CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
Books: Reading ‘Diplomat’ magazine through Marketing Global Justice
Concluding our engagement with Marketing Global Justice (CUP 2021), Richard Clements explores a particular moment of marketing the spectacle of global justice. ‘And here is now another example: I am at the barber's, and a copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the cover, a young [black man] in a French uniform is saluting, with his eyes uplifted, probably fixed on a fold of the tricolour. All this is the meaning of the picture. But, whether naively or not, I see very well what it signifies to me: that France is a great Empire, that all her sons, without any colour discrimination, faithfully serve under her flag, and that there is no better answer to the detractors of an alleged colonialism than the zeal shown by this [black man] in serving his so-called oppressors. I am therefore again faced with a greater semiological system: there is a signifier, itself already formed with a previous system (a black soldier is giving the French salute); there is a signified (it is here a...
ARTICLES
Books: Reading ‘Diplomat’ magazine through Marketing Global Justice
Concluding our engagement with Marketing Global Justice (CUP 2021), Richard Clements explores a particular moment of marketing the spectacle of global justice. ‘And here is now another example: I am at the barber's, and a copy of Paris-Match is offered to me. On the...
Books: Tools for Navigating Neoliberalism
Continuing our engagement with Christine Schwöbel Patel's Marketing Global Justice Julia Emtseva explores the role of donors in the global justice 'sector'. Marketing Global Justice is more than a mere description of how branding strategies are used to advance...
Books: Neoliberalism’s Brand of Justice
We are thrilled to launch a series on contemporary critical (legal) books. Our first text in this series is Christine Schwöbel Patel's Marketing Global Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Over three posts we will explore different aspects of the book, before...
Yes, International Law is Really Law
Public international law (PIL) is neocolonial in function. By this I mean that it continues to materialize the colonial functions of disciplining and plundering the under-developed world. Yet PIL is anti-colonial in form, officially committed to global inclusion and...
A Day in the Lives of Public International Law
Nicholas Rajkovic has recently introduced two concepts which, between them offer a fresh lens through which we can view our profession. Rajkovic developed these concepts, “performances of legality” and “vicarious litigation”, in his reflections on “lawfare”. But they...
ARI
Ari, Perugia, 2019 With Ari’s death, a radiant intensity has been extinguished. That should be mourned, but that it existed at all must be celebrated. In physics, intensity of radiant energy is the power transferred per unit area, where the area is measured on the...
‘Not a Nazi … But’: Forstater v CGD Europe
This article considers the decision of the Employment Appeal Tribunal in the case of Forstater v CGD Europe.[1]Forstater is the most recent in a series of crowdfunded cases brought by ‘gender critical’ activists . In addition to addressing the relevant legal...
The Forstater Case: How should law deal with sex and gender?
The recent Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) decision in Forstater v CGD Europe and others [2021] immediately generated headlines in most British newspapers. The Telegraph saw it as “inject[ing] some good sense into the toxic trans debate”, the Times said the “ruling...
On Israel’s Colonial Occupation of Palestine: The Final Solution Without End
Yet another ceasefire like so many others before it, in Israel’s colonial occupation of Palestine; yet another death count for the archives of oblivion; yet another occasion to ease the conscience of the international community, especially in North America and Europe;...
Law & Critique: Que(e)rying the ECHR’s ‘European Consensus’
Continuing our cooperation with the journal Law & Critique, the full text of Claerwen O'Hara's recent article can be found here. ‘European consensus’ is an interpretive method used by the European Court of Human Rights (the Court). Broadly, it refers to the...
Last seen: Black people missing & dying in the UK
Evidence waits. It has been nearly three weeks since we received an update from the Metropolitan police in regards to Richard Okorogheye’s death. I wonder if they have told Richard’s mother, Evidence Joel, but asked that she not share until their investigation is...
Law & Critique: A Corporeal Law
Continuing our cooperation with the journal Law & Critique, Joshua Shaw writes about his recent article. The full text can be found here (link). The human body and its constitutive materials and effects are formative to law, just as law is formative to the body....
How do we see ‘most of the world’ from Sheikh Jarrah?
Isn’t this simply the matter? Isn’t this what ultimately unites us? These are the questions that wandered through my head as I observed the cartoon illustrated by Doaa el-Adl. Along with the hashtag #SaveSheikhJarrah, the cartoon shows a woman getting dragged from the...
Beware of the Cry of Expropriation
Santiago, October 2019, thousands of people occupied the streets asking for economic structural reforms. A demonstration that started with students complaining about an increase in the metro fare escalated quickly in a national movement demanding significant changes...
On the Government of the Faceless and the Deathless
It seems that in the new planetary order that is gaining form two things, apparently unrelated to each other, are destined to be completely removed: the face and death. We will endeavour to inquire if they are not somehow connected and what the meaning of their...
Defense or Domination: The Categories of Israel’s Occupation
In Sheikh Jarrah Palestinian man stands next to graffiti, which reads 'we will not leave'. The story started with protests in Jerusalem against racist policies of the Israeli government, it escalated with the parallel threat of yet another act of displacement against...
The Colombian Unrest – Tax Reform, Neoliberalism & Riot Cops
In recent weeks Colombia has seen massive unrest, with a general strike, huge crowds across the country and significant violence from ESMAD - the riot police. This short piece seeks to clarify the background and underline the significance of this revolt against...
Karl Marx: Alienation
The Marxian concept of alienation (Entäußerung) or estrangement (Entfremdung) is one of the most discussed notions in the history of modern social and political theory. There is a long history of the term before Marx, from the giusnaturalistic and...
Syllabus: Decolonizing Political Science
We are republishing a slightly abridged version of Prof Robbie Shilliam's brilliant Decolonizing Political Science syllabus (full version with assessment available here). We also welcome other radical syllabi (both those practiced and ideal) and hope that the act of...
Law, Metrics and the Scholarly Economy
As markets began to usurp other forms of social regulation throughout the 20thcentury, metrics became increasingly central to the coordination of new spheres of market-mediated relations. More recently, digital metrics have been operationalized to facilitate the...
Relic or Portent: The View of Northern Ireland from Britain?
Time shows both the diagnosis and prognosis regarding Northern Ireland offered in the Break-Up of Britain to be well wide of the mark. That Nairn’s view from Britain is inaccurate is not that surprising to those used to hearing about Northern Ireland (and the wider...