WORKSHOP: Rosa Luxemburg & International Law, Warwick Law School (Zoom, 15 September 2022)

Image source: event website

Description:

About the project

Last year marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Luxemburg: a revolutionary theorist and political activist, whose work has provided important political economy critiques of imperialism, capitalism, nationalism and advocated for the collective commitment to social justice. While recent books have celebrated her life and intellectual and political legacy, engagement with her work in international law, although with some notable exceptions, has been largely marginal. Despite her sharp and insightful analysis of the nexus between colonialism and capitalist accumulation and her commitment to anti-militarism and internationalism, Luxemburg’s work remains less visible and prominent than male social thinkers. We believe that placing Rosa Luxemburg’s work into conversation with international law - historically and with an eye to the future - can add significantly to our understanding of international legal debates in relation to imperialism, capitalism, ableism, and questions of race, class and gender critique. We aim to collectively explore what an engagement with Luxemburg’s work may offer at this juncture of neoliberal capitalism, climate disaster, and pandemic. (Events that Rosa Luxemburg didn’t live to see but predicted with her work.)

Organisers: Christine Schwobel-Patel (Christine.Schwobel-Patel@warwick.ac.uk) and Serena Natile (Serena.Natile@warwick.ac.uk)

About the public lecture by Dr Dana Mills 'Socialism or Barbarism, 150 years on' (4.30pm): in this talk the legacy and contribution of Rosa Luxemburg to radical history and theory will be examined against the backdrop of the world in 2022. What can we learn from this giant of social justice, exactly 150 years after she was born?

Bio: Dana Mills received her DPhil from Mansfield College, Oxford in 2014. She has held teaching and research positions at NYU, Northwestern, American Dance Festival, University of Oxford and University of Amsterdam, among others. She is the author of Dance and Politics: Moving beyond Boundaries (Manchester University Press, 2016); Rosa Luxemburg (Reaktion, 2020) and Dance and Activism (Bloomsbury, 2020). Since March 2021 she is the Director of External Relations and Development at Peace Now.

PROGRAMME

Date and time: Thu, 15 September 2022, 09:30 – 18:00 BST

9.30-10 Introduction

10.00-11.15 Imperialism and Primitive Accumulation

Chaired by Christine Schwobel-Patel, Warwick Law School

• Kanad Bakchi (Max Plank Institute International and Comparative Law, Heidelberg), Central Banking as ‘Primitive Accumulation’: International Law and the Transformation of Monetary Policy

• Santosh Anand (South Asian University, New Delhi), Foreclosed Temporalities: International Criminal Law, Imperialism and the Legacy of Rosa Luxemburg

• Jackson Reese Faust (University of Memphis), Luxemburg, Accumulation and Dispossession: Republican Lawscapes toward Global Spatial Justice

• Michele Tedeschini (Harvard Institute for Global Law and Policy), Lessons from Luxemburg: The emptiness of international law and the dialectic of capital accumulation

11.30-12.30 Anti-Militarism

Chaired by Christine Schwobel-Patel, Warwick Law School

• Marnie Lloydd (Victoria University of Wellington, Te Herenga Waka), “A few not too troublesome restrictions”, Restraints on Violence, Solidarity and International Law

• Chloe Truong-Jones (New York University), Jurisdictional Accumulation and the US Police Power

• Antal Attila (Eötvös Loránd University), The New Form of Capitalist Militarism: The Permanent State of Exception. The Challenges of Anti-War Theory and Activism

13.30-14.45 Self-determination

Chaired by Serena Natile, Warwick Law School

• Marcel Garbos (Harvard, History), A Laboratory for Internationalism: Time, territory, and post-imperial transformation in Rosa Luxemburg’s writings on autonomy and self-determination, 1895-1919

• Nathalia Penha Cardoso de França (Mackenzie Presbyterian University), Rosa Luxemburg and self-determination: a point of view of the Brazilian democratic decline process

• Paola Zichi (QMUL, History), Rosa Luxemburg and Self-Determination in Feminist Approaches to International Law

• Eric Loefflad (KLS), Conquest After Conquest: Rosa Luxemburg, Partitioned Poland, and the Fetish of Title by Subjugation

14:45-15.45 Reparations

Chaired by Serena Natile, Warwick Law School

• Mia Swart (Al Jazeera), ‘Pushed into the burning desert’: Rosa Luxemburg’s analysis of imperialism through the lens of reparations

• Serena Natile (Warwick), The reparative potential of a grassroots-inspired transnational social security law: lessons from Rosa

• Christine Schwobel-Patel (Warwick), Radical mooting: teaching the Luxemburgian trial of rapture

16:00 – 16:00 Reflections and Plans

16.30 Public Lecture: Dana Mills – Socialism or Barbarism: 100 years on

Participants will receive the Zoom details to access the event.

