LL4AE      Half Unit
The Politics of International Law

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Availability

In this course, we study international law as a literary, historical and political project – and a diplomatic language – through which different arrangements of global power and well-being are advanced and defended. And we do this in relation to three moments in global history: the post WW1 period, the Cold War and the Ukraine/Gaza/Trump contemporary moment. After some throat-clearing in Week One, we begin with three classes on the Russo-Ukraine War and the two sets of legal proceedings arising out of events in the Middle-East - Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and The Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) - in which we think about the “relevant” legal rules, the politics behind the deployment of legal categories in the conflict (war crimes, sanctions, sovereignty, self-determination, occupation, genocide) and the way in which international law might open up, or close down, the possibilities of some sort of resolution or “deal”. We then revert to one of the origins of sovereignty, self-determination and institutionalism in 1919 with the apparent revitalisation of international law (and the re-colonisation of The Levant) at Versailles and in Geneva (Weeks 5 and 6) with a one-week break in the middle between 4th and 8th November. In Week 7, each of you will present early synopses of your formative essays. We turn, in Weeks 8, to the Cold War as a lawful moment and international law as a Cold War project by looking at the Cold War in - and of - the North Atlantic and the Global South (through a study of, amongst other things, neutrality or non-alignment as a world-making effort and a Cold War ideal) and, if we have time, by re-thinking nuclearism and nuclear war as juridical categories.  The course ends with two thematic classes - based around my recently published book, the sentimental life of international law (Oxford University Press: 2023) - on international law and friendship, and international law as utopian bet, respectively.

20 hours of seminars in the Autumn Term.

This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.

This is a conversational course designed as a kind of Monday-night salon. The usual practice is that I introduce the topics for 45 minutes and then we engage in a discussion of the readings. These are often relatively short but there is an expectation that everyone will have done the reading and be willing to participate in seminar discussion.

One 2,000 word essay.

Reading lists will be provided for each seminar on Moodle. Readings likely to be set include a selection of international legal texts (including work-in-progress and "new authors") and readings from the fields of intellectual history, 18th century literature and political theory.

Exam (100%), duration: 150 Minutes in the Spring exam period