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Marcela Prieto awarded Bielefeld University grant to further research on war regulation

The grant will support creation of interdisciplinary conferences focused on issues like international regulation on weapons, gender violence and more. 

June 8, 2026 By Jasmine Ying
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USC Gould School of Law Professor Marcela Prieto has been awarded a grant from the Center for Interdisciplinary Research at Bielefeld University. 

This funding is shared with Prieto’s co-recipients, Philipp Gisbertz-Astolfi from the University of Göttingen and Susanne Burri from the University of Konstanz. All three recipients plan to use the grant to create a fully funded research group that will focus on the regulation of war. 

“The grant will allow us to organize a series of conferences over several years, where scholars from different disciplines will have the opportunity to discuss how to regulate warfare in today’s environment,” said Prieto, an Associate Professor of Law and Philosophy. “For many of us, it will be the first chance at a truly interdisciplinary dialogue with colleagues from across the globe. It is an immense honor and privilege that our proposal was selected for funding.”

The group will consist of 10 scholars from different areas of study including law, history, philosophy and political science. The first meeting will be held in the summer of 2026 in Bielefeld, Germany, to begin discussion about how to effectively regulate wars in present-day international conditions. 

As the interdisciplinary group continues to meet, Prieto hopes that they will be able to attract the attention of scholars and practitioners from all over the world in order to discuss matters like weapons, gender violence, institutions and more. 

“I want to thank [Prieto] for her important work, which expands our institutional horizons, connecting Gould to vital scholarly conversation and projects across the globe,” Stephen Rich, Vice Dean for Academic Research and Intellectual Life, said in an email to faculty. 

Prieto is a professor of public international law, criminal law and criminal procedure. She has also contributed to many works that focus on the discussion of war and international law, including her book entitled “The Morality of the Laws of War: War, Law, and Murder”. This work was published in 2023, and was awarded the 2023 ABILA New Author Award and the 2024 Francis Lieber Book Prize from ASIL. 

The research group has plans to stay in operation until 2029. 

 

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