Source: International Law Reporter

BOOK: Jonathan CONLIN & Ozan OZAVCI, They All Made Peace – What is Peace? The 1923 Lausanne Treaty and the New Imperial Order (Gingko, 2023)

Source: the Lausanne Project

Description:

The last of the post-World War One peace settlements, Lausanne was very different from Versailles. Like its German and Austro-Hungarian allies the defeated Ottoman Empire had initially been presented with a dictated peace in 1920. In just two years, however, the Kemalist insurgency turned defeat into victory, enabling Turkey to claim its place as the first sovereign state in the Middle East. Meanwhile the Greeks, Armenians, Arabs, Egyptians, Kurds and other communities who had also populated the Ottoman Empire sought their own forms of sovereignty, jostled between the Soviet Union and the resurgence of empire in the guise of League of Nations mandates. Already disillusioned with the Versailles toolkit, recourse was had to a new peace-making initiative: a forced population exchange, affecting 1.5m people.

They All Made Peace is the first English-language publication to consider the Treaty and its legacy a century on. A stellar group of historians present a contrapuntal, multi-perspective analysis of 1923. Chapters consider British, Turkish and Soviet designs in the post-Ottoman world, situate the population exchanges relative to earlier and subsequent peacemaking efforts, and discuss the economic factors behind the reallocation of Ottoman debt as well as the management of refugee flows. Further chapters examine the“absent presences”, Kurdish, Arab, Iranian, Armenian, and other communities refused formal accreditation at Lausanne, but nonetheless forced to live with the consequences, which are still emerging, one hundred years on.

Table of Contents:

Part 1: From One Imperial Order to Another

Minority Rights and International Law at Lausanne – Aimee Genell

Britain’s Plans for a New Eastern Mediterranean Empire – Erik Goldstein

The Soviet Union and the post-WWI International Order – Samuel Hirst & Etienne Peyrat

From the Clash of Civilizations to Nationalism Theory? – Cemil Aydın

Part 2: Moving the People

International Law and the Greek-Bulgarian and Greek-Turkish Population Exchange – Leonard V. Smith

A Capitalist Peace? Money, Labor, and Refugee Resettlement – Laura Robson

Re-Mix? Armenian Autonomy and the Limits of Post-Genocide “Co-Existence” – Lerna Ekmekçioglu

Thanassis Aghnides, Ayrilios Spatharis and the Population Exchange – Haakon Ikonomou & Dimitris Kamouzis

Part 3: Making Concessions

Oil over Armenians: The “Lausanne Shift” in US Relations with the Middle East – Andrew Patrick

The Mosul Question: Lausanne and After – Sarah Shields

The Division of the Ottoman Debt – Mustafa Aksakal & Patrick Schilling

Part 4: Absent PresencesIranian Attempts to Participate at Lausanne – Leila Koochakzadeh

Arab Exclusion at Lausanne: A Critical Historical Juncture? – Elizabeth F. Thompson

The Kurds and the Defunct States of the Middle East – David S. Patel

Part 5: Framing Lausanne

Framing Pasts and Futures at Lausanne – Hans-Lukas Kieser

Lausanne in Turkish Official and Popular Historiography – Gökhan Çetinsaya

Diplomacy, Entertainment, Souvenir? Guignol à Lausanne and Caricature – Julia Secklehner

More information can be found on the Lausanne Project's website.

CALL FOR PAPERS: "International Organisations and the History of Global Development", Yearbook for the History of Global Development (DEADLINE: 31 July 2022)

Source: buch.isbn.de

Description:

The Yearbook for the History of Global Development (YHGD) is inviting submissions for its third volume, dedicated to the history of international organizations and their role in global development.

The YHGD is a serial publication centrally dedicated to the study of past developmental theories, policies and practices, including those with a direct bearing on present-day challenges. Thereby, it serves as an arena for fresh research on the history of development, broadly understood, providing a forum for a variety of historical perspectives on and understandings of development. Relevant perspectives include, for instance, development as a long-term process of different countries that determined their trajectories in world history; as a field of international and global political, economic, technological, cultural, and intellectual interaction; as an aspect of North-South and East-West relations in the context of imperialism, decolonization, the Cold War, and globalization; as a significant domain of international, non-governmental, and research organizations; and, most generally, as the study of the entire spectrum of concepts, discourses and policies related to ways in which countries or regions could and should evolve. Its first volume, dedicated to concepts of and perspectives on the history of development, is about to be published https://www.isbn.de/ebook/9783110730296_perspectives-on-the-history-of-global-development.htm.

