On this International Day for Solidarity with the Palestinian people, this panel unites six international law scholars to discuss the strategies and tactics of solidarity for Palestine today and what we can learn from the legacies of Edward W Said.
TWAIL
This discussion panel brings together a group of legal scholars and activists to share their reflections, experiences, and strategies for responding to the question of Palestine and what global solidarity looks like (and might look like) in the midst of current horrifying developments – while remaining attentive to how this conversation takes place in a context of ongoing settler-colonial dispossession. Attention will be given to pertinent proceedings before the International Court of Justice, as well as relevant petitions filed with the International Criminal Court.
Amanda Byer emphasizes that small island developing states are so much more than ‘mere mascots for the climate crisis’. Through her exploration of diverse complex people-place relations across the Caribbean, Byer articulates the importance of spatial justice and its elemental implications for international law.
Godwin Eli Kwadzo Dzah delves into the historical roots of the ‘new’ human right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment in international law, highlighting Africa’s pioneering contributions and challenging the marginalisation of its role in the evolving global narrative.
Amar Bhatia interviews Beverly Jacobs, Jeffery G. Hewitt, and Sylvia McAdam (Saysewahum) about international law and the continuing system of Indigenous treaties, ceremonies and protocols that predate western colonial international law.
Matiangai Sirleaf reflects on the importance of rendering whiteness visible in scholarship, connecting this to the aggressions of whitesplaining and whitewashing – and how both function to stymie Black intellectualism in international law and beyond.
Sara Ali interviews Siba N’Zatioula Grovogui about his work and its relationship to black theorizing and theorizing while black in international law.