CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
Greenland between a Rock and a Hard Place
Amid US President Trump’s looming take-over of Greenland and attempted coercion of Western allies to agree to this, Western liberal international lawyers and commentators are busy reaffirming Danish sovereignty over the territory. However, an anti-colonial international law intervention during this time of inter-imperial rivalry is not to stand with Denmark, but to stand on the side of the right to Greenlandic self-determination. Recent Developments on Greenland and International Law Following US President Trump’s tariff threats to European states who do not support his acquiring of Greenland, a seemingly bold joint statement was made by European allies that they stand ‘in full solidarity with the Kingdom of Denmark and the people of Greenland’. Danes have taken to the streets, marching through Copenhagen with ‘Hands Off Greenland!’ placards. International Law professor Marc Weller recently indignantly stated on the question of who owns Greenland?: ‘The Danish...
ARTICLES
The Law of the Commons: Climate Change Protest in Buckfastleigh
On Thursday 17 October the community of Buckfastleigh, South Devon, heard the fate of their town, their livelihoods, the protection of their immediate environment and surrounding ecosystems, presented to them in the much awaited decision of a planning appeal...
Against Rebels
Rebels are not just boring, they are dangerous. We’ve had decades of rebel-worship now and if I see Che Guevara on one more t-shirt I’m going to start shooting the hostages. Che Guevara was a dick. I know this because I have the Bolivian Diary in my toilet and every...
Vulnerability and the Protestor Desired
I. In September of last year, Charlene González, a University of Puerto Rico undergraduate student removed her top in the University plaza as part of a performance/protest against institutionalized gender discrimination in the university and in Puerto Rican society at...
The Alien Body in Contemporary Netherlands: Incarceration and Force-feeding of Asylum Seekers
On 22 May 2013, the Dutch State Secretary of Security and Justice and Minister for Migration offered the House of Representatives a memorandum issued by the Council of State concerning ‘the options to administer food and drink to an alien in detention who is on hunger and/or thirst strike, against his will.’ This essay sets out to unpack the main premises of these recommendations in the framework of biopolitics, its colonial heritage and contemporary deployment in the Netherlands. Whilst understood in a historical continuum, this little document gains relevance as it represents a significant step over the threshold of the human …
Notes on the Thought of Walter Benjamin: Critique of Violence
“Critique of Violence” (Zur Kritik der Gewalt)In this article I will refer to the following translation of Zur Kritik der Gewalt: Walter Benjamin. 1996. Critique of Violence, Selected Writings; Volume 1;1913-1926. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University...
Our ‘Angel in the City’: A Remembrance of Marshal Berman (1940-2013)
In the late nineties I was studying political theory and living in New York City. I had just finished my first year at the New School for Social Research, and wanted to explore what the City had to offer and take advantage of the university consortium the New School...
What’s “Left” of Communism? Part II of II
In my last article I was looking at the Left’s current return to communism and that, while the thinkers most often associated with this return are adamant that this is a new and more fluid communism than the communist projects of the 20th century, there are three...
What’s “Left” of Communism? Part I of II
In his 1980 book The Inoperative Community, Jean-Luc Nancy famously claimed that communism is, “… no longer the unsurpassable horizon of our time.” Three years later Benedict Anderson, in his groundbreaking book Imagined Communities, showed us how alliances based on...
The Dreadful Dr Freud
Macedonian writer and Gender Studies devotee, Goce Smilevski, draws in his latest novel on an alleged episode from the life of Sigmund Freud to show that the founder of psychoanalysis was a misogynistic pervert, fascinated by Nazism, and obsessed with money and...
Human Bodies in Material Space: Editorial of the Journal for Human Rights and the Environment
This edition of the Journal of Human Rights and the Environment is dedicated to the greatest struggle of our era – the ongoing – and increasingly urgent – struggle to confront the entrenched and growing violence (both epistemic and physical) of a global order that is...
# Palestine /// Law as a Colonial Weapon: Review of ‘The Law in these Parts’ by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz
[vimeo 51930783 w=600&h=350] I recently watched Israeli director Ra’anan Alexandrowicz's fim, The Law in These Parts, which unfolds the legal mechanisms of the occupation of the Palestinian territories (West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem) since their take over by...
Michael Gove: Education, Re-moralistation and Foreign Policy
“Disgrace, you’re a disgrace!” jeered Michael Gove to Tory backbenchers after the British government’s defeat over intervention in Syria. Those who are aware of the Education Secretary’s thoughts on foreign policy would have been unsurprised by this over-excited...
On the murder of Pavlos Fyssas and the rise of Fascism in Greece: Interview with Costas Douzinas
Ionna Drosou (ID): It appears, from the most up to date evidence, that Pavlos Fyssas was targeted because of his music. What does this symbolise? Costas Douzinas (CD): The artistic name of Mr Pavlos Fyssas was Killah P(ast). He was, in this sense, an executioner: he...
Liberation through Occupation: Italian Property Outlaws
This short reflection stems from my recent experience at the Ex Colorificio Liberato (Ex Paint Factory Liberated) in Pisa, a 14,000 square meter factory which had been abandoned for eight years before being occupied eleven months ago by a group of citizens (Rebeldìa)...
Adjunct, Class, Fear
The biggest obstacle to organizing adjunct (part-time and full-time non-tenure-track) professors, who now comprise 75% of the faculty in higher education, with part-timers working for $2700 per course on average — is fear. Most people assume that adjuncts fear...
On Agamben’s Politics and Theology
Colby Dickinson and Adam Kotsko recently did an interview on Agamben for the Brazilian publication Unisinos, which was translated into Portuguese and recently published. They decided to publish the original English transcript for the benefit of non-Portuguese speakers...
No Alarms and No Surprises? Sixth Protester Dies in Turkish Demonstrations
Even though the international fascination with the Turkish protests seems to have somewhat faded, they have continued since last May. The demonstrators are neither tired of gathering together nor deterred by the tear gas and the water cannons used unsparingly by the...
Murder by Fascists in Greece
Last night, 34-year-old anti-fascist and left-wing rapper Pavlos Fissas was stabbed to death in Athens while he was surrounded by a group of 30 thugs in Golden Dawn shirts and military trousers. The victim, whose stage name is MC Killah P, had been watching a football...
The Political in the Contract Classroom
When we started ‘The Public Life of Private Law’ one of the conversations we wanted to have with participants, and with others following the series, was about teaching private law from a critical perspective. In particular, we wanted to think about how those of us who...
Palestinian Family Unification in Israel: The Limits of Litigation as Means of Resistance
At the end of March 2002, Eli Yishai, then the Israeli Minister of Internal Affairs, decided that all requests for family unifications submitted by Palestinian citizens of Israel married to Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) would be frozen...
Counterpress and Critical Legal Strategy
In 2007, Daniel Bensaïd suggested that we turn to the question of strategy. Traditionally, strategy is distinguished from tactics. Where strategy is the ‘use of engagement to obtain the plan of war’ in von Clausewitz, tactics are the short term acts which win battles....
KEY CONCEPTS
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SERIES / SYMPOSIA
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