EUTOPIA CONNECTED LEARNING COMMUNITY LEGAL HISTORY 25-26 OPENING LECTURE: Prof. dr. Miloš VEC (Universität Wien), "After 1919 and after 1945: How two World Wars shaped German Thinking on International Law" (ONLINE, 14 NOV 2025, 15:00 Brussels Time)

 

(image source: University of Vienna)

The EUTopia Connected Learning Community Legal History is delighted to welcome Prof. dr. Miloš Vec (Universität Wien) for its annual opening lecture on Friday 14 November 2025.

Within the framework of this year's theme The End of War, Prof. Vec will address the following topic:

After 1919 and after 1945: How two World Wars shaped German Thinking on International Law

On the Speaker

Prof. Vec is currently at the Universität zu Köln as the Second Hans Kelsen Visiting Professor. Prior to being appointed at the Universität Wien in 2012, he taught and carried out research in Frankfurt, Hamburg, Bonn, Konstanz, Tübingen, Lyon II, Vilnius and at the Humboldt University in Berlin. He is a renowned legal historian. 

His publications include the monographs Zeremonialwissenschaft im Fürstenstaat. Studien zur juristischen und politischen Theorie absolutistischer Herrschaftsrepräsentation (Klostermann, 1998), Recht und Normierung in der Industriellen Revolution. Neue Strukturen der Normsetzung im Völkerrecht, staatlicher Gesetzgebung und gesellfschaftlicher Selbstnormierung (Klostermann, 2006) and -recently- Wolfgang Preiser (1903-1997) und sein "Institut für Geschichte des Völkerrechts" an der Universität Frankfurt Denkräume und Sozialwelten eines Völkerrechtshistorikers im 20. Jahrhundert (Nomos, 2025). He obtained the prestigious Otto Hahn Medal of the Max Planck Society in 1997, the Academy Prize of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences in 2008 and has been a senior Global Hauser Fellow at New York University in 2017. Between 2016 and 2020, he wass a permanent fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen in Vienna. 

Prof. Vec is co-editor of Constructing International Law – The Birth of a Discipline (with Luigi Nuzzo, Klostermann, 2012), Paradoxes of Peace in Nineteenth Century Europe (with Thomas Hippler, Oxford, 2015), The Transformation of Foreign Policy (with Andreas Fahrmeir and Gunther Hellmann, Oxford, 2015), Western International Law, 1776-1870 (vol. VII of The Cambridge History of International Law, ed. Randall Lesaffer; with Paulina Starski, Cambridge, forthcoming) and The Congress of Vienna and the Transformation of International Law (with Matthias Schmoeckel, Brill, forthcoming). Prof. Vec equally is a member of the editorial board of the book series Studien zur Geschichte des Völkerrechts (Nomos) as well as of the Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire du droit international (Brill).

Prof. Vec contributes regularily to the leading German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, since 1989.

Practicalities

This lecture (with Q&A) takes place on Friday 14 November 2025 at 15:00 (Brussels/Paris Time), on Microsoft Teams. 

Target audience are lecturers/professors, researchers and students of the associated institutions (Vrije Universiteit Brussel - Prof. Frederik Dhondt; CY Cergy Paris Université - Prof. Caroula Argyriadis-Kervégan; University of Warwick, dr. Rosie Doyle; Univerza v Ljubljani, prof. dr. Katja Škrubej; Universitat Pompeu Fabra Barcelona, Prof. dr. Alfons Aragoneses). Yet, the meeting is also open to external particpants.

Interested listeners or auditors can contact Frederik dot Dhondt at vub dot be for registration.

More information is available on the website of the EUTopia learning community.

VACANCY: Part-Time Teaching Associate (20%) for the EUTopia Connected Learning Community Legal History (SEP 2022-AUG 2023); DEADLINE 15 AUG 2022

(Source: CORE)

EUTopia is the European University wherin the Vrije Universiteit Brussel and nine other partner institutions have jointly undertaken an ambitious programme of integration in teaching and research.

Connected Learning Community Legal History: Minority Rights

The EUTopia Connected Learning Community Legal History recruits a 20% Teaching Associate ("Pedagogisch Medewerker") to support the activities in the academic year 2022-2023. The EUTopia Connected Learning Communities are incubators for innovative and societally relevant teaching methods. They enable us to connect students from the various EUTopia campuses across the continent.

The Learning Community Legal History is part of the second wave of CoLeCos. Its first year of operations (2022-2023) brought together students from Brussels (VUB), Barcelona (UPF), Warwick, Ljubljana and CY Paris in a physical peak event and a number of online lectures, seminars and informal exchange moments. Lecturers, external experts and students reflected an exchanged on the transversal theme of Minority Rights. Student reports of the former can be found on the CoLeCo's blog.

The formal output (on the basis of which students have been evaluated) consisted in an online exhibition, which can be consulted here. Our students mobilised:
- embedding sources from Google Books/Gallica/Europeana
- audiovisual material, whereby they linked up legal history and an urban environment (e.g. for the Brussels case on linguistic rights: the Schaarbeek Townhall, the Palace of Justice, the ULB's buildings on the Avenue F. Roosevelt)

Task description

- Support of the Connected Learning Community lead (prof. F. Dhondt) and partners (Prof. A. Aragoneses/UPF Barcelona - Prof. C. Argyriadis-Kervégan/CY Paris - Prof. Katja Skrubej/Ljulbljana - dr. Jane Bryan/Rosie Doyle/Warwick)
- Reporting to the WP2 leads (Prof. J. Anguri/Warwick - Prof. em. Rosette S'Jegers/VUB) and the EUTopia administration
- Co-creation and inspiration for the teaching activities in 2022-2023

Desired profile

- A Master degree, preferrably in Law (or History) and an academic passion for legal history
- Excellent digital skills (Teams, Word, OneDrive, Sharepoint, Excel [HTML knowledge is a plus], for the management of the digital environment wherein hybrid events and collaborative cross-campus connected teaching activities take place
- Elementary notions of social media (twitter, instagram, Youtube, blogger)
- Fluency in English and preferably also French
- Efficacy (note keeping) and punctuality 

We offer

- A stimulating teaching and research environment in the Research Group Contextual Research in Law within the Faculty of Law and Criminology
- A wage according to university standards, Salary Scale 502
- Flexible working conditions (most work can be done from home); the mission amounts to a day's work on average every week, but can of course be more intense around the peak event and the online exhibition
- Extralegal advantages, public transport cost coverage and use of university facilities (swimming pool, student restaurant, online databases, library...) 

Practical aspects

We expect:

- a cv (including marks and grades) and cover letter
- by 15 August 2022
- sent to frederik dot dhondt at vub dot be

Candidates will be informed quickly after 15 August. We aim for a start of the position on 1 September 2022, running to 31 August 2023.