[CALS Lunch Book Talk] The Failures of Others: Justifying Institutional Expansion in Comparative Public and International Law

The Centre for Asian Legal Studies (CALS), National University of Singapore, hosted a book discussion for Michaela Hailbronner’s new book “The Failures of Others: Justifying Institutional Expansion in Comparative Public and International Law” on Friday 13 February 2026.

The session featured Professor Michaela Hailbronner, who is Professor of German and International Public Law and Comparative Law at the University of Münster and Co-President of the International Society of Public Law (ICON•S). The discussion was moderated by Dr Sarah Bishop, a post-doctoral fellow in the Centre for Asian Legal Studies, NUS Law.

Professor Michaela Hailbronner introduced the book which offers the first systemic analysis of ‘arguments from failure’ in legal reasoning, demonstrates why such arguments should be treated as a distinct category of legal argument, and develops a framework to evaluate them. The book analyses the role such arguments play in a diverse range of legal systems—including domestic legal systems from both the Global North and South, and also in European Union law and international law—and the insights it offers are relevant across this range of settings.

The session was attended by academics and students interested in international law and in public law in Asian and Latin American settings. This led after the talk to a wide-ranging Q&A session, in which thoughtful questions were raised on how the arguments may play out in a range of different settings prevalent in Asia and Latin America, and how they may be impacted by evolving trends in international law and shifts in political trends in the Global North.