Emiliano Buis

Emiliano Buis is a lawyer with a degree in literature and a Master 2 in the history and rights of Antiquity (Université de Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne). He holds a doctorate in classics and a postdoctoral degree in law (University of Buenos Aires, UBA). He is a full professor of international public law at the UBA and the University of the Center (UNICEN), and an associate professor of Greek language and culture at the UBA. He is a senior researcher at Argentina's National Council for Scientific and Technical Research (CONICET). He was named Chevalier dans l'ordre des palmes académiques de la République française in 2024.

His interdisciplinary research lies at the intersection of international law, ancient history, classical philology and philosophy. He is currently studying the performative dimensions of international law, including its emotional and material physicality, and the political origins of interstate normativity in the premodern era.

The project

Title: Material and affective technologies of law in ancient Greece: the legal manufacture of objects and emotions

"This proposal deals with the interdisciplinary study of ancient law and politics. At the crossroad between philosophical and anthropological perspectives and theories, I will deal with several aspects of the representation of justice in a plurality of Ancient Greek literary and epigraphical sources. The four seminars which have been developed for my stay are:

• 'Affective technologies of transitional justice in ancient Greece: the legislative factory of emotions'
• 'Tangible law: the objectual dimension of the administration of justice in the Greek world'
• 'The individual, the collective and the physicality of politics: the manipulation of material culture in Aristophanes' comedy'
• 'Diplomatic rhetoric in Athens: figurations of international agreements on the comic stage'."

Hosting institution: École des Hautes en Sciences Sociales (EHESS)

Selective Bibliography

• Buis, E. J. Taming Ares. War, Interstate Law and Humanitarian Discourse in Classical Greece [Series on Studies in the History of International Law, vol. 26], Leiden/Boston: Brill/Nijhoff, 2018 (ISBN 978-90-04-35973-4 [hardback], 978-90-04-36382-3 [e-book]).
• Buis, E. J. El juego de la ley. La poética cómica del derecho en las obras tempranas de Aristófanes (427-414 a.C.) [Serie Monografías de Historia del Derecho, vol. 72], Madrid: Dykinson & Universidad Carlos III, 2019 (ISBN 978-84-1324-202-6).
• Buis, E. J. “The Politics of Anti-Politics: Historiographies of International Law and the Paradox of Antiquity”, en Peters, A. & R. Schäfer (eds.) Politics and the Histories of International Law. The Quest for Justice, Leiden/Boston: Brill/Nijhoff, 2021; 430-454.
• Buis, E. J. “Rhetorical Defence, Inter-Poetic Agōn and the Reframing of Comic Invective in Plato’s Apology of Socrates”, en Serafim, A. & S. Papaioannou (eds.) Comic Invective in Ancient Greek and Roman Oratory (Trends in Classics, Supplementary Volume 121) Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2021; 81-105.
• Buis, E. J. “Physically Upright, Morally Sound: Recreating Ancient ‘Integrity’”, en Bergsmo, M. & V. Dittrich (eds.) Integrity in International Justice, Brussels: TOAEP, 2020; 47-84.