Melland Schill Lecture Series

As part of our research, we have revived the prestigious Melland Schill Lectures, a historical series of public lectures dealing with international law.

The Melland Schill Lectures were first launched in 1961 by Professor Ben Atkinson Wortley as a public forum for reflection on international law. After a forty-year hiatus, the series was revived in 2014 under the auspices of the Manchester International Law Centre. Each lecture is delivered by a distinguished scholar or practitioner and subsequently published or made available online.

Recent lectures

• 12 November 2024: Arnulf Becker Lorca, ‘Deceiving the hopes of humanity? Withdrawing from the United Nations’
• 15 May 2023: Horatia Muir Watt, ‘Alterity On Trial: How Does Law (Modern, Western) Deal with Alterity?’
• 8 April 2022: Martti Koskenniemi, ‘Legal Imagination and the History of International Power’
• 14 September 2018: Jan Klabbers, ‘On Universalism and Epistemic Universalism’ (delivered as part of the ESIL Annual Conference hosted by The University of Manchester)
• 22 November 2017: Sir Michael Wood, ‘Immunity of State Officials’
• 1 February 2016: Sir Michael Wood, ‘Remarks on the Importance of “Teachings” in International Law, with Particular Reference to the Melland Schill Lecture Series’
• 5 May 2016: Judge Xue Hanqin, ‘The Cultural Element in International Law’
• 15 October 2014: John Dugard, ‘Are Existing States Sacrosanct?’