Description

Conflict Research Group and 

Ghent Institute for International and European Studies.

CRG Book Launches 23: "Contested States in War and Law”

Laura Luciani (Ghent Institute for International and European Studies) 
in conversation with 
Janis Grzybowski (Université libre de Bruxelles) 
Gaëlle Le Pavic and Bart Klem (Ghent University)

Date: June 2, 2026 (Tuesday)

Time: 11:00–12:30

Venue: Room 3.1 (3rd floor), Technicum 1, Campus UFO, Ghent University

ABOUT THE BOOK:

The precarious status of contested states both reflects and begets conflict. From Taiwan to Western Sahara and from Nagorno-Karabakh to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, contested states call into question the standard categories of international law that divide inside and outside, state and non-state, war and rebellion. They inevitably fall in-between them, while alternatively disputing and negotiating their applicability. 

Bringing together perspectives from a range of disciplines, the book focuses on some of the most entrenched conflicts around the world. It reveals how different actors, including de facto governments, parent and patron states, local populations, and international courts, navigate the grey zone as they redraw, or work around, the fault lines of war and law.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

 Laura Luciani is a postdoctoral researcher at the Ghent Institute for International and European Studies and an affiliated researcher at the VUB Research Centre for Democratic Futures. Her current research explores everyday experiences of in/security amidst geopolitical shifts in the South Caucasus. Laura's research interests revolve around the local effects and negotiations of EU interventions, post-socialist civil society and activism, the geopolitics of gender and sexuality, and meaning-making in international politics.

Janis Grzybowski is associate professor in International Relations at the ULB. He received his PhD from the Geneva Graduate Institute (IHEID) and has previously been a lecturer at ESPOL in Lille as well as a research fellow at Helsinki University and the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence. His research focuses on state making, the politics of international law, and international theory.

Bart Klem is Professor at Ghent University. His work focuses on democratic politics, citizenship, de facto sovereignty and public authority in societies riven by conflict and/or civil war. He leads the SovereignPerformance project (www.sovereignperformance.be).  

Gaëlle Le Pavic is a post-doctoral researcher and lecturer at Ghent University (Department of Political Sciences), where she also defended her PhD (Department of Social Work). She is affiliated with the United Nations University (CRIS) and researches border contestations and migrations with a focus on social dynamics. In addition, Gaëlle is interested in knowledge production and regional (dis)integration processes.