Today is 20 September 2026. It has been two years since Koen’s sudden passing, which left a void that’s still palpable in many of our lives. It has been two years to mourn, to remember, to cherish… It is also time that has forced all of us to look back, reminisce and to acknowledge the privilege we enjoyed in communities that Koen brought together. This blog symposium on Collective Memories in Tribute of Koen De Feyter’s Legacy has already featured wonderful contributions about Koen’s intellectual legacy and how it has already shaped the thinking of generations of scholars.
My closing contribution focuses on why so many early career scholars, particularly those who did not fit neatly within mainstream disciplinary confines and those who espoused non-dominant discourses, were able to find a community in ‘Law and Development’ over the last two decades and how Koen was in large part responsible for building that community. I will try to explore the questions of belonging and building communities of scholarship and practice across the globe for those who are outside of the mainstream in both visible and invisible ways. I will focus on 3 C’s: community, connection and commitment, which to me, guided Koen’s approach to Law and Development.
This contribution is in many ways triggered by the 3-day early career researcher workshop Rethinking Legal Research in and with Africa: Legal Methods, Critical Perspectives, and Decolonial Approaches in the Context of Human Rights and Sustainable Development co-organized from 16 to 18 March 2026 by two brilliant and thoughtful early career colleagues Dr. Isabelle Zundel (Law and Development Research Group, University of Antwerp) and Merlin Mitschker (Chair of African Legal Studies, University of Bayreuth). The workshop brought together around thirty early career participants from pre-doctoral to post-doctoral levels in conversation with each other as well as with more senior colleagues Professors Ambreena Manji (Cardiff University), Olabisi Akinkugbe (Dalhousie University) and Thoko Kaime (University of Bayreuth) whose scholarship and praxis have in many ways been pioneering and inspirational for new generations of scholars. The blog symposium originating from this workshop can be read on the Law and Development Conversations Blog here. As I sat in the back on the very last day, watching some of the discussions on doing research (with communities and rights-holders) ethically, on positionality and epistemic justice, on ethics of care and how to navigate academic spaces that have been favoring fast production and competition for ever-scarcer (financial) resources, I was transported back to the early days of the Law and Development Research Network (LDRN).
On Community
Koen saw Law and Development as an expansive field, able to embrace all those regardless of geographical location, thematic focus, linguistic affinity, or seniority (or in the case of many of us back then, lack thereof). Koen played a leading role in the founding of the Law and Development Research Network (LDRN) as a community that could embrace researchers within that expansive field. The Network’s Charter is not prescriptive: it welcomes “both orthodox and critical perspectives on the role of law in development”. This definition sought to build as broad a global community of scholars as possible, a community that is inclusive in its disciplinary orientations.
The first ‘Law and Development Conference’ exploring the creation of the network was held in Ostende, Belgium in September 2016. The LDRN was established the following year in Antwerp. At the time, it was an initiative of eight institutions from the Global North. The LDRN Conferences were held annually and hosted by founding institutions in Europe starting with the Antwerp Conference in 2017, followed by the Leiden Conference in 2018, the Berlin Conference in 2019. Koen’s vision for the LDRN, expressed at each General Assembly meeting and enthusiastically shared by colleagues at the founding institutions, was for the network to grow into a genuinely global network embracing Global South scholars and institutions as much as those from the Global North. In line with that vision, the network soon expanded to welcome its first members from the Global South. After consecutive annual conferences held in Europe, the 2020 Conference of the network was scheduled to be hosted by Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in Gqeberha, South Africa. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the conference was postponed to 2021 and became the first (and only) fully online interactive conference of the network with genuine global participation. Since then, LDRN Conferences have been taking place bi-annually. The online conference of 2021 hosted by NMU was followed by conferences in 2023 and 2025 hosted by National Law University (NLU) Delhi and by The Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), respectively. On each of these occasions, many of us saw the LDRN community grow not only with respect to welcoming new institutional partners but also in terms of welcoming new individual researchers with different approaches and different research interests.
On Connection
Koen was, in Professor Celine Tan’s (Warwick University) words, a “great convener”. He connected people across institutions, geographies and disciplines in a way that is both difficult to accomplish and also often underappreciated in academia. Koen was the convener of many academic events and spaces that introduced me to some of my closest academic collaborators (and closest friends and comrades). Koen built many institutions and communities but perhaps unbeknownst to him, he brought together many people who ended up building their own communities to explore the many global justice questions that law struggles to answer.
One concrete example of connections Koen fostered is the Encyclopedia of Law and Development. Koen came up with the idea for the Encyclopedia as a resource for students, early career researchers and anyone who wanted a comprehensive and concise introduction to concepts linked to Law and Development. For him, this would be an academic output of a community: it would be a collective publication of the LDRN. He invited two junior women from the LDRN (Dr. Stephanie de Moerloose and I) to co-edit the Encyclopedia and colleagues from the LDRN member institutions as Associate Editors. This allowed broader and more pluralistic participation of authors beyond any one editor’s professional network. To continue Koen’s community-building legacy that seeks to connect established scholars and new generations of scholars across the globe, a second edition of the Encyclopedia of Law and Development is in the works. Two brilliant early career co-editors, Dr. Ntemesha Maseka (Nelson Mandela University) and Dr. Michael Marcondes Smith (University of Antwerp), will be joining me to co-edit this second edition that will be dedicated to Koen’s memory.
On Commitment
Koen was fiercely committed to global justice, including global epistemic justice. He sought genuine and equal collaborations in academia as well as with communities. Within academic settings, he viewed everyone as peers. I recall many conversations – on technical issues within the law – where Koen would approach the topic not from a position of hierarchical superiority but from a genuine curiosity for debate and exposure to different points of view and interpretations of the law. Koen’s stewardship of the LDRN saw a genuine commitment to fostering a constructive space for early career researchers without hierarchical constraints. The LDRN Charter which was the tangible outcome of a commitment to plurality, diversity and inclusion that Koen keenly embraced, notes that the network has the mandate to organize “a variety of activities such as trainings and thematic or regional workshops providing a forum for affiliated and other L&D scholars to interact” and that “special attention is given to events benefiting PhD and early career researchers”.
Koen’s commitment to fostering opportunities for PhD and early career researchers was palpable in the organization of early career researcher events alongside the initial LDRN Conferences as well as various PhD schools over the years. In addition to LDRN PhD schools, the Law and Development Research Group of the University of Antwerp has also been organizing PhD schools with its so-called Privileged Academic Partners, National Law University (NLU) Delhi, the Pontifical Catholic University of Peru (PUCP), the Centre for Human Rights of the University of Pretoria and the Human Rights Centre “Antonio Papisca” University of Padua, Italy. Koen was the driving force behind these initiatives (and many others, such as our collaboration with Palestinian colleagues at the Birzeit University Muwatin Institute). In each of these collaborations, Koen made sure to center opportunities for new generations of scholars, particularly those from and based in the Global South.
As we mark the second anniversary of Koen’s passing, I am (as many of my colleagues) guided by these 3 C’s that characterized Koen’s academic and professional legacy and his commitment to epistemic justice. I hope that, just as his academic work continues to inspire new generations of students and researchers, Koen’s commitment to building academic communities and collaborations on the basis of equity, plurality, diversity and inclusion will endure through the many networks and initiatives he spearheaded.