International Law and Place

2026-07-22

International law is increasingly being called upon in response to climate change and environmental harm. International courts and tribunals have been asked by States to clarify State obligations in respect to climate change through advisory proceedings, and human rights treaty bodies and courts are seeing a dramatic proliferation of climate-related litigation and complaints. But how is the discipline of international law equipped to rise to the challenge of our current environmental crisis? This project suggests that an important answer lies in the concept of territory, and the matter of place, under international law. Whilst territory is a foundational concept under international law, it offers a rather sterile understanding of the diverse ways through which we relate to the environment around us. It is a legal abstraction which allows international law to carve up the world into neatly organised unites, and does not account for many of the interdependent relations that communities have to each other and non-human actors in place. This project hence proposes that international lawyers would benefit from the development of place as a conceptual frame in international law, operationalised alongside that of territory. It will trace how international law is engaging with a range of notions of place beyond what arguably is possible within the international law of territory, and how it might be shaping the discipline in unacknowledged ways. The importance of the project lies in its ability to theorise and articulate place as a conceptual frame in international law, and articulate how it can enable more precise and robust State obligations relating to climate change and environmental harm. It will contribute to the theoretical and doctrinal debates that international courts and tribunals are currently engaging by opening a set of new questions relating to how we understand the environment through and beyond the international law of territory.

Italy

2026-01-01