A second volume, with a focus on health and development, will appear later this year. The third volume on international organization aims for a publication date of 2023.

Call for papers:

International organizations, such as the Bretton Woods institutions, the United Nations, and multilateral development banks have been central players in shaping the global system of development. By setting agendas, supplying funding for, and organizing projects, collecting data and providing authoritative information on a wide range of topics international organizations have framed ideas and practices regarding development on local, national, regional and global scales. Alongside these intergovernmental organizations, international NGOs have also played a profound role in global affairs, mobilizing people at grassroots level, something in unison with, sometimes in opposition to official political structures.

We welcome contributions that address questions of conceptualization, implementation, and debate about development throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, using approaches from a range of disciplines including sociology, anthropology, law, area studies, cultural studies, public health, science and technology studies, and economics. We also welcome research that focuses on specific organizations or regional groupings, with no geographical limitations.

Submission guidelines:

Please submit an abstract of 250-300 words to Nicholas.ferns@monash.edu not later than 31 July, 2022.

You will be notified of the acceptance or rejection of your submission by August 15, 2022. Authors whose submissions are accepted will be expected to submit article manuscripts by December 31, 2022.

If you have any questions, please contact Nicholas.ferns@monash.edu

Source: Yearbook for the History of Global Development: International Organisations and the History of Global Development, in: Connections. A Journal for Historians and Area Specialists, 01.07.2022, <www.connections.clio-online.net/event/id/event-128344>.

JOURNAL: Journal of Global History, Special Issue: Towards a Global History of International Organizations and Decolonization, Volume 17, Issue 2 (July 2022)

Source: CUP

Special Issue: Towards a Global History of International Organizations and Decolonization

Special issue introduction: Towards a global history of international organizations and decolonization
Eva-Maria Muschik
pp. 173-190

The League of Nations and the post-Ottoman recolonization of the Nile Valley: The imperial Matryoshka of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, 1922–1924
Giorgio Potì

pp. 191-209

The league against imperialism, national liberation, and the economic question
Disha Karnad Jani
pp. 210-232

Malariology and decolonization: Eastern European experts from the League of Nations to the World Health Organization
Bogdan C. Iacob
pp. 233-253

‘With a minimum of bitterness’: decolonization, the right to self-determination, and the Arab-Asian group
Cindy Ewing
pp. 254-271

Select States, nations, and self-determination: Afghanistan and decolonization at the United Nations
States, nations, and self-determination: Afghanistan and decolonization at the United Nations
Elisabeth Leake
pp. 272-291

From administrative to political order? Global legal history, the organic law, and the constitution of mandate Syria, 1925–1930
Adam Mestyan
pp. 292-311

Three days in December: Jewish human rights between the United Nations and the middle east in 1948
James Loeffler
pp. 312-330

More information is on the publisher's website.

BOOK: Emmanuelle TOURME JOUANNET, Le droit international, le capitalisme et la terre. Histoire des accaparements de terres d'hier à aujourd'hui (Bruylant, 2021)

Source: Bruylant

Description:

Le présent ouvrage étudie les liens historiques qui se sont noués entre le droit international et le capitalisme à travers le statut conféré à la terre. Il s’agit en fait de prolonger sous un angle nouveau notre réflexion sur les finalités du droit international et les critères empiriques de la justice sociale au plan international.

L’objet de ce livre est bien d’écrire une histoire portant sur le triptyque constitué par le droit international, le capitalisme et la terre, cette dernière servant à la fois de moteur originaire et de révélateur a posteriori des liens intrinsèques qui se sont noués à travers le temps et l’espace entre les deux premiers. En témoigne le phénomène contemporain de l’accaparement des terres. Depuis au moins deux décennies il se produit une véritable « ruée mondiale vers les terres » de la part de certains États et surtout des grands acteurs économiques privés pratiquant l’agro-business et l’agro-carburant.

Or l’ensemble des règles du droit international économique et du droit transnational des investissements a contribué à l’augmentation continue de ces accaparements et au fait que la terre fasse aujourd’hui l’objet d’une financiarisation à outrance qui va jusqu’à la dématérialiser. La terre devient un asset, une valeur refuge en bourse pour les investisseurs/accapareurs. De milieu tangible le plus concret, le plus immuable et matériel qui soit, la terre est passée à l’état d’un produit financier qui est par principe volatile, immatériel et impalpable. Ce faisant elle fait l’objet d’une exploitation intensive poussée à son extrême afin d’obtenir le plus de rendements possibles et donc de bénéfices.

