Small states are often portrayed as vulnerable actors, defined by capacity constraints and exposure to external pressures. Yet recent climate litigation tells a different story. Through advisory proceedings before ITLOS and the ICJ, small island states have used international law strategically to reframe climate change as a matter of legal obligation, responsibility, and global justice. This talk explores how small states deploy ‘legal statecraft’ to attempt to exert leverage in the international system, and asks whether these strategies can continue to generate traction in a changing legal order marked by growing great power indifference to legal constraint.

About the speaker

Douglas Guilfoyle is Professor of International Law and Security at UNSW Canberra and an Australian Research Council Future Fellow (2022–2026) leading the project ‘Legal statecraft: small states and the law of the sea’. His research examines how small states use international law, including litigation, as a tool of strategic influence. He works across the law of the sea, maritime security, and international courts and tribunals. He has held visiting positions with institutions including West Point and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and previously taught at University College London and Monash University.

This seminar presentation is an in-person only event. Registration is not required for in-person attendance as neither the ANU nor ACT Health conduct contact tracing.

Light lunch will be provided. 

If you require accessibility accommodations or a visitor Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan please email regnet.communications@anu.edu.au.

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