On 22 and 23 May 2025 Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Toronto co-hosted a workshop on the theme of International Law and the Politics of Space in Berlin. The workshop was convened by Professors Helmut Aust (Berlin) and David Dyzenhaus (Toronto) who is currently spending time at FUB as a winner of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Research Prize. The workshop brought together a group of 25 scholars from a wide variety of different disciplinary and geographical backgrounds for intense discussions on eight papers which dealt with various aspects of law’s spatiality. Papers were not presented by their authors but immediately introduced into the discussion by four commentators who engaged with the papers of the respective sessions. Topics covered included conceptual issues of the notion of territory, the UK’s now rescinded Rwanda bill, the influence of Schmittian Großraum thinking on current US foreign policy, questions of the EU legal space, space law, the creation of charter cities and the governance of territory through drones. The workshop programme can be downloaded here.

The workshop was kindly supported by the Center for International Cooperation at Freie Universität Berlin, the University of Toronto and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.