Sara Wissmann

Institution: University of Salzburg

Period of stay: 28 April - 4 July 2025

Contact: sara.wissmann@plus.ac.at

https://www.plus.ac.at/voelkerrecht-europarecht-grundlagen-des-rechts/de...

Profile: 

Sara Wissmann is a PhD candidate in Public International Law and research assistant at the Department for Legal Theory, International and European Law at the University of Salzburg. Her PhD project (“The Creation of Intertemporality: Unearthing a General Principle of International Law”) examines the origin and development of the principle of intertemporality. Prior to joining the University of Salzburg, Sara completed her law degree at the University of Hamburg, during which she spent a summer working at the ILC as a research assistant.

Sara's research interests lie in general international law, the theory, sources, and methods of international law, international courts and tribunals, cultural heritage law, and critical approaches to international law. Recently, her work has appeared in the Netherlands Yearbook of International Law (on general principles of international law) and the Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights (on intangible cultural heritage).

Research Area:

Intertemporality, General Principles of Law, Social Practice, Decolonial Theory

Research Title:

The Creation of Intertemporality: Unearthing a General Principle of International Law

Research Outline:

Sara's research focuses on the principle of intertemporality through the lens of general principles of international law. Pivoting on the 1928 Island of Palmas arbitration decided by single arbitrator Huber, intertemporality has entered the daily discourse of international adjudicatory bodies. In the current reparatory justice debate, intertemporality is often seen as an unwelcome gatekeeper, hindering long-awaited attempts at reconciliation between the Global North and the Global South due to the historic colonial injustices it reproduces. To enhance the understanding of intertemporality in public international law, including its development and content, Sara deconstructs intertemporality by promoting a social practice thesis concerning the development, identification, and determination of general principles of international law. Against this backdrop of deconstruction, she ultimately argues that the discursive practices within the international legal arena already possess the potential to reconstruct intertemporality in a beneficial way, contributing to the decolonization of public international law, rather than perpetuating colonial continuities. This reconstruction hinges on critical moments of persuasion within the international legal arena’s discursive practices. It is within this context that the potential to create exceptions or modify the principle’s content may succeed.

During her time at the Lauterpacht Centre, Sara is refining her PhD thesis and preparing her contribution for the 2025 ESIL Conference, titled “Before Reconstruction: Deconstructing the Prayer of Intertemporality.”

SSRN page:

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sara-Wissmann?ev=prf_overview

Publications:

Selected relevant publications:

‘The Unconcious Judicial Creation of General Principles of International Law: A Case Study on the Principle of Intertemporality’
Netherlands Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 45 (2025), p. tbd (accepted)

‘Berlin Techno Goes Intangible Cultural Heritage: Modern Music, the Cultural Appropriation Debate, and the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination’
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 42(2)/2024, p. 195-217

‘The Draft International Convention on the Right to Development and Its Implications for Cooperation in Global Health Crises’
Law and Development Review, Vol. 17(2)/2024, p. 417-451

‘Good Things Come to Those Who Wait? The Joint Reconciliation Declaration of Germany and Namibia for the Herero and Nama Genocide’
German Yearbook of International Law. 64 (2021), p. 511-528
Co-authored by Julius Adler

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