By Björn Elberling

Returning from my, ahem, unannounced hiatus, let me kick off the "Service" aspect of our blog by referring interested readers to a few interesting Calls for Candidates. 2008 will be the last year that the Grotius Centre for International Legal Studies in The Hague is conducting the Marie Curie Top Summer School and the Marie Curie Research Course in the field of International Criminal Law. The Summer School will take place between 30 June and 11 July 2008 and is aimed at Ph.D Students in the first four years of their Ph.D. program. Approx. 30 participants from all over the world will be treated to two weeks of lectures and discussion sessions on ICL. The Research Course will take place in October 2008 and March 2009 and is aimed at Researchers who have either finished their Ph.D. or who are past the fourth year of their program. Candidates are expected to submit a proposal for an article on the topic of the course (this year’s topic is "The Diversification and Fragmentation of International Criminal Law in a Global Society"), and the program aims at enabling all participants to write an article of publishable quality on their chosen topic. In both cases, the program covers travel costs of participants and provides a per diem to (partly) cover costs of accomodation etc. Deadline for applications is late April for the Summer School, late May for the Research Course. Having participated in the Summer School last year, I can only recommend these two programs to those working on Ph.D.s in ICL or related fields (public international law, human rights, IHL or national criminal law). The Grotius Centre will also organize a bilingual Summer School for undergraduate students this summer, more information here.