Ms Matilde Masetti Placci (BA (Sciences Po Paris); LLB (UCL); LLM (Edin))
Thesis title: Newly tinted glasses? Revisiting international law's unity (and fragmentation) through the theories of Georg Jellinek, Maurice Hauriou and Santi Romano
Contact details
PhD supervisors:
Background
Matilde Masetti Placci is a doctoral candidate in law at the University of Edinburgh, where she is supervised by Professor Nehal Bhuta and Professor Andrew Lang. Her doctoral thesis engages with three theorists who have not been extensively discussed in English-language scholarship, but who offer diverse accounts of the jurist as an ordering force and as a bridge between the social, legal and political worlds: Georg Jellinek, Maurice Hauriou and Santi Romano. The thesis draws from the writings of these figures conceptual tools which capture the role lawyers played in the construction and contestation of international law in the late nineteenth century. This perspective invites a reconsideration of international law’s unity, or lack thereof. Much of the existing discourse on the ‘fragmentation’ and ‘unity’ of international law has obscured the widespread perception among academics and practitioners that they are a part of and contributors to a shared legal project. The thesis thus makes an original contribution to how legal theory can account for the deep, interdisciplinary connection international lawyers believe they play in the construction and maintenance of international law as a single legal order.
Her broader research interests include the history of international legal thought, social theory and critical approaches to international law, global gender governance, international law and technology, and the politics of law in the Middle East, especially Palestine. Alongside her doctoral studies, Matilde is Affiliate Researcher on the UKRI-funded infra-legalities project at the University of Edinburgh, where she researches the governance technologies of counterterrorist watchlisting and digital bordering systems.
At Edinburgh Law School, she has been tutored International Law Ordinary 1 and 2, for which she was twice nominated for the University’s Teaching Awards. She has also contributed to the design and delivery of modules at both LLB and LLM levels, including International Investment Arbitration, International Human Rights in the Digital Era, and International and European Media Law.
She has a particular interest in supporting students through experiential and practice-oriented learning. From 2022 to 2024 she coached Edinburgh’s Jessup International Law Moot Court team, leading them to the octo-finals of the international rounds in Washington, DC, for the first time in the Law School’s history.
She is the recipient of the Modern Law Review Scholarship and the Vans Dunlop Scholarship for the 2025/2026 academic year.
CV
151247.pdf
Qualifications
BA (Sciences Po) ; LLB (UCL) ; LLM (Edin)
Responsibilities & affiliations
Centre for Critical Data Studies, Edinburgh Futures Institute
Knowledge exchange
Matilde has presented her work widely at national and international conferences, including the Critical Legal Conference, the European Society of International Law, and the Law, Literature and Humanities Association of Australasia.