What could the world look like in the aftermath of European imperialism? How did people begin to imagine and construct new systems of governance and international cooperation for a more just global order? 

Join our scholar in residence Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín for an engaging masterclass that explores these questions through two pivotal historical moments: the founding of the Organization of American States in Bogotá (1948) and the Organisation of African Unity in Addis Ababa (1963). 

This masterclass is an opportunity to discover how history, politics, and architecture intersected to shape the early foundations of modern regional international institutions — and how these events continue to resonate in today’s efforts toward post-imperial international cooperation. 

Preparatory reading: 

• A Criollo Faranj (ፈረንጅ): Situated Reflections in Relation to the Hyperreality of Europe when Engaging with the Socio-Legal Field/Archive (unpublished think piece, prepared for the slow research project The Legal Afterlife of War and Revolution)  

• Chapters VI and VII of Architects of the Better World 

  • “Displaced to the North: The Polar Star of Bogotá’s Inter-American Parliamentary Experiment (1943-1948)” 

  • “At Long Last: Gifting Africa an Anticolonial Imperial Capital in Addis Ababa (1955-1974)” 

Participants will receive the texts after registering – they have not been published yet, so participants are kindly asked not to share them further. 

Masterclasses are primarily aimed at PhD students and postdocs. If you are a docent or advanced MA student, please email decolonialfutures@uva.nl.

Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín serves as the managing editor of the Journal of the History of International Law. He holds a BA in Law with a minor in Public Affairs (2018) from the Universidad de los Andes —Uniandes (Bogotá, Colombia) and a MA in International Law (2020) from the Institut de Hautes Études Internationales et du Développement —IHEID (Geneva, Switzerland), where he was awarded the Fondation Hans Wilsdorf scholarship and the Mariano Garcia Rubio Prize for best MA dissertation. He obtained his PhD in International Law with a minor in International History & Politics (2024)—with the distinction summa cum laude avec les félicitations du jury (SLF)—at this same institution. He was awarded a three-year Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Doc.CH grant for this purpose. After his time in residence at the Decolonial Futures Research Priority Area at the University of Amsterdam, he will pursue a postdoctoral lecturing qualification (habilitation, in German) at the University of Vienna—thanks to the combined support of the Austrian Agency for Education and Internationalisation and a SNSF Postdoc.Mobility grant.