Conference on War and the Contemporary World
April 1, 2022
University of St. Thomas School of Law
Call for Papers
The contemporary world has become an arena for emerging new types of international conflict. In recent years, we have seen hybrid forms of war, as in Russia’s use of a spectrum of weapons – military, cyber, and informational – in its 2014 takeover of the Crimean Peninsula; or more recently, in Belarus’ weaponization of refugees and immigrants at the Polish border.
It has seen the use of remote war-fighting tactics, as in Azerbaijan’s use of Turkish-manufactured drones in its conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. Similarly, the world has witnessed the gradual emergence of space as a potential theater for conflict – as the recent use by Russia of anti-satellite weaponry to destroy one of its satellites demonstrates. State-sponsored, or state-tolerated computer hacking has become yet another venue for conflict.
The United States has experimented with its own innovative forms of conflict. On the one hand, the United States has pioneered the use of drone technology to conduct limited engagements in venues throughout the world, while operating from a safe and antiseptic distance. And on the other hand, the United States has made strategic use of its access to global systems of payment to coerce compliance through punishing forms of economic sanctions.
This Call for Papers seeks contributions focused on these forms of conflict. In particular, it seeks papers that explore normative dimension of global conflict. What does international law teach us? What, furthermore, can we learn from the disciplines of strategy? Of economics? Or of history?
The Journal of Law and Public Policy is an inter-disciplinary journal that seeks to examine the relationship of law and cognate disciplines in an effort to respond to the major questions of policy confronting the contemporary world. The Journal seeks, of course, contributions from lawyers, but also from political theorists, economists, historians, journalists, and scholars of religion.
Proposals should be no longer than 300 words. They may be submitted to Professor Charles J. Reid, Jr., School of Law, University of St. Thomas (Minnesota), cjreid@stthomas.edu and are due by February 15, 2022.
Papers are to be presented as part of a Symposium at the University of St. Thomas School of Law on April 1, 2022. The Symposium will assume a hybrid character. Participants may choose whether to present in-person or electronically, through Zoom. Speakers are expected to describe their work in presentations approximately fifteen-to-twenty minutes in length. Speakers will subsequently submit formal papers for publication in the Journal of Law and Public Policy. Papers are due on or around July 1, 2022. A small honorarium will be provided.