From the League of Nations to the United Nations: New Approaches to International Institutions
Scholarly conference Thursday-Saturday, 21-23 March 2013, European University Institute (EUI), Florence, Italy.
Sponsors:
Max Weber Post-Doctoral Programme, the Global Governance Programme of the Robert Schuman Center for Advanced Studies and the Department for History and Civilization(EUI)
Description
This historical and multidisciplinary conference will contribute to the current revolution in the study of international and global institutions, as developed over the past decade by scholars including Patricia Clavin, Mark Mazower and Susan Pedersen. This new scholarship has revitalized the study of international institutions and stimulated new research on political internationalism, economic development, international law and practices of rights, and state-individual dynamics such as refugee or minority status. A key result has been to erode the consensus on World War Two as an unquestioned watershed in these arenas, throwing into question standard chronological containers such as ‘interwar’.
This conference will be structured thematically around the main areas in which policy developed at the League of Nations and the United Nations. Each panel will focus on a specific sphere of activity – institutional politics and change, economic development policy, international law and human rights etc. – with a view towards tracing the evolution of ideas, modes of practice and institutional development in these spheres. At a time of crisis in international institutions and cooperation, both in economic and geopolitical arenas, this conference will help to contextualize and historicize the present situation.
Susan Pedersen (Columbia University) will give the keynote speech entitled: ‘From Geneva to New York: Mandatory Statehood in the Making’, at 5.30pm in Villa Salviati on Thursday 21 March.