About
Giovanni Mantilla is an Associate Professor in the Department of Politics and International Studies (POLIS), Fellow of Christ’s College, and Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. He is interested in the operation of multilateralism historically, particularly practices of social pressure and pressure management in diplomacy, global governance, and international legal processes. Empirically, Mantilla’s research has investigated the politics of international lawmaking through multinational archival research, with emphasis on the international law of armed conflict, human rights law, and weapons regulation.
During his term at CRASSH, Mantilla will focus on a project about the historical expansion of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Over the last few decades UNSC reform has become an impossible goal. Only once – in 1963 – has a formal reform initiative succeeded, expanding the non-permanent membership of the Council from 6 to 10 states. Mantilla asks: Why and how did UNSC reform prosper in 1963? He seeks to answer this historical puzzle through primary research in the archives of six states: the United Kingdom, the United States, France, Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia. To draw comparative lessons, the project will also consider a subsequent reform initiative from the late 1970s and early 1980s, which ended in failure despite occurring in the same political context of the Cold War and decolonisation.
