BOF Research Professor of Legal History at KU Leuven
Chair of the Research Unit Roman Law and Legal History.
Legal historian and expert of the History of international law and imperialism in Africa
The Practice of Empire
From the Public Law of Europe to Global International Law?
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘The Treaty of Washington and Neutrals’ Duty of Due Diligence’, in Randall Lesaffer (ed.), Oxford Historical Treaties (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019)
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘British Humanitarianism, International Law and Human Sacrifice in West Africa’, in Randall Lesaffer and Inge Van Hulle (eds.), International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century: Ten Studies (Leiden: Brill, 2019).
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘Imperial Consolidation through Arbitration: Territorial and Boundary Disputes in Africa (1870-1914)’, in Ignacio De La Rasilla del Moral and Jorge E. Viñuales (eds.), Experiments in International Adjudication (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019).
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘Unequal Treaties’, in Gordon Martel (ed.), The Encyclopedia of Diplomacy (New Jersey: Wiley, 2018).
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘British Protection, Extraterritoriality and Protectorates in West Africa 1807-1880’, in Lauren Benton, Adam Clulow and Bain Attwood (eds.), Protection and Empire. A Global History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 194-210.
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘The Sphere of Influence in International Law (1870-1920)’, in Dave De ruysscher, Kaat Capelle, Maarten Colette, Brecht Deseure and Gorik Van Assche (eds.), Legal History, Moving in New Directions (Antwerp: Maklu, 2015), 395-410.
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘Between Amnesia and Awakening: A Critical Assessment of Colonial Legal Historiography in Belgium’, Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte (2025).
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘The Blood Brotherhood and Colonial Treaties and Alliances: Between Myth and Reality’, Journal of the History of International Law (2024).
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘African Lawyers and the Strategic Uses of Legal Entanglements: the Case of the Gold Coast and Lagos (1880-1920)’, Forum Historiae Iuris (2022).
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘Grotius, Informal Empire and the Conclusion of Unequal Treaties’, Grotiana 37 (2016), 43-60
Van Hulle, Inge, Arielli Nir and Gabriela Frei, ‘The Foreign Enlistment Act, International Law and British Politics (1819-2014)’, International History Review 37 (2016), 1-21.
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘Britain’s Recognition of the Spanish American Republics: the Gap between Theory and Practice in International Law (1810-1900)’, Tijdschrift voor Rechtsgeschiedenis / Revue d’Histoire du Droit / The Legal History Review 82 (2014), 284-322.
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘Benedicte Savoy, Afrikas Kampf um seine Kunst. Beck, 2021, +256 p.’, Rechtsgeschichte – Legal History (2022).
Van Hulle, Inge, 'The Comforts and Confines of the Legal Imagination. Rechtsgeschichte' - Legal History Rg 29, pp. 286 - 288 (2021)
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘Juan Pablo Scarfi, The Hidden History of International Law in the Americas. Empire and Legal Networks, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017, 280 pp, hbk £64.00’, The Modern Law Review 81 (2018), 925-928.
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘J. Lemnitzer, Power, Law and the End of Privateering. Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke 2014. +254 p.’, Journal of the History of International Law 17 (2015), 139-142.
Van Hulle, Inge, ‘M. Garcia-Salmones Rovira, The Project of Positivism in International Law. [The History and Theory of International Law], Oxford University Press, Oxford 2013. +427 p.’, Tijdschrift voor rechtsgeschiedenis / Revue d’Histoire du Droit/ The Legal History Review 82 (2014), 335-338.
Conference: ‘Reconstruction and the history of international law’, 20th Annual Conference of the European Society of International Law, Freie Universität Berlin, 11 September 2025.
Conference: ‘Prestige and ambition in colonial treaty-making (1882-1889)’, ENIUGH Conference, Växjö, Sweden, 10 September 2025.
Conference: ‘“Liberation” through Warfare: The Legal Status of Prisoners of War in the Congo Free State’, Legal Histories of Empire, Toronto, 11 July 2025.
Conference: ‘Trade, debt and intervention in the history of the Congo Free State’, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, 23 May 2025.
Workshop: ‘Lawlessness and Colonial Treaty-Making in the Congo Free State (1882-1889)’, Workshop in Legal History, Lund University, 21 January 2025.
Conference: ‘Legal Vernacular and Imperial Law-Making on the Gold Coast’, Biennial Conference of the European Society for Comparative Legal History, University of Lisbon, 23 June 2023.
