‘Doing Law Beyond the State’ is a workshop to be held at the School of Law on 17 and 18 January 2014. This event is organised jointly by the Universities of Sheffield and Bristol. The workshop is funded by the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law and School of Law at the University of Bristol, the Centre for International and European Law and the University of Sheffield, and Hart Publishing. It aims to bring together EU and international lawyers as well as legal theorists in order to consider together the particular methodological challenges brought about by various conceptual uncertainties at the core of international, European and other transnational law. At a time when analytical legal philosophers are increasingly questioning the parochial focus of contemporary jurisprudence and turning their gaze towards more global or international legal phenomena, and international and European lawyers are increasingly showing an interest in conceptual uncertainties about the nature of their respective fields, it seems particularly pertinent to engage in such a cross-disciplinary dialogue. In particular, we aim to consider ways in which insights from international, transnational and EU law can help to broaden the focus of legal theory, as well as considering how emerging debates over the methodology, scope and focus of contemporary jurisprudence can contribute to a better understanding of what it is to “do” international and transnational legal research.

Participants include Patrick Capps (University of Bristol), Richard Collins (University of Sheffield), Jakob von H. Holtermann (Copenhagen University), Henrik Palmer Olsen (Copenhagen University), Julie Dickson (Oxford University), Jean D’Aspremont (Manchester University), Gleider Hernandez (Durham University), Stuart Toddington (Huddersfield University), Wouter Werner (University of Amsterdam), Ingo Venzke (University of Amsterdam), Michael Giudice (York University, Toronto), Jorg Kammerhofer (University of Freiburg), Anne van Mulligan (University of Amsterdam), Cormac Mac Amleigh (Edinburgh University), Michael Wilkinson (London School of Economics)