International legal scholars to convene in Colombo this week

• Two-day  conference on Law and Society in South Asia kicks off tomorrow
• University of Windsor’s Faculty of Law with Stanford and Wisconsin partner to bring over 100 selected papers and scholars from six continents to Sri Lanka

An international conference examining South Asia’s most pressing legal and social issues will bring scholars, legal practitioners, judges, journalists and researchers from around the world to Colombo on 28 and 29 July to the historic Galle Face Hotel.

The conference, Law and Society in South Asia: Interdisciplinary Perspectives from the Ground, is co-organised by Dr. Shanthi Senthe of the University of Windsor’s Faculty of Law, in partnership with the Centre for South Asia at Stanford University (Dr. Sharika Thirnagama and Dr. Lalita du Perron) and the Global Legal Studies Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School (Dr. Sumudu Attapatu).

The event drew more than 260 expressions of interest from participants representing institutions including the University of Colombo, University of Jaffna, Stanford University, the University of Wisconsin, Yale University, Harvard University, Columbia University and universities across South Asia and East Asia. From that response, the conference committee selected 103 submissions for the program.

For Senthe, the conference caps years of international relationship-building and reflects the place of Canadian commitment and Windsor Law’s growing influence on the global stage. The partnership grew out of years of her research and scholarly collaborations with colleagues at Stanford and Wisconsin. Senthe also stresses the significance of Sri Lanka as the host country for this conference.

Sri Lanka is more than the host of this inaugural conference—it is central to the conversations the conference seeks to inspire. Home to a distinguished community of legal scholars and a rich intellectual tradition, Sri Lanka provides an unparalleled setting for examining the relationship between law, society, and justice in the Global South. The conference celebrates the country’s academic leadership while creating new opportunities for collaboration between Sri Lankan researchers and leading scholars from around the world. By placing Sri Lanka at the center of these international conversations, the conference affirms the importance of locally grounded scholarship in addressing global legal challenges and shaping more inclusive and equitable futures.

“These collaborations don’t happen overnight — they are built through years of scholarship, research partnerships and international engagement,” said Senthe.

While grounded in legal scholarship, the conference’s scope extends well beyond traditional legal disciplines. Participants will explore environmental justice, gender equality, post-conflict reconstruction, governance, economic development and human rights — examining how legal systems intersect with the social, political, cultural and economic realities of the communities they serve.

“Law doesn’t exist in isolation,” said Senthe. “The goal is to create space for interdisciplinary conversations that examine how legal systems interact with the communities and societies they serve, especially in the Global South.”

That interdisciplinary approach has drawn submissions from researchers in Sri Lanka, India, Nepal, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Thailand, Singapore, China, Hong Kong, Canada and the United States, including academics, legal professionals, judges, investigative researchers and journalists working on legal and social issues throughout the Global South.

Senthe hopes the conference will give local researchers and legal scholars in Sri Lanka a platform to share their expertise with an international audience. “We want to create a platform that elevates scholarship coming directly from the region,” she said. “Some of the most important perspectives on South Asian legal and social issues come from scholars who are living, researching and working there.”

The conference underscores Windsor Law’s longstanding commitment to interdisciplinary research and international engagement, and demonstrates how faculty research can build lasting connections between institutions, countries and communities.

“This is the kind of work universities should be doing,” Senthe said. “Bringing together people with different perspectives, different expertise and different experiences to learn from one another and tackle important questions that affect societies around the world.”

Senthe credits the conference’s success to a network of community support, and acknowledged the Rodzik family, Windsor Law Dean Reem Bahdi, and the colleagues and collaborators whose mentorship, generosity and belief in the vision helped make the conference possible.

As organisers finalise the program, the strong international response signals the growing importance of interdisciplinary approaches to law and society — and the role Windsor Law is playing in leading those conversations.