fac u lt y o f l awu n i ve r s i t y o f co pe n h ag e n

iCourts Summer School, June 24-28 2013 Internat ional Law: Courts and Contexts

The Centre of Excellence for International Courts (iCourts) is hosting a high-level summer school for PhD students and junior scholars working on international law and with a special interest in inter-disciplinary studies of international law and its social and political context.

We particularly welcome students and scholars who are writing up a PhD thesis or a post-doc pro-ject that involves a study of one or more international courts.

All faculty of the iCourts summer school are experienced researchers who are either iCourts per-mant staff or iCourts’ targeted international collaborators.

The iCourts summer school is based on the principle of participant contributions to the knowledge community. This means that students who sign up for the summer school are expected to contrib-ute to discussions and to participate in the exercises that are part of the learning programme.

Since learning is best facilitated in a stimulating end pleasant environment, the summer school also includes a number of social activities. These include outings to various places in and around Copen-hagen and will assure that you get the most out of your visit to the happiest city on earth.

The summer school accepts up to 25 students / scholars and the price for participation is 1350 Euro – this includes tuition fee, accommodation and meals.

» Deadline for submission: May 1, 2013

See attached iCourts PhD Summer School Programme.

Read more about iCourts at : ht tp: / / jura .ku.dk/ icourts /

iCourts summer school: 24-28 june 2013Internat ional Law: Courts and Contexts

A research training program for PhD-students and Post Doc’s

The Program structure

The program will have 15-20 doctoral and post-doctoral students, in the early stages of their doctoral re-search. To be admitted to the program, students must either be enrolled in a doctoral program or engaged in post-doctoral research. Students must submit a research project as part of the application, and a key focus of the summer program is to help students improve their research projects.

Students should expect to significantly refine and change their doctoral project in light of the feedback from the program, thus the optimal time to participate in this program is after a student has an approved project and after they have surveyed the relevant literature. The student may have begun research, but it is best to participate before any serious writing up of findings has occurred.

Mornings — Faculty teach a session that is related to their research where they present some of their own work, and works of others, and they discuss issues related to researching a specified topic. The subjects of these sessions will vary based on the research interests and strengths of the faculty member. Students will have assigned readings (approximately 100 pages) that they prepare in advance.

Afternoon session — Small groups of students (3-5) will be grouped based on similarity of topics. This group of students will meet every afternoon with a faculty member to work on issues related to their project. In order for participants to get diversified input to their work, faculty members will rotate between groups.

Evenings — There will be an informal welcome and closing dinner with faculty, where students will get a chance to know faculty more. There will also be an additional evening event with a special guest who will present a law related issue in some alternative context (e.g. law and literature; rhetoric and law; law and film; and a chance to socialize and make more informal conversation.)

Most evenings will involve homework — doing readings for the next morning’s session, and doing the as-signed projects from the afternoon session.

The t imetable

June 2013 Monday 24 Tuesday 25 Wednesday 26 Thursday 27 Friday 28

9.00 - 11.30 A. General In-troduction:

B. Interdisci-plinary empiri-cal studies of International Law and insti-tutions

Topic 1:The emer-gence and sustenance of international courts: The Politics of international institution building

Topic 2: International Courts and the Creation and Transformation of Law: From Pacta Sunt Serv-anda to Public Authority

Topic 3: The politics of normative legitimacy: IR; International law; interna-tional courts

Special guest:Practising in-ternational ad-judication: Key note by invited international practitioner / scholar

11.30 - 14.00 Lunch and so-cial activities

Coordinated by a PhD student from iCourts

Lunch and so-cial activities

Coordinated by a PhD student from iCourts

Lunch and so-cial activities

Coordinated by a PhD student from iCourts

Lunch and so-cial activities

Coordinated by a PhD student from iCourts

Lunch and so-cial activities

Coordinated by a PhD student from iCourts

14.00 - 16.00

General topics, order may vary

What is your question? How to frame a project (1)

How are you actually going to research the topic? (2)

Building a re-search career (3)

Your public re-search persona (4)

Revised pro-posal and presentation (5)

16.00-22.00 Working on assignments

19.00-21.00 Welcome dinner

Working on assignments

Self organized dinner

Working on assignments

Self organized dinner

Working on assignments

Self organized dinner

Working on assignments

19.00-21.00: Goodbye Dinner

The exerc ises

These themes will be covered, but the order may vary depending on how faculty organize the sessions.

What is your question? How to frame a project?

Students share their research proposals with each other in advance. The first afternoon will have an open discussion of the parts of the project that is already in good shape, and areas where students need help to im-prove their project. The focus is figuring out the central motivating question of the research project (aka the cognitive interest), and phrasing this question in its most general way. The goal then is to connect the specific project to the larger more general question and to help students to scale their focus in order to address ques-tions on various levels of abstraction and generality.

How are you actually going to research the topic?

What are the steps involved in the research, and how these steps will help you answer the question? Also discussed will be case selection—which examples/issues will you be focusing on that give you leverage to an-swer to question. How do you get access to these cases and what kind of material will you need to compile in order to have “a case”. What types of evidence will you look for, and how will researching the case help you answer your question? What will be the role of theory in your project and how will you relate theory to cases.

Building a research career

This is a discussion about building a CV by publishing and presenting in conferences. How do students make smart choices regarding when they are ready to present at a conference. When should a student think about when publishing an article? What are the best venues for publishing? Should students accept invitations from publishers or scholars to publish in their journal or as part of an edited volume? How do you most effectively convert your research efforts into a good publication list? What kind of profile best enhances your chances of a successful career in science?

Your public research persona - How do you talk about your project?

How should you think about boiling down a 250 page dissertation into a ten or twenty minute presentation? What makes for a successful conference presentation? What do students want in terms of feedback? How do you set up a presentation to ensure that the room has a ‘take away’ impression of your project and you, and that you get helpful feedback? What kind of presentation techniques should use / not use?

Revised proposal and presentation

Students should be reworking their project throughout the seminar in light of the input. On the final day, students will present a well framed project, where it is clear what the question is; how the question is part of a larger research problematic, and how the student will answer the question and contribute to the scientific field. The presentation itself should be polished, reflecting the discussion on presentation. Following pres-entations, there will be discussions about the next steps to proceed. Discussions include applying for grants, setting up the research part of the project, creating realistic goals and timelines etc.

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