CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
Blog Carnival: Discussing the Aesthetics and Counter-Aesthetics of International Law
In her review of Aesthetics and Counter-Aesthetics of International Justice, Isobel Roele mentions the use of ‘reverse-engineering’ as a method of counter-aesthetics. Sofia Stolk’s contribution to Aesthetics and Counter-Aesthetics of International Justice, the first contribution in the book, reverse-engineered a screen play from an educational youtube video of the International Criminal Court. What this did was to expose technicalities behind the camera’s gaze as a form of highlighting the reproduction of biases, like the camera panning or zooming in. It made explicit some of the unspoken assumptions around the narration of victimhood in international criminal justice. In this response to our reviewers, we have used reverse-engineering as a method to bring us all into conversation. We respond to the three reviewers, who so generously engaged with the edited volume, as a reverse-engineered conversation between us and the reviewers, Maria Elander, Kate Miles, and Isobel...
ARTICLES
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....
The Antagonistic University? A conversation on cuts, conviviality and capitalism
Anja: Let me begin by posing three questions. Firstly, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that modes of labour are appropriating cognitive, communicational and affective skills. What does this mean to you for the political potential of academic and collaborative...
ELDH Statement on Syria: An alleged crime against humanity should not be punishable by an illegal use of force
The European Lawyers for Democracy and Human Rights (ELDH), with members in 18 European countries, is absolutely opposed to the proposed use of illegal force by Western powers against the Syrian regime. The US government is leading a call for military action against...
Euro Stability Mechanism proposes transfer of Greek assets to Luxembourg
The European Commission has been forced to rebuff a proposal by the Eurozone's new bailout fund, the ESM, that Greek assets be transferred to a new Luxembourg-based special purpose vehicle as a part of a wider privatisation scheme. The proposal, mooted by Finland in...
Thick Skin, a lawful film written and directed by Peter Rush
This film explores an aesthetics of law and its inhabitants through the public art sites of The Another View Walking Trail that was installed in the 1990s in the City of Melbourne. In a slow-moving filmic recitation, each of the sites focus our attention on the place-making and counter-memory of law and governance. What then would it take for the eye of law, beyond pretence and all forgetting, to recognise pain? What would it mean to investigate the manners in and by which proximate and suffering others have dwelt and do dwell in law? Available to watch for the first time in uploaded digital form here on Critical Legal Thinking…
Transphobia
"I have a hard time making my mind take place…" begins the poem Body & Isn’t by Bruce Covey. Indeed, it is hard for the mind to take place when it reads the column “Mikropragmata” (“Trivial Things”) by Aris Dimokides in LiFO of 18/7/2013.LiFO ‘What Exactly...
Immigration Manhunts and British Post-Colonial Identity
Last week the British government’s Border Agency (UKBA) pushed its new and controversial “go home” campaign into full effect along with an accompanying, and highly criticized immigration stop and search at several London tube stations. The vast majority of the...
Law cannot determine whether Assange is guilty of sexual assault
Like many others, I used to admire Julian Assange. In 2009 I took part in a campaign to nominate Assange for ‘Australian of the Year’, thinking that putting forward a journalist who actively publishes material that challenges nationalistic myths for a nationalistic...
Wanted For Love, But Not Here: The Travelling Rights of African LGBT Activists
One of the dangers of awareness campaigns centred on social media is that they risk being online popularity contests. The [Dutch] national “Wanted For Love” campaign—a collaborative initiative of Hivos and Human Rights Watch aimed at drawing attention to the plight of...
The Encrypted Constitution: A New Paradigm of Oppression
Ever since judicial supremacy was affirmed in Marbury v Madison [5 US 137 (1803)], the political content of US-inspired constitutions has been compressed and turned into purely techno-legal content (ordinary law). What has taken shape is a tradition in which the...
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