Book Discussion „Eastern Europe: Global Perspectives“ at Aleksanteri Conference 2023 in Helsinki, Finland

This year’s Aleksanteri Conference with the title “Decolonizing space in the Global East: Legal Choices, Political Transformations, Carceral Practices”, scheduled for October 25–27 at the University of Helsinki, Finland will address changes in the relationships within and between the former communist countries of the Global East, by which we mean the region that has been labelled as post/former -Soviet, -socialist, -communist, -imperial.

Leibniz ScienceCampus ‘Eastern Europe – Global Area’ (EEGA) will facilitate a roundtable discussion with editors and authors of the new textbook „Eastern Europe: Global Perspectives“ for MA and PhD education, which will present most pertinent findings from selected chapters and discuss them with guest speakers. In public discourse, Eastern Europe is still rather often seen as a place where social, political, and strategic objectives are executed over and above the will, freedoms, or choices of this region’s populaces. Taking a somewhat different approach, the textbook recognizes not only subordination but also agency and scopes of action. It explores Eastern Europe as a dynamic and global area, not in isolation but in the context of constant exchanges, by revealing the multiple ways in which its societies have positioned themselves in and towards global processes through entanglement from the 19th through to the 21st centuries. Round table speakers shed light on aspect of Eastern Europe in relation to international political and legal spheres, via deeper explorations of the ways in which its actors came to participate in and heavily impact on international organizations and structures of global governance. From the influential role played by representatives at the League of Nations and the United Nations to the making of modern international law by East European jurists, they demonstrate how this region shaped the so-called “international community”. Over the past century, Eastern European legal systems have faced several ruptures and have recalibrated the region’s domestic and multilateral legal bedrocks.

Konstantin Branovitskii will give examples of Eastern European countries‘ endeavors to break away from the post-Soviet model of civil procedure. He explores the path of the legal reform of selected countries and discusses the significance of involving foreign experts in such reforms. In his chapter, Gilad Ben- Nun depicts Eastern European impacts on modern international law while pointing to other world regions where these principles were later applied. Francis Onditi brings the contributions together in a critical comment from the perspective of International Relations and Diplomacy.

Date: 25–27 October 2023

Venue: University of Helsinki, Finland

Language: English

We kindly ask you to ignore the registration form underneath and refer to the website of the Aleksanteri Conference.