Historical Treaties of Southeast Asia

15/12/2025

The Treaty Origins of the Cambodia-Thailand Conflict - New Blog Post by Stefan Amirell

Ever since Cambodia became independent in 1953, its border with Thailand has been contested, the ancient Hindu temple Preah Vihear (or Phra Wihan in Thai) being a particular source of discord. To understand the present conflict, it is necessary to look at two treaties concluded in 1904 and 1907.

03/10/2024

Two new events coming up!

On the 13th and 14th of November, respectively, we are happy to announce a seminar as well as a lecture held at Leiden University by several members of the Historical Treaties of Southeast Asia program!

More information:

28/05/2024

Guest blog!

Professor Isaac Donoso from the University of Alicante writes about Islamic courts in the Southern Philippines, Moro historical diplomacy and the concept of "Bichara".

Read more over at: https://sea-treaties.org/index.php/blog/pandita-bichara-and-moro-historical-diplomacy

13/05/2024

Reminder!

Don't miss the online seminar with Elsa Clavé (Hamburg University) on "Boundaries and land rights in treaties and land deeds in the Malay world (18th -19th centuries)."

Friday 17 May 2024, 13:15−15:00 (CET, UTC+2)

Pre-registration required.

In the Malay world, the European presence and the conclusion of treaties have often been synonymous with territorial demarcations to delimit the spheres of influence of the various powers. These treaties address the issue of territorial sovereignty, which remains difficult to define and understand l...

07/05/2024

New Blog Post!

This time it is our Principal Investigator, Stefan Amirell, who writes about a bicentennial anniversary worth taking note of this year.

Read more over at: https://sea-treaties.org/index.php/blog/the-1824-treaty-of-london-and-the-division-of-the-malay-world

19/04/2024

Come work at the research centre we are affiliated with!

LNUC Concurrences in Colonial and Postcolonial Studies announces 2-4 short-term positions (up to three months) during the autumn for the purpose of developing a research project idea into a full application.

Read more:

Here you will find all available positions at Linnaeus University. To easily find jobs that suit you, you can choose where in the organisation you want to work, under Organisational affiliation. Then click on Apply at the bottom of the advertisement and follow the instructions. You can also subscrib...

19/03/2024

Thank you, co-organizers, participants, and visitors for your contributions to our recently concluded conference on ‘Treaty Making & Cross-Cultural Diplomacy in Asia (16th-20th Centuries)’, held in Manila at the beginning of March.

For more details, visit:

The first international conference organized by the research program Historical Treaties of Southeast Asia under the auspices of Stefan Eklöf Amirell and Ariel Lopez, financed by the Swedish Research Council, was held at the College of Law at the University of the Philippines Diliman in Manila bet...

16/01/2024

We are delighted to present the online seminar series
"Treaties & Empire" for the spring semester of 2024!

4 seminars have been added, see them all on our website: https://sea-treaties.org/index.php/events

Please note that pre-registration is required.

11/12/2023

Online seminar!

On 19 December Tristan Mostert (Leiden University) will talk about protection-tribute treaties in the eastern archipelago in the early 17th century.

The seminar is held on zoom, pre registration required.

Read more:

Presenter: Tristan Mostert (Leiden University). The role of diplomacy and treaty-making in early European colonialism has long been an issue of interest to historians, and the eastern archipelago has provided a particularly rich ground for its study. As the VOC and some of its predecessors tried to....

14/11/2023

New blog post!

Hans Hägerdal writes about "Colonialism, Slavery and Local Histories in Early Modern Asia".

Read more over at:

For several hundred years after 1498, seafaring European powers developed and co-opted a complicated network of commercial relations along the coastlands of the Indian Ocean World and Asia. For the most part, they did not open up new waterways but took advantage of existing systems of trade and exch...

09/11/2023

Program member Maarten Manse's research project on Southeast Asian perspectives on British and Dutch colonialism has been funded! It will be closely associated with Historical Treaties of Southeast Asia.

Read more at:

Historical Treaties of Southeast Asia program member Maarten Manse has been awarded a three-year project grant by the Swedish Research Council to explore the role of Southeast Asian actors in British and Dutch colonialism in the region.

13/10/2023

Join the second installment of our zoom-based seminar series on Treaties and Empire!

On October 24, Saliha Belmessous will talk about Treaties and Indigenous Rights in Settler Colonies.

Preregistration required.

Read more:

Presenter: Saliha Belmessous (Oxford University). This paper examines the role of treaties in establishing the rights of Indigenous peoples in settler colonies, focusing on Canada and Australia in the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Canada, where Indigenous peoples and Europeans had mad...