Why did you decide to study the treatment of the state as a person? 

When I arrived at the Geneva Graduate Institute, I was interested in the question of state responsibility for internationally wrongful acts. As I progressed in my research, I found it intriguing that international jurists chose to describe the state, a collective and fictitious entity, as a unitary legal person. I discovered that, in a variety of legal texts, qualities such as knowledge, intention and guilt have been ascribed to the state to explain the functioning of international legal obligations. I realised that I needed to delve into the historical and theoretical foundations of the treatment of the state as a person in order to understand its role in the legal discourse. 

Can you describe your thesis questions and methodology?

My doctoral thesis focuses on the debate surrounding the creation and evolution of the sovereign state and the role of anthropomorphic vocabularies in this process. I explore how different anthropomorphic qualities pertaining to the “body” and the “mind” of the state have been used and I ask about their role in different conceptualisations of sovereignty.

Throughout my research, I employ a genealogical method that emphasizes the fluidity and contingency of anthropomorphic vocabularies. Drawing inspiration from legal-historical writing which treats law as a language, I also remain attentive to the intellectual and political context which surrounded different concepts of statehood and personhood. 

What are your major findings?

My primary finding is that anthropomorphic vocabularies have played a pivotal role in the discourse surrounding the state as the main subject of international legal obligations. For instance, Thomas Hobbes described the state as a person “by fiction”, that needed to be represented by state officials who acted on its behalf. Meanwhile, the theorists of the law of nations proposed to view the state as a “moral person” characterised by the “will”, “intellect” and its own capacity for cognitive life. The anthropomorphism of the state has reached its extreme manifestation in the organic theories of law, which portrayed the state as a collective living organism. The latter view has been famously criticised by jurists of the interwar period who proposed to view international legal order or an individual human being as the ultimate source of international obligations. Of course, each of these conceptualisations carries distinct practical and theoretical implications for the identity and function of the state. Therefore, another finding pertains to the fact that various forms of anthropomorphism imply and support different epistemologies, or ways of knowing and making sense of the world.

If you would like to read more about my research, some of the preliminary findings from the first part of my dissertation have been published in the Journal of the History of International Law (freely available to members of the Graduate Institute here).

What could be the political implications of your thesis?

I argue that various anthropomorphic vocabularies and imaginaries are linked to different conceptualisations and configurations of sovereignty. This had significant historical implications: while the jurists discussed in my dissertation often portrayed the state as a product of technical achievement, their writings also depicted it as a gendered and racialised entity. This had bearing on decisions regarding whom to include and exclude from the scope of a political community. 

The political implications of anthropomorphism exhibit a considerable degree of variation. In some cases, the anthropomorphic theory of the state has supported authoritarian and collectivist projects. In other instances, anthropomorphic concepts, such as legal personality, have offered an innovative approach to understanding the continuity of the state, its ability to hold rights and obligations, and issues concerning attribution and responsibility under international law.

Furthermore, the topic continues to be relevant today, as new technologies force us to rethink sovereignty and the role of the state. My dissertation ends with a section dedicated to the dispersion of sovereignty and the description of regulatory efforts to achieve “digital sovereignty”. The technologically driven dispersion of sovereignty has been accompanied by the increased role of private actors and the outsourcing of the traditional functions of the state. In a sense, mapping out different forms of anthropomorphism made me appreciate its role in the creation of a sovereign political community and the dangers posed by its decline. 

What are you doing now?

The doctoral experience piqued my interest in the regulatory function of the state with regard to new technological developments. I am currently a Global Fellow at Guarini Global Law & Tech, NYU Law, and I will soon be a Visiting Researcher at the Institute for Global Law and Policy at Harvard Law School. My work focuses on the role of the public sector in relation to innovation in the health sector.

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Adam Strobeyko defended his PhD thesis in International Law in December 2022. Professor Janne Nijman presided over the committee, which included Associate Professor Fuad Zarbiyev and Professor Anna Leander, thesis co-supervisors, and Professor Sarah Nouwen, Department of Law, European University Institute (EUI), Italy.

Citation of the PhD thesis:
Strobeyko, Adam. “Specters of Man: Sovereignty and Anthropomorphism of the State.” PhD thesis, Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, 2023.
The thesis is embargoed until February 2026. For access, please contact Adam Strobeyko at adam.strobejko@graduateinstitute.ch.

Banner picture: part of an ink drawing by Wenceslas Hollar or (more likely) Abraham Bosse, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Interview by Nathalie Tanner, Research Office.