International conference: Global Mobility Law: Norms, Geographies and Theory - CALL FOR PAPERS
Organised by the Danish National Research Foundation Center of Excellence on Global Mobility Law (MOBILE)
University of Copenhagen, Faculty of Law
5-6 September, 2024
Throughout history, human mobility has been a key precondition for development, cultural exchange and, ultimately, survival. Yet, today few other issues remain subject to such elaborate legal regulation. From national immigration rules to international regimes on e.g., aviation, human rights and labour migration, interlocking rulesets structure the circulation of individuals throughout the globe. At the same time, the role of law in these processes is neither uniform nor unidirectional. Across geographies, individuals have widely different access to global mobility depending on nationality, legal status, and risk profiles. As a result, laws related to human (im)mobility shape not only regular routes such as global air travel, but equally the clandestine routes often pursued by e.g., refugees and irregular migrants. Even similar rulesets, such as regional free movement regimes, carry significantly different meanings in different parts of the world, depending on their level of implementation, interaction with other types of law and responsiveness to real or perceived crisis.
Despite the ubiquity of law in structuring human mobility, we know surprisingly little about how different types of law related to human mobility interact, how legal interpretations are produced and evolve, and the intended and unintended effects of their enforcement in shaping broader mobility dynamics. Notwithstanding the broader “mobilities turn” in the social sciences, no common framework for studying human mobility exists within the legal discipline. This omission is all the more striking since, historically, mobility has been an integral theme for the development of transnational and international law, from its maritime and colonial origins to the subsequent formalisation of international rules pertaining to e.g. diplomacy, trade, labour, and displacement. This conference urges participants to engage mobility law more holistically, beyond the vantage point of such specialised regimes.
At this inaugural international conference of MOBILE - the Danish National Research Foundation’s Center of Excellence on Global Mobility Law – we invite scholars working on different aspects of mobility law to jointly explore:
- What might a common framework and research agenda for global mobility law look like?
- How can we empirically expand and geographically rebalance existing research on mobility law, notably towards the Global South, and what are the normative implications following from such a reorientation?
- What theoretical insights may inform the study of this field, and how may a sustained engagement with global mobility law in turn inform legal theory as well as mobilities research more generally?
The conferences is open to submissions addressing these questions in different ways. Particular themes may include:
- The geographical and material contexts of global mobility law, including the recursive relationship between law, politics, economics, and culture
- The relative significance of and interactions between different rulesets affecting the regulation of human mobility, for example free movement, citizenship, human rights, trade, labour tourism, development, criminal law, and refugee law
- Cross-cutting dynamics, similarities and variations across specialised travel regimes pertaining to e.g. aviation, land transportation, and maritime law
- Normative interactions at different levels of regulation (international, regional/continental, and (sub-)national); and how legal outcomes are shaped by associated dynamics pertaining to implementation and contestation
- Different and novel methodological approaches to the study of global mobility law
- The potential and pitfalls of different theoretical frameworks for conceptualising global mobility law
Practical matters
The Global Mobility Law conference intends to stimulate frontier research and dynamic exchanges between scholars working across different academic specialisations and disciplines, and to help connect scholars working across jurisdictions. As such, selected abstracts will be evaluated based both on scientific excellence/originality and to ensure a broad representation of scholars working on different issues, geographical expertise, and career stages. Participants may submit either abstracts for individual papers or proposals for panels (click link to submission site below for further information). Conference attendance is free of charge and lunches and refreshments will be provided free of charge during both days of the conference, with a conference dinner organised on 5 September. As a starting point, participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation expenses. However, some financial support is available for early career scholars and scholars travelling from the Global South.
The conference invites submissions of abstracts no longer than 350 words.
Click here to upload your abstract no later than 1st March 2024.
For questions concerning the programme and abstract submissions, please contact Dr Sarah Scott Ford: sarah.scott.ford@jur.ku.dk.
For practical matters contact events coordinator Michelle Goncalves Kjærulff: michelle.kjaerulff@jur.ku.dk