Bram De Ridder is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Leuven (Belgium). In his current project he studies the legal and political aspects of territorial neutrality during early modern civil wars, questioning how such neutrality was created, enforced and perceived in times of dynastic and religious upheaval. He recently defended his Ph.D. titled ‘Lawful Limits. Border Management and the Formation of the Habsburg-Dutch Boundary, ca. 1590-1665’, wherein he investigated the emergence of the border between the Habsburg Netherlands and the Dutch Republic during and after the Eighty Years War. More particularly, his research focused on the different political and legal strategies by which different early modern actors shaped the territorial separations that divided them. He also contributed to the transregional history project at the University of Leuven, which developed a distinct methodological approach to the study of early modern borders - in particular those of the Spanish-Habsburg empire. In earlier projects he focused on the Act of Cession and the initiatives for peace at the beginning of the Archducal regime in the Habsburgs Netherlands (1598-1600), and on the connections between the Pax Hispanica (1598-1609) and the notion of International Society. Besides these topics he is generally interested in all forms of Early Modern (international) organization, diplomacy, and legal history.