Research Training Group World Politics RTG 2225

This monograph contributes to the English School Theory of International Relations and to the Norms Research in International Relations literature by building a theoretical model. The model provides researchers with the opportunity to revisit the roots of social structures in order to understand how far these roots extend over time and across regions, and whether it was only states’ agency that mattered in their emergence, development, and transformation throughout history. The key empirical case of the study, to which this model is applied, is international criminal justice. This legal framework is a body of international law that qualifies as a global social structure in the existing literature. The study contends that, in this case, the roots of international law extend to ancient civilisations and different regions across the world, and that this social structure emerged and was shaped by the “hybrid” stakeholding of state, non-state, and hybrid actors. It challenges, therefore, the understanding that international law is a pure outcome of states’ will to establish an order among themselves, and foregrounds instead the role of actors other than states that have been comparatively overlooked in the existing literature. The historical events it analyses also raise the question of whether this social structure is a modern Western instrument or whether its foundations should rather be understood as dating back much earlier. As the monograph approaches the present within the historical process, it delves into analysing the current challenges of international law and brings to light the role of this historical mutual stakeholding in addressing them. In this way, it shifts its focus to debates revolving around the death of this social structure and discusses the instrumental role of joint efforts by a broad range of actors in preventing the obsolescence of international law, in a context where the society of states is facing growing disarray and uncertainty.

Şimşek, B. N. and Kulalı M. Y. (2024). ‘Le rôle des tribunaux ad hoc dans la mise en oeuvre des principes du droit cosmopolitique: une étude empirique via la pensée kantienne.’ In: Annales de la Faculté de Droit d’Istanbul  DOI: 10.26650/annales.2024.75.0005

Şimşek, B. N. (2023). ‘Türk Dış Politikasında Türk Dilini Dünya ile İlişkilendiren Unsurlar.’ In: Cumhuriyetin 100. Yılında Türk Dış Politikası Yazıları, Nobel, pp. 425-445, ISBN: 978-625-8174-64-9

• 15th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice. Paper presentation “Engendering global justice, targeting impunity: the case of gender-based violence” (Session. Crime Prevention, Social Harm and the Rule of Law: Sociological Perspectives, organized by the International Sociological Association), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, 26 September - 1 October 2026 (Upcoming)
• German Political Science Association Annual Congress (DVPW-IB Sektionstagung)2026. Paper presentation “Reinterpret Concepts - or Fail in Trying? A Comparative Analysis around Global Justice and AI Regulation” (Panel “Between Contestation and Politicization: Novel Norm Dynamics in Human Rights”), Würzburg, Germany, 21-23 September 2026 (Upcoming)
• 19th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (EISA PEC2026). Paper presentation “Challenging state-centism, examining globalism. International criminal justice through hybrid institutionalism” (Panel No. IST-International Society Tradition), ISCTE-University Institute of Lisbon, Portugal, 1-4 September 2026 (Upcoming)
• Swiss Political Science Association Annual Congress 2026. Working Group “International Affairs”, Paper presentation “Shaping global norms: international law in practice”, Universität Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland, 15-16 January 2026
• The Fourth Annual Conference of the Research Center “Transformations of Political Violence” (TraCe). “Beyond the Spectacle: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Slow Violence and Political Harm”, Paper presentation “Sexual and Gender-Based Violence as a Form of Slow Violence”, Center for Conflict Studies at Phillips Universität Marburg, Marburg, Germany, 19-21 November 2025
• European Society of International Law (ESIL) Annual Conference 2025. “Reconstructing International Law”, Pre-Conference Workshop of the Feminism and International Law Interest Group, “Feminist Visions for Reconstructing International Law”, Paper presentation “Engendering Global Security: The Agency of Civil Society in Shaping International Criminal Justice”, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany, 10-13 September 2025
• 18th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (EISA PEC2025). International Rela_[404 Not Found]: Politics for a Broken World. Paper presentation “A Hybrid Path to Justice: Civil Society Influence in Shaping Restorative Mechanisms” (Panel No. IST-International Society Tradition), University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy, 25-29 August 2025
• International Studies Association (ISA) Annual Virtual Conference 2025. “Bringing Evidence Back In”. Paper presentation “Challenging state centricism, measuring globalism: the case of international justice”, (Panel No. RD04- International Justice Institutions and Changing Norms: Between Law and Contestation), Online, 29 July - 1 August 2025
• 12th European Workshops in International Studies (EISA EWIS 2025). Session ‘WS I - International society in between order and justice’. Paper presentation “How institutionalised? The case of global justice from a hybrid institutions perspective”, Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Krakow, Poland, 2-4 July 2025
• Workshop “Limitations as Lenses: New Pathways for the Study of World Politics”. Paper presentation: “A Hybrid Path to Justice: Non-State Influence in Restorative Mechanisms”, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, 22-23 May 2025
• Workshop “Reflecting World Politics - Taking Stock, Looking Back and to the Future”. Paper presentation “A Critical Examination of Transformative Shifts in Global Justice”, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, 28-29 November 2024
• 17th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (EISA PEC2024). Searching for International Relations: Spaces, Styles, Struggles. Paper presentation “Fundamental Rights: A Point of Intersection Between the “International” and the “World” Spheres” (Panel No. ST08-Sites and Agents of Normative Contestation), Université Catholique de Lille, Lille, France, 27-31 August 2024
• 17th Pan-European Conference on International Relations (EISA PEC2024). Searching for International Relations: Spaces, Styles, Struggles. Paper presentation “The emergence of personal accountability in international law” (Panel No. ST18-The Global Politics of the Rule of Law), Université Catholique de Lille, Lille, France, 27-31 August 2024
• 8th International Academic Conference on Research in Social Sciences (IACRSS). Paper presentation “Territorial Identity as a Source of Inspiration”, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, 23-25 August 2024
• Humanities and International Relations Graduate Conference (MAIR). Paper presentation “Individual legal responsibility: a milestone in the internationalisation of fundamental rights in armed conflicts”, Universiteit Leiden (Den Haag Campus), The Hague, Netherlands, 14 June 2024
• Transatlantic Workshop by Bielefeld University and the University of Notre Dame du Lac. 'Transatlantic Workshop in History'. Paper presentation “Law versus order? The expansion of world society vis-à-vis international society”, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, 16-21 May 2024
• Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology Annual Retreat. Paper presentation “Law versus order? The emergence and rise of world society vis-à-vis international society”, Universität Bielefeld, Bielefeld, Germany, 1-2 December 2023
• Congress “Turkish Foreign Policy in the 100th Year of the Republic: History, Theories, Actors, Issues”. Paper presentation “The role of Turkish language and exchange programs as elements of soft power in Turkish Foreign Policy”, Altinbas University, Istanbul, Turkey, 4-5 May 2023