Qu’est-ce que donc alors que la terre selon le droit international ? Est-ce un milieu, un espace ou un bien détenu en pleine propriété par l’être humain ? Est-ce le substrat de l’identité des êtres humains ou est-ce une marchandise ? D’où vient le besoin incessant de nouvelles terres qui a jalonné toute l’histoire humaine et que le droit international a licité tout au long des siècles ? Pourquoi tant de guerres et de contentieux pour des territoires ou la délimitation de frontières ? Pourquoi tant d’accaparements et de dépossessions de terres ou vivaient et où vivent encore des peuples autochtones ou des populations rurales démunies? Mais aussi quel est le rapport des questions liées à la terre avec la Nature et avec la Terre considérées comme un tout ?

Ce livre est une invitation à réfléchir à ces questions en cheminant à travers le temps.

Sommaire

Introduction

Chapitre 1 – Origines conceptuelles du discours juridique européen sur l’appropriation et l’exploitation de la terre – Le droit des gens moderne

Chapitre 2 – Moment colonial de l’accaparement des terres − Le droit international des nations civilisées

Chapitre 3 – Marché mondial des terres − Droit international de la société globale

Conclusion

More details on the publisher's website.

WORKSHOP: History, Politics, Law: Thinking through the International; and Koskenniemi's To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth, UCL (London/Zoom, 15 July 2022)

Source: UCL website

Hybrid workshop: History, Politics, Law: Thinking through the International; and Koskenniemi's To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth. 

On July 15, 2022, UCL Faculty of Laws will host a hybrid workshop in connection with the publication of History, Politics, Law: Thinking through the International, featuring panel conversations across disciplines (on themes of Discipline, identity and responsibility; Translation; Beyond the textual; and Temporality, chronology and periodization); and an author interview and Q&A with Martti Koskenniemi on his To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power 1300–1870. Details and links to register (hybrid and limited in-person) are here.

Event Information

To mark the publication of History, Politics, Law: Thinking through the International (CUP 2021) the editors are convening a forum for reflection on the interdisciplinary conversations reflected in this volume, and in other recent works including Martti Koskenniemi’s To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power, 1300–1870 (CUP, 2021).

We hope to give participants space to reflect on questions emerging from this work, and explore the future of interdisciplinary interaction, without the pressure of presenting formal papers.

The event will have two components: a day of panel conversations and a book event, open to all; and a smaller by-application doctoral workshop, not open to the public.

15 July, 9am-4:30pm - Panel conversations (hybrid: limited in-person tickets, unlimited online tickets)

15 July, 9am-4:30pm - Panel conversations (hybrid: limited in-person tickets, unlimited online tickets)

The History, Politics, Law volume presented overarching methodological reflections, and a series of chapters from lawyers and historians arranged around themes of potential dialogue (‘Law and Constructions of the Political’; ‘Empires, States and Nations’; ‘Institutions and Persons’; ‘Economics and Innovation’; and ‘Gender’). We hope to spark some further grounded yet open-ended exchanges through thematic panels on

- Discipline, identity and responsibility

- Translation

- Beyond the textual

- Temporality, chronology and periodization

Each panel will begin with a loose set of shared questions, and panelists will speak to these questions briefly through the lens of their own work, past or current; followed by discussion between panelists and audience Q&A. Panelists are not expected to speak ‘for’ their discipline in any sense, but rather ‘through’ their own, more specific, work: the emphasis is not to converge on methodological prescription but to see what emerges from juxtaposing some distinct projects.

There is some limited capacity to join the event in person at UCL. If you are booking to attend in person, please only do so if you are able to participate for the whole day on 15 July; otherwise, it will be possible to join on Zoom for particular panels.

15 July, 5.30-6.30pm - Author interview and audience Q&A with Martti Koskenniemi (hybrid: limited in-person tickets, unlimited online tickets)

15 July, 5.30-6.30pm - Author interview and audience Q&A with Martti Koskenniemi (hybrid: limited in-person tickets, unlimited online tickets)This session will focus on Koskenniemi’s new monograph, To the Uttermost Parts of the Earth: Legal Imagination and International Power, 1300–1870. This work offers a sweeping resource from and through which to think about many of the themes explored in the panels, as well as opening new avenues for reflection across disciplines and periods.

For more information, see UCL website.