Friday, March 3, 2017

Dean Rusk International Law Center, University of Georgia School of Law

 Athens, Georgia USA

 We can hardly believe that ten years have passed since our first posts on the IntLawGrrls blog.  If you had told us on our birth-day in 2007–March 3, Girls’ Day in Japan–of the incredible contributions and accomplishments of our bloggers ten years on, we would have been equally incredulous. And so we’re delighted to issue this invitation to a very special event on March 3, 2017: “IntLawGrrls! 10th Birthday Conference.”

 Created by Diane Marie Amann as a forum for “voices in international law, policy, and practice,” the blog grew beyond our wildest expectations into a forum for hundreds of women at all levels of their career, from law students to celebrated luminaries, to hold forth on contemporary questions and historical issues in our field.  We welcomed posts that offered feminist perspectives on international law and equally relished those that simply opined on matters of the day, particularly in subfields of international law from which women have historically been excluded.

 Perhaps the most bittersweet moment came in December 2012, when we closed down the blog; shielded from our readership by the impersonal wall of the internet, we were surprised and touched by the heartfelt outpouring from those of you who demanded that we keep alive this space for women’s voices in international law.  We duly responded to your requests for an encore: within 3 months—on International Women’s Day 2013—IntLawGrrls created ilg2.org. We continue to be amazed and delighted by the quality and frequency of your posts.  We owe many thanks to the current staff that keeps the blog up and running to this day: Senior Editors Cecilia Marcela Bailliet, Andrea Ewart, Sital Kalantry, Elizabeth Ludwin King, and Milena Sterio; Submissions Editors past and present Brian Citro, Danielle DerOhanessian, and Karen Hoffmann; Technical Editor, Sarah Stephens; and Student Editors past and present  Osazenoriuwa Ebose, Sasha Filippova, Marte Ingvildsdatter Jervan, Lauren Marsh, Beverly Mbu, Claire Poppelwell-Scevak, Maggie Spicer, and Melissa Vo.

 We view the 10th anniversary of IntLawGrrls as a fitting opportunity to celebrate our contributors and readership by providing a live forum to discuss your scholarship and to get to know each other in person, putting faces to the many internet connections we have made.  We welcome and encourage you to submit a paper proposal and join us for this conference, which will take place on Friday, March 3, 2017, at the University of Georgia School of Law in Athens, Georgia.

 The conference organizers—the blog’s original editors, Diane Marie Amann, Kate Doty, Beth Van Schaack, and yours truly–welcome IntLawGrrls contributors and readers to submit paper proposals relating to any aspect of international law and policy.

 As detailed in the call for papers here, we expect that the conference will cover a broad range of substantive topic areas and a variety of perspectives and methods.  We encourage in particular submissions from junior scholars as well as papers in subfields of international law that have been historically dominated by male scholars.  We also encourage papers that explore the challenges that populist anti-globalization, and often anti-feminist, movements such as Brexit, the Colombian referendum, and the U.S. presidential election pose to women in international law, as well as strategies to promote women’s participation in shaping international law and policy in the wake of these events.  We expect that this will be a topic for a panel discussion at the conference.

 Please upload an abstract of up to 500 words, a bio of no more than 150 words, and a cv using the “submit now” button at http://law.uga.edu/IntLawGrrls2016. The deadline for submissions is January 1, 2017.  The conference organizers will confirm speakers’ participation on a rolling basis, and at the latest by January 20, 2017.

 Should your paper be accepted, we will be in touch with additional details. For planning purposes, please expect to arrive at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta  International Airport on Thursday, March 2, to provide sufficient time to reach Athens before the conference.  Georgia Law’s Dean Rusk International Law Center will host a dinner for all conference participants the evening of Friday, March 3.  We hope you will join us for the dinner, which will be a great opportunity to network, catch up with old friends, and make new ones. If you do, you should plan to fly home on Saturday, March 4.  Although we are unable to cover the costs of your airfare or hotel accommodations, we will offer some assistance with Atlanta-Athens ground transportation on the preferred dates described above.  We have reserved a block of hotel rooms in Athens, and will make information on discounted hotel rooms available to participants as papers are accepted.

Please contact Kate Doty at doty@uga.edu with any questions about submissions or logistics.

 We hope you can join us!