REWI im Gespräch: "Sovereignty – The Powers of a Paradox"

REWI Uni Graz is pleased to welcome Professor Martti Koskenniemi (University of Helsinki) for a keynote on the paradoxical nature of sovereignty – its historical evolution, ideological functions, and performative significance. The keynote will be followed by a distinguished roundtable marking the 50th anniversary of the Review of Central and East European Law.

The keynote addresses “sovereignty” as a polemical concept, highlighting its shifting meaning it has received in legal and political history, where it has served to defend or challenge particular arrangements of power. It portrays sovereignty as a “limit” concept, one that both addresses the “supreme” nature of some power, while simultaneously transgressing the limits of the technical discourse within which it is invoked. Thus, bringing sovereignty into play in a certain situation also points to some other, apparently more “fundamental” set of concepts that endow sovereignty its supposed powers. After initial examples how that concept has operated in the international legal world, the focus will turn to its uses in the historical, sociological and ideological registers. Finally, some thoughts will be devoted to sovereignty’s performative significance: how its stabilization signals the stabilization of a specific pattern of powers, rights and privileges.

We look forward to welcoming you/RSVP at: voelkerrecht(at)uni-graz.at.