International Law's Collected Stories

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xi

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2. Once Upon a Time in International Law…

   • Sofia Stolk, Renske Vos

   Pages 1-16

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3. Pride and Prejudice: Jane Austen and the (In)ability to Speak International Law

   • Elisabeth Schweiger, Aoife O’Leary McNeice

   Pages 17-35

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4. Staging International Law’s Stories: Kapo in Jerusalem

   • Mark Drumbl

   Pages 37-55

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5. A Story that Can(not) be Told: Sexual Violence against Men in ICTR and ICTY Jurisprudence

   • Thomas Charman

   Pages 57-78

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6. The Desire to be an International Law City: A Self-Portrait of The Hague and Amsterdam

   • Lisa Roodenburg, Sofia Stolk

   Pages 79-95

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7. International Legal Collage of an Ideal City

   • Miha Marčenko

   Pages 97-114

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8. The Museum of White Terror, Taipei: ‘Children, don’t talk politics’

   • Renske Vos, Owen Zong-Syuan Han

   Pages 115-136

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9. Becoming Epilogual

   • Gerry Simpson

   Pages 137-142

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This edited volume presents a collection of stories that experiment with different ways of looking at international law. By using different literary lenses -namely, storytelling, the novel, the drama, the collage, the self-portrait, and the museum- the authors shed light on elements of international law that usually remain unseen or unheard and expose the limits of what international law can do. We inquire into who the storytellers of international law are, the stages on which they tell their stories, and who are absent in these tales. We present it as a collection: a set of different essays that more or less deal with the same subject matter. Alternatively, we would like to call it a potpourri of stories, since the diversity of topics and approaches is eclectic and unconventional. By placing multiple perspectives alongside each other we aim to compare and contrast, to allow for second thoughts, and to rediscover. In doing so, we engage with the ambiguities of international law’s characters and spaces, and with the worldviews they reflect and worlds they create.

• Literature and Law
• International Law
• Storytelling
• International Relations
• International law and language
• Sexual Violence Case Law
• International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
• International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
• Jurisprudence
• Transnational Law
• Critical Legal Studies
• Socio-Legal Studies

​‘In light of the book’s novel content and its unique literary approach, it not only engages with recent critical scholarship on international law but perhaps more crucially, it also stands to push existing theoretical and conceptual debates forward into new terrain.’
— Suwita Hani Randhawa, Senior Lecturer in Politics and International Relations University of the West of England (Bristol, UK)

‘A vibrant assortment of late-style tales of the unexpected: a marvellously new international law.’
— Gerry Simpson, Professor of Public International Law, the London School of Economics and Political Science (London, UK)

• T.M.C. Asser Instituut / University of Amsterdam, The Hague, The Netherlands

  Sofia Stolk

• VU Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

  Renske Vos

Sofia Stolk is a Researcher in International Law at the T.M.C. Asser Instituut/ University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

Renske Vos is a Lecturer and Researcher at the Department of Transnational Legal Studies at VU Amsterdam, Netherlands

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