On 25 March 2026, the Rio Course on Regional and International Dispute Settlement (Rio CRIDS) was honored to welcome Prof. Paulo Casella, Professor of Public International Law at São Paulo University Law School (USP). The course is held by the FGV Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ programme and directed by Prof. Paula Wojcikiewicz Almeida.

In his lecture, moderated by Prof. Paula Wojcikiewicz Almeida, Prof. Casella presented some of the findings of his book ‘International Law, History and Culture,’ which ‘situates international law in its historical time and cultural context in order to view its role in history through a broader lens, across different societies and cultural frameworks.’ The professor invited students not to take international law as a photograph, but as a constant work in progress, always keeping the perspective of history and culture that define changes along time. Not doing so might lead to misreadings and misrepresentations that are often repeated in textbooks.

As an illustration, Prof. Casella contested the common view according to which the Peace of Westphalia is the foundation of modern international law. He held that international law has existed for thousands of years, before the concepts of states and sovereignty were formulated. He also stated that the international protection of the individual did not start after the Second World War: for instance, centuries before, capitulations were signed between Muslim states and Christian powers, allowing nationals of those states to live and operate in Muslim territories. These examples indicate that a narrow conception of the field, based only on codification and a Western-centric view, does not fully capture its development. Prof. Casella ended the lecture with a reflection: international law has contributed hugely to make the world safer and the rules more predictable, so we must oppose the threats to the international institutional legal system. 

We sincerely thank Prof. Casella for the opportunity to deepen our knowledge on this important subject. We look forward to further collaboration.