International Law and Critical Legal Geographies In Conversation

Workshop Organizers:

Dr Tugba Basaran, University of Cambridge
Prof Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar, University of Haifa

Sponsored by Lauterpacht Centre for International Law, Centre for the Study of Global Human Movement, Emmanuel College

Critical legal geographies engage with spatio-legal dimensions of international law. They draw attention to the creation of realms of power, zones of security and insecurity, legal and illegal presence, emplacement and displacement, beyond the realm of state territory. This workshop brings together some of the key figures to explore international law from a critical legal geographies’ perspective (Blomley 1994; Delaney 2004, 2015: Yiftachel 2006; Braverman et al. 2014; Kedar 2014). This workshop will engage with sovereignty, borders, territory, occupation, colonialism, resources, state responsibility, international courts and tribunals.

09.00 – 10.30     Thematic Panel I: International Law and Settler Colonialism

Chair/ Discussant: Nick Blomley, Simon Fraser University

Erez Tzfadia, Sapir College, Israel; University of Michigan, Planning by Emergency Ordinances in Israel’s Development Towns

Elya Milner and Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar, University of Haifa, Trapped Lands: Settlements Outline Plans and the de-facto annexation of Palestinian lands

Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar, University of Haifa and Elya Milner, Urban planning in the Jewish settlements and the debate on the legality of the separation barrier in the West Bank (short intervention)

Hadeel S. Abu Hussein, University of Haifa, On Theory, Nationalism, Law and the Ethnocratic State

10.30 – 10.45     Coffee Break

10.45 – 12.15     Thematic Panel II: International Law, Violence and Colonial Reach

Chair/ Discussant: Phil Hubbard, King’s College London

Matteo Nicolini, Universita di Verona, Manufacturing Imperial Spatialities: The British Integrated Legal Geography of Land and Sea.

Kuniko Yoshida, Hokkaido University, Some Critical Analysis of the Japanese ‘Legal Transplant’ Concept from a Legal Geography Perspective

Andrea Pavoni, ISCTE, Violence as a public health problem? Cure, Curate, Care

Tugba Basaran, University of Cambridge, On Law, Violence and Liberal Statecraft

12.15 -13.30      Lunch Break (Newnham College)

13.30 – 15.00     Thematic Panel III

Chair/ Discussant: Erez Tzfadia, Sapir College, Israel; University of Michigan

Phil Hubbard, King’s College London, ‘Trouble in Oysteropolis’ municipal law, gentrification and the non-human

Joanna Kusiak, University of Cambridge, Radically Legal: Berlin Constitutes the Future

Francesco Chiodelli, University of Turin, Researching on the geography of the illegal: a methodological compass for legal geographers

Elsa Noterman, Queen Mary, and Nicolas Blomley, Simon Fraser University, Children’s legal geographies and the ‘make-believe’ of property

16.00 – 18.00 Public Event

Roundtable: International Law and Territory - A view from Critical Legal Geographies. Nicholas Blomley’s book on Territory (2023)

Nicholas Blomley, Simon Fraser University

Alexander (Sandy) Kedar, University of Haifa

Tugba Basaran, University of Cambridge

Alex Jeffrey, University of Cambridge