Created in 2019, the Chair in International Institutional Law revives a long tradition of teaching and research in international law at the Collège de France. The new Chair is both more specific, with its emphasis on the institutional dimension of international law, and more regional, with its focus on the international law of European organizations such as the European Union and the Council of Europe, as well as international organizations in other regions of the world.

The Chair's title refers to the institutional dimension of law, and places it at the heart of its project : this concerns both the institutions at the origin of international law (the international law of institutions) and the international law that governs these institutions (the international law of institutions). In short, the Chair's project is the critical analysis and reform of the institutions, in the plural, of international law. The aim is to grasp all the institutions that adopt and are governed, in turn, by international law, starting with the State and international organizations, but also including all kinds of other public and private institutions of international law, such as cities, regions, multinational companies, non-governmental organizations and trade unions. The diversity of these institutions of international law, but also their articulation around a link of systemic representation of the peoples of this world, and therefore of fiduciary continuity, are at the heart of the international institutional question that this Chair poses and aims to elucidate.

The teaching and research work of the Chair's holder, Prof. Samantha Besson, and her team revolve around three axes of analysis and reform of the international institutional order, both universal and regional : international representation, regulation and accountability. Today, all of humanity faces major challenges (notably climatic, health and technological). Meeting these challenges requires, among other things, the creation or, at the very least, the reform of international institutions capable of adopting a universal law that is not only common, but also representative and legitimate, and capable of answering for the violation of this law. The aim of the Chair is to support this necessary institutional innovation in international and European law.