2024 BOTSTIBER COMPACT SEMINAR IN AUSTRIAN STUDIES LECTURE

Benedikt C. Harzl | Austria’s Permanent Neutrality in European and Transatlantic Context(s)

UC-Berkeley Institute for European Studies

Thursday, February 15, 2024 | 1-2pm PST | 223 Philosophy Hall, UC Berkeley

Sponsor(s): Institute of European Studies Austrian Studies Program, The Botstiber Institute for Austrian-American Studies, OPEN Austria, UC Berkeley Department of German, Institute of Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies, Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota, Institute for East European History at the University of Vienna, Center Austria at the University of New Orleans, Wirth Institute for Austrian and Central European Studies at the University of Alberta, Center for Central Europe at the Andrássy University Budapest

This lecture will engage with the theory and practice of the Austrian neutrality concept in light of the contemporary international setting. Since its inception in 1955, the concept of neutrality appears to exist in a challenging realm, positioned ambiguously between serving as a model and transitioning into a phase-out model. In this context, this lecture will lean into the Austrian experience with neutrality to examine possible options for the European and transatlantic security architecture. Applying a critical approach, both the potential as well as the limitations of the legal and political notions underlying the concept of neutrality will thus be investigated. Particular emphasis in this context will be devoted to the Ukrainian context amidst the ongoing Russian act of aggression. What is more, it will be explored how the war on Ukraine has reinvigorated the political debate concerning neutrality in Austrian domestic politics.

Associate Professor Dr. Benedikt C. Harzl is based at the Centre for East European Law and Eurasian Studies and the Insitute of International Law of the Law School of the University of Graz. He is General Editor of the journal Review of Central and East European Law and the book series Law in Eastern Europe (Brill Nijhoff). He graduated in Law at the University in Graz and completed the “East European Studies” MA program at the Free University of Berlin in 2010. After working at the Institute for European Studies in Minsk and the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin he was a researcher at the European Academy in Bolzano/Bozen (2007–2012) and worked as a university researcher at the REEES Centre between 2012 and 2016. He completed his PhD in law at the University of Frankfurt and was based at Johns Hopkins University between 2016 and 2017 as a Marshall Plan Foundation Fellow. He held guest professorships at Rutgers University in New Jersey (August/September 2023) and New Vision University (Tbilisi, Georgia) in May-June 2023. His habilitation thesis examined matters pertaining to international law in the post-Soviet space. He is co-editor of Unrecognized Entities: Perspectives in International, European and Constitutional Law (Brill Nijhoff, 2022) as well as Diversity Management in Russia (Routledge, 2013).

If you require an accommodation for effective communication (ASL interpreting/CART captioning, alternative media formats, etc.) or information about campus mobility access features in order to fully participate in this event, please contact Ray Savord at rsavord@berkeley.edu or (510) 642-4555 with as much advance notice as possible and at least 7-10 days before the event.