Centre for European Law and Internationalisation
News and events
Annual Lecture Series 2025-26
1. An Evidence-Based Framework for NATO’s Human Security Approach
Date: 20 October 2025, 1.00pm - 2.00pm
Venue: [Hybrid] JGR Leicester Law School
Video recording
Speaker: Dr Alexander Gilder, University of Reading
At the 2022 Madrid Summit, NATO adopted the ‘Human Security Approach and Guiding Principles’. Identifying human security as an ‘essential tool’, NATO has sought to integrate human security across the organisation to shape all of NATO’s core tasks. However, NATO’s 2022 Approach lacks depth, with underdeveloped principles that do not make clear the evidence base, the unique nature of the concept of human security, or how it can be the differentiating factor that improves protection outcomes. This lecture outlines NATO’s emerging shift to a human security approach and provides a framework of human security based on six evidence-based principles that provide additional depth and clarity to NATO’s approach. The framework can be used by NATO and its personnel, such as Human Security Advisors, Military Police and CIMIC officers, to develop and implement doctrine on human security in the NATO context.
2. The UK-Mauritius Agreement on the Chagos Archipelago: Stakes, Legal Consequences, and Next Steps
Date: 4 November 2025 3.00pm - 4.00pm
Venue: Online
Video Recording
Speaker: Dr Sebastian Von Massow, NYU
In October 2024, the UK and Mauritius concluded an agreement recognizing Mauritian sovereignty over the Chagos Archipelago. The agreement was preceded by decades of litigation at the international and domestic levels. It nominally seeks to complete the decolonization of the archipelago. But what were the stakes of the various state and non-state parties involved in its negotiation? Does it square up to the ICJ’s Chagos Advisory Opinion? And what will it mean going forwards—for the archipelago and for the exiled Chagossians whose homeland it is?
3. Special Agreements and the Mandate of the International Court of Justice in Territorial Disputes.
Date: 3 December 2025 11.00am-12.00pm
Venue: Online
Video Recording
Speaker: Professor James Devaney, University of Glasgow
Territorial disputes have traditionally been the International Court of Justice’s bread and butter. States have routinely submitted disputes pertaining to their land and maritime boundaries to the Court, invariably through the conclusion of Special Agreements. Relevant provisions of these Special Agreements negotiated by States have, however, not followed any set formula in terms of wording. Rather, States have negotiated Special Agreements which have given different mandates to the Court in respect of their particular dispute. A recent, interesting example of this is the mandate given to the Court in the Special Agreement negotiated by Gabon and Equatorial Guinea in Land and Maritime Delimitation and Sovereignty over Islands. Article 1(1), perhaps somewhat surprisingly given the name of the case, did not in fact give the Court the mandate to delimit the land and maritime boundary between the parties, but rather tasked the Court with identifying the relevant legal titles that have the force of law between the parties. The present paper seeks to examine the implications of parties’ efforts to tailor the mandate of the Court in this way. Taking into account previous practice relating to Special Agreements before the Court, as well as practice of other international courts and tribunals, it aims to evaluate how the Court has understood and fulfilled its role in such cases. It also offers some reflections on the relative advantages and disadvantages for States of attempts to tailor the mandate of the Court in this way in future territorial disputes.
CELI events 2025-26
Conference: ECHR and Venice Commission – Guarding Human Rights and the Rule of Law
Dates: 6–7 November 2025
Venue: British Institute of International and Comparative Law, London
Video Recording
Members of Leicester Law School (Professor Katja Ziegler, Dr Ed Bates, Dr Amal Sethi) will be participating in the upcoming international conference, “ECHR and Venice Commission: Guarding Human Rights and the Rule of Law, and Facilitating Constitutional Resilience”. The event marks the 75th anniversary of the European Convention on Human Rights and the 35th anniversary of the Venice Commission and will explore the evolving role of the ECHR and the Venice Commission in promoting human rights, constitutional resilience, and multi-layered rights protection across Europe and the UK. The event is co-hosted by the Centre for European Law and Internationalisation (CELI) and the Bingham Centre for the Rule of Law, see Further information.
CELI@25 Anniversary Roundtable
Date: 2 December 2025
Venue: [Hybrid] University of Leicester Law School & Online
Video Recording
Discussants are current and former members of staff, reflecting on the broad theme of The UK in a Changing Europe and the role and history of CELI. The speakers are former CELI Director Prof Erika Szyszczak (Sussex), The Rt. Hon. Lord Justice Sir Nicholas Green (Senior Presiding Judge for England & Wales, President of the Council of the Inns of Court, Chair of the Law Commission (2018-2023) and alumnus and Honorary Professor Leicester Law School), Prof Mark Bell (Trinity College Dublin and formerly Head of School at Leicester Law School), Prof Adam Cygan, Ms Pascale Lorber, Dr Ed Bates, Prof Loveday Hodson, Prof Katja Ziegler, Prof Bernard Ryan (all Leicester Law School), Sir Nicholas Blake (Matrix Chambers).
Book Launch: Dr Aristi Volou, International Protection of Socio-Economic Rights: An Interactional Approach
Date: 4 December 2025
Venue: [Hybrid] University of Leicester Law School & Online
Video Recording
The Centre for European Law and Internationalisation (CELI) is delighted to launch the monograph of our former PhD student Dr Aristi Volou: International Protection of Socio-Economic Rights: An Interactional Approach (Routledge 2025). The event begins with an ntroduction of core themes of the monograph and reflections on an academic journey from PhD research to publication, by Dr Aristi Volou (UoL alumna), followed by practical implications of the book for socio-economic rights advocacy, by Ms Helen Flynn (Just Fair and UK ESCR Network). Finnaly, reflections on the book’s contribution to international human rights law and socio-economic rights Professor Katie Boyle (Strathclyde) and by Professor Rory O’Connell (Ulster).