This historical and multidisciplinary conference will contribute to the current revolution in the study of international and global institutions, as developed over the past decade by scholars including Patricia Clavin, Mark Mazower and Susan Pedersen. This new scholarship has revitalized the study of international institutions and stimulated new research on political internationalism, economic development, international law and practices of rights, and state-individual dynamics such as refugee or minority status. A key result has been to erode the consensus on World War Two as an unquestioned watershed in these arenas, throwing into question standard chronological containers such as ‘interwar’.

This conference will be structured thematically around the main areas in which policy developed at the League of Nations and the United Nations. Each panel will focus on a specific sphere of activity - institutional politics and change, economic development policy, international law and human rights etc. - with a view towards tracing the evolution of ideas, modes of practice and institutional development in these spheres. At a time of crisis in international institutions and cooperation, both in economic and geopolitical arenas, this conference will help to contextualize and historicize the present situation.

We would like to invite proposals for papers and panels that speak to the following broad themes:
- Security Dilemmas, Peacekeeping, Peace-Making
- Human Rights and Rights Discourses
- Refugees and Minorities, States and Statelessness
- The Evolution of International Law and International Courts
- Development Economy, Environmental and Aid Programmes
- The League of Nations, the United Nations and the Question of Empire
- Conceptualizing the League and the UN in History: A History of Global Governance

To apply please send a 150 word abstract and a short-format CV to the organizers at: lon.un.conference@gmail.com by 20 December 2012. Subject to budgetary constraints we plan to offer limited support for travel and accommodation costs to participants.