About us
The Queen Mary Centre for International Law (CeILa) is a forum for academics, students, and practitioners who share an interest in international law and its connections to broader global and political issues.
It fosters a diverse range of perspectives, including normative, doctrinal, critical, empirical, and socio-legal approaches, encouraging interdisciplinary engagement with contemporary challenges in international law.
The Centre emerged in 2024 as the successor of the Centre for European and International Legal Affairs. CeILa aims to bring together leading scholarly expertise, research, and teaching to critically analyze and engage with pressing contemporary global issues. We are particularly committed to examining the historical and structural forces that shape international law, including its colonial legacies and the enduring inequalities embedded within global legal frameworks. Through rigorous debate and interdisciplinary inquiry, CeILa aims to contest dominant narratives and advance new perspectives on international law.
Beyond academic research, CeILa plays an active role in policy discussions, providing consultancy and advice to governments, international organizations, and NGOs. We conceive the Centre as an open and collaborative platform for intellectual exchange, welcoming scholars at all career stages who are interested in international law and its intersections with justice, power, and global governance.
In addition to fostering extensive collaborative research, the Centre offers postgraduate supervision and organizes a wide range of events, including annual lectures, seminar series, conferences, book launches, and reading groups. These initiatives facilitate academic dialogue, public engagement, and policy impact, ensuring that our work contributes meaningfully to both scholarly debates and real-world challenges.