Just two and a half years ago in promoting our last conference (December 2022), LIBC co-host Richard Schofield commented that "territorial and international boundary disputes remained more acute than ever  – and yet that in many ways, the sophistication of contemporary academic approaches was making for a sharp contrast with continuingly crude state actions on land and sea".

Fast forward to the spring of 2025 - and territorial questions and resources contestation remain even more central in the conduct of geopolitics and the growing challenges to dispute resolution. 

The panels - a mixture of in-person and hybrid - in our 7^th conference will address the following themes

• Borderlands and Borderscapes - recent thinking
• Borders, territories, and an increasingly “lawless” world
• Maritime boundaries and hydrocarbons
• African boundaries and territorial conflicts: into the mid-21st Century
• Non-legal contributions to boundary and territorial dispute settlement
• Territorial foundations of the Gulf States
• Whatever Happened to Our Borderless World?

Additional features include

• An opening lecture from Phil Hubbard (KCL): Borderlands: Identity and Belonging at the Edge of England
• A tribute to a celebrated borderland geographer: Julian Minghi, 1933-2024
• Early morning pre-programme workshops on the Outer Limit of the Continental Shelf and Ocean Boundary-Making (for which participants must register at extra cost).

About the conference

The London International Boundary Conference is convened by the Department of Geography and the public international law firm, Volterra Fietta.

Inaugurated in April 2013, the London International Boundary Conference is a major international forum dedicated to furthering multidisciplinary approaches to complex territorial and boundary disputes.

The conference strives to bring together specialists from international law, the social sciences, history, as well as technical experts – not usually an assemblage you’ll find at the same venue – to shed light on the debates of the day, emergent challenges and regional hotspots.

Contact info@LondonInternationalBoundaryConference.com if you have any queries.