On 17 June, Professor Martti Koskenniemi received an Honoris Causa degree from the European University Institute at the EUI Degree Conferring Ceremony. In their laudatio, Co-Directors of Academy of European Law Neha Jain and Sarah Nouwen hailed Koskenniemi’s scholarship as not only 'field defining', but also 'field generative', and identified ways in which Koskenniemi’s writings have fundamentally changed the field’s understanding of what it means to do international law.
To celebrate the honorary degree, Oxford University Press has made a conversation between Professors Koskenniemi and Nouwen about the politics of global lawmaking, published earlier this year in the European Journal of International Law, and freely available. The article is an edited version of the keynote conversation that opened the 16th annual conference of the European Society of International Law in September 2021 and focuses on Koskenniemi’s most recent magnum opus: To the Uttermost Parts of the Eart: Legal Imagination and International Power 1300-1870.
Martti Koskenniemi is Emeritus Professor of International Law at the University of Helsinki and Director of the Erik Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights. He was a member of the Finnish diplomatic service, Judge with the Administrative Tribunal of the Asian Development Bank, and member of the United Nations International Law Commission. He is renowned for his critical approach to International Law.
Sarah Nouwen is a Professor of Public International Law and Co-Director of the Academy of European Law (AEL) at the European University Institute. Professor Nouwen is also an Editor-in-Chief of the European Journal of International Law.