2026, 10AM BST/7PM AEST/9PM NZT

  Format: Online (Zoom)

  Speaker: Joshua (Josh) Paine is Associate Professor in International Law at the University of Bristol, specializing in international investment law and policy, international trade law, and international dispute settlement. His first book, The Functions of International Adjudication and International Environmental Litigation (Cambridge University Press 2024), was awarded 2nd prize in the 2024 Society of Legal Scholars Brazier book prize for Outstanding Mid-Career Scholarship and an Honourable Mention in the 2025 Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law Book Prize. Josh was the winner of the 2023 John H Jackson Prize of the Journal of International Economic Law and the 2017 European Society of International Law Young Scholar Prize. Josh has published widely in leading peer-reviewed journals and in edited volumes.

  Commentator: Chester Brown, Professor of International Law and International Arbitration at Sydney Law School. He is also a Barrister (Senior Counsel) at 7  Wentworth Selborne Chambers, Sydney, and an Overseas Member of Essex Court Chambers, London.

  
  

  For enquiries, please contact htilig@anzsil.org. 

  Registration: Please click on the register button on the left of the screen.  You will receive an automated email with the Zoom link once you have submitted your registration form. 

  The flyer for the event is available here.

  
  

  
  

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• ANZSIL Postgraduate Research Students Workshop 2026

  • When
    30 Jun 2026
  •  
    9:00 AM - 5:00 PM
  • Location
    Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

  The Australian and New Zealand Society of International Law (ANZSIL) Postgraduate Research Students Workshop will be held in person on Tuesday, 30 June 2026, at Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand.

  The Workshop aims to provide postgraduate degree research students with an opportunity to present their research to their peers, develop their feedback and engagement skills, discuss their experiences of postgraduate research and make academic and professional connections. Participants will give presentations on an aspect of their research for approximately 10 minutes, followed by a roundtable discussion of each paper. To facilitate this discussion, participants must submit short papers (no more than 1,500 words) for distribution before the Workshop. Participants will also be expected to engage as discussants of other papers.

  The Workshop will be followed by the 33^rd ANZSIL Annual Conference, which will take place at Victoria University of Wellington Faculty of Law from Wednesday, 1 July to Friday, 3 July 2026. Workshop participants are encouraged to attend the full Conference and there is no registration fee for workshop participants to attend the Workshop or the Annual Conference. 

  The Call for Papers for the Postgraduate Workshop has now closed.
  

  Short papers (no more than 1500 words) will be due on 5 June 2026.

  Postgraduate Research Students Workshop Convenors 2026

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• A Decade of Burgeoning or Blighted Legal Change: The ANZSIL OIELIG Anniversary Panel

  • Start
    01 Jul 2026
  •  
  • End
    03 Jul 2026
  •  
  • Location
    Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

  ANZSIL Oceans and International Environmental Law Interest Group - Call for Abstracts for ANZSIL Annual Conference OIELIG Anniversary Panel

  The ANZSIL Conference is a special occasion for the Oceans and International Environmental Law Interest Group (OIELIG), because it marks a 10-year anniversary. This Call for Abstracts invites submissions to join the anniversary panel, which will cover the topic, ‘A Decade of Burgeoning or Blighted Legal Change’. In addition to presentation at the Conference, papers will be considered for inclusion in a planned Special Issue in a peer-reviewed international law journal, to be curated by the OIELIG Co-Chairs after the conference.

  Further information is available here.

  The Call for Papers for this panel has now closed.

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• 33rd ANZSIL Annual Conference | Navigating Stormy Seas: People, Place and Perspectives in International Law

  • Start
    01 Jul 2026
  •  
    9:00 AM
  • End
    03 Jul 2026
  •  
    1:00 PM
  • Location
    Faculty of Law, Victoria University of Wellington, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

  Co-hosted by the New Zealand Centre for Public Law

  The Call for Papers and Panel Proposals has now closed.

  
  

  He moana pukepuke e ekengia e te waka
  A stormy sea can be navigated

  By adopting this whakataukī (proverb) to develop the theme of the conference, the Organising Committee is aiming to capture the zeitgeist of today’s international legal order, while drawing on a metaphor that is particularly apt for our gathering together on the shores of Moana Oceania.

  The lyrical quality of the whakataukī should not beguile us into under-estimating the challenges. This may not be a passing storm. These stormy seas might be causing lasting destruction. We may have already suffered irreparable structural harm. Recognising all that, the challenges bring with them an opportunity to re-imagine – and re-build – whole new worlds, whole new ways of being, new communities, and new strategies. The challenges also invite us to listen and be attentive to other voices that may have been neglected.  Even if we are not spurred to radical change, at the very least, the challenges might prompt us to think carefully about our traditional tools and re-examine our long-cherished assumptions.

  We hope that this conference can provide the opportunity to imagine new worlds. In doing so, we ask if there is still a place for reform of the old system? Of the old ways of doing things? If we do embark on imagining new worlds, then what might the contours of new horizons look like? If we persist with the familiar, how might renewal or reform emerge?  If we fail to adapt, then what lies ahead?

  We look forward to welcoming participants to the 33rd ANZSIL Conference on the theme: Navigating Stormy Seas: People, Place and Perspectives in International Law.

  Questions regarding the Conference may be sent to conference@anzsil.org.

  Process and Dates

  The extended closing date for paper and panel proposals has now closed. The Organising Committee will endeavour to inform applicants of the outcome of their proposals by mid-March 2026. All presenters will be required to register for the Conference by early May to be included in the final Conference program. Further information about the Conference, including program and registration details, will be made available on the ANZSIL Conference page in due course.

  Conference Fee

  The conference fee will be confirmed in early 2026. We anticipate charging a registration fee (early bird) of approximately AUD440.00 for ANZSIL members/Speakers.

  Registrations for the Conference will open in March/April 2026.

  Alice Edwards Breakthrough Researcher Award 2026

  ANZSIL is delighted to announce that it will be awarding the Alice Edwards Breakthrough Researcher Award to assist one or two early career researchers (or PhD students) to present at our 33rd Annual Conference.

  The purpose of the Award is to encourage and foster the research of the most talented and promising early career researchers (or PhD students) from Australia, Aotearoa New Zealand and the Pacific Islands whose research in international law is making, or is likely to make, a significant contribution to finding solutions to some of the world’s most pressing global or regional challenges. To that end, one or two awards will be made to assist in enabling early career researchers (or PhD students) to present at the ANZSIL Annual Conference.

  Applications for the Award for the 33rd ANZSIL Annual Conference have now closed.

  ANZSIL Conference Organising Committee 2026

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