Conference: ‘Revue de droit international et de législation comparée’, The Journals of International Law, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory and KU Leuven, 21 June 2023.
Workshop: ‘Judicial reform in Congo Free State: the archive of Marcellin de Saegher’, Colonial Legal Biography, Max Planck Institute for Legal History and Legal Theory, Frankfurt am Main, 27 April 2023.
Lecture: ‘The blood pact in African treaty-making: between myth and reality’, CoCoLaw Lecture Series, University of Helsinki, 22 March 2023.
Workshop: ‘Colonial treaties and international law’, West Central Africa Workshop, National Museum of World Cultures, Leiden, 8 December 2022.
Seminar: ‘Britain and International Law in West Africa: the Practice of Empire’, IISH Seminar, International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, 20 September 2022.
Conference: ‘Colonial Cartography and the Notion of Emptiness in Title to Territory and Colonial Land Law’, Legal Histories of Empire, Maynooth University, 29 June 2022.
Commentator, ‘Mental Aerobics and the History of Empire’, JHIL lecture by Prof. Lauren Benton, Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, 5 June 2022.
Online talk, ‘Pan-Africanism and the History of International Law’, Max Planck Heidelberg Theory Talks, 28 April 2022.
Online seminar: ‘Britain and International Law in West Africa: the Practice of Empire’, Glasgow Research Seminars in Legal History, University of Glasgow, 8 March 2022.
Webinar, ‘British Treaty-Practice in West Africa’, Empire, International Law and History, Jindal Global Law School, 18 November 2021.
Webinar: ‘Methods of National Histories of International Law’, European Approaches to International Law in a Historical Perspective, European University Institute, Florence, 11 May 2021.
Workshop participant: 'Writing Legal Lives. Histories of International Law, Center for History and Economics', Harvard University, 28-30 April 2021.
Online talk: ‘The Historiography of International Law in Sub-Saharan Africa’, University of Edinburgh, organized by Prof. dr. Nehal Bhuta, 29 October 2020.
Conference presenter: ‘A Disappointment bitterer than Jordan Apples’: African Nineteenth-Century Accounts of European International Law’, ESCLH Postgraduate Conference in Comparative Legal History, University of Augsburg, 27-29 June 2019.
Workshop: ‘Benevolent Aggression and Exemplary Violence in West Africa’, New Perspectives on Law and Empire in the History of International Law, University of Edinburgh, 10 October 2019.
Conference: ‘British Abolitionist International Law (1840-1880)’, ASAUK (African Studies Association UK), University of Birmingham, 11-13 September 2018.
Conference: ‘West African Resistance and the Formation of British Abolitionist International Law (1840-1880)’, Legal Histories of Empire: Perspectives from the Colonized, University of the West Indies (Barbados), 11-14 July 2018.
Conference: ‘Suarez between Tyrannicide and Terrorism’, The Legal and Political Thought of Francisco Suarez, KU Leuven, 24-25 November 2017.
Conference: ‘The Roots of Britain’s Imperial International Law in West Africa (1815-1885)’, British Legal History Conference, University College London, 5-8 July 2017.
Conference: ‘Anglo-African Legal Connections: Protection on the Gold Coast (1807-1830), Belgian-Dutch Legal History Conference, Maastricht University, 16-17 December 2016.
Conference: ‘Britain, West Africa and the Formation of British Imperial International Law’, International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century, KU Leuven, 24-25 November 2016.
Seminar: ‘Banishing 'Barbarous Customs': British Imperialism and Extra-Territorial Jurisdiction in Africa (1815-1865)’, Seminar Series on International Law, University of Ghent, 19 May 2015.
Conference: ‘Prelude to the Scramble for Africa: West African and European International Law in Transition (1807-1830)’, XXst Young Legal Historians Forum, Tel Aviv University, 1- 3 March 2015.
Conference: ‘The Sphere of Influence in International Law’, Belgian-Dutch Legal History Conference, University of Brussels, 11-12 December 2014.
Workshop: ‘The International Legal Dynamics of British Imperialism: the Problem of the (Wo)Man-on-the-spot’, Workshop Recent Research in the History of Public International Law, University of Ghent, 23 May 2014.
Conference: ‘Rebels with a Common Cause? Syria, International Law and the History of the UK Foreign Enlistment Act’, XIst Young Legal Historians Forum 2014, Cambridge University, 2 April 2014.
Seminar: ‘Neutrality, State Recognition and the History of the UK Foreign Enlistment Act’, Visiting Scholar Seminar Series, Cambridge Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, 25 March 2014.
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