Event: 'Geopolitical Tension and International Resource Disputes'

Time: 9.00 am - 5.45 pm

Attendance is free of charge but subject to prior registration. 

Registration

The analysis of international relations from a geopolitical prism has become increasingly prominent in the last year due to inter-State tensions about access to specific resources and/or areas. Whether it is the tensions arising from access to the critical raw materials at the heart of energy, technology and defence, the more classic issues of energy or water security, the control over strategic areas (e.g. the Strait of Hormuz, the South China Sea, the Arctic, the Red Sea or other strategic routes) or the scramble for the use of resources of the global commons (the deep seabed or outer space), geopolitical tensions are again a major source of international tension, and in many ways, also of international disputes. Although in the short term power politics tend to take centre stage, the legal dimensions of such tensions remain crucial, as becomes clearer in the medium and long term. In many cases, judicial determination of competing entitlements is an important aspect of preserving a party’s position in view of a settlement that may intervene decades later, once the political winds have shifted. In other cases, power relations between States are, as such, not sufficient to provide legal structure and certainty to private transactions that unfold in a context of resource conflict. In still other cases, a wider legal regime regulating the use of a given resource or area must be either established or reaffirmed to end the disruption caused by a conflict. The role of international law and, more specifically, of international dispute settlement in such contexts is certainly not new, but its specific contours must be constantly reassessed. The Conference brings together leading scholars and practitioners of international law to debate these issues.

Programme (pdf)

09:00 – 10:00 Opening and context

Introduction to the Conference: International Law and Resource Conflict

Prof. Campbell McLachlan KC — Professor of International Dispute Settlement, Cambridge

Opening keynote lecture

Judge Tomas Heidar — President of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, followed by a discussion moderated by Prof. McLachlan 

Break

10:15 – 12:15 Disputes over the control of strategic areas: past and present

Roundtable moderated by Dr Tom Grant (Cambridge)

Prof. Danae Azaria (UCL) · Catherine Drummond (3VB) · Dr Ben Juratowitch (Essex Court) · Dr Francisco Quintana (Edinburgh)

Lunch

13:00 – 14:30 Energy resources and international disputes

Roundtable moderated by Prof. Harro van Asselt (Hatton Professor of Climate Law, Cambridge)

Prof. Payam Akhavan (Twenty Essex) · Naomi Briercliffe (Squire Patton) · Fernanda Millicay (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Argentina) · Dr Kate Parlett (Twenty Essex)

Break

15:00 – 16:30 Critical raw materials and international disputes

Roundtable moderated by Prof. Jan Klabbers (Whewell Professor of International Law, Cambridge)

Prof. Sanja Bogojevic (Oxford) · Nicolas Lockhart (Sidley Austin) · Prof. Sergio Puig (EUI) · Dr Rumiana Yotova (Cambridge)

Break

16:45 – 17:45 Closing

Closing keynote lecture

Prof. Jorge E. Viñuales — Harold Samuel Professor of Law and Environmental Policy, Cambridge, followed by a discussion moderated by Prof. Campbell McLachlan KC (Cambridge)