Berkowitz/Finley Lecture Hall

This is an in-person event only. This event, co-organized by the Lauterpacht Centre with the Institute of Juridical and Political Sciences at the University of Lisbon, will focus on important recent developments in the area of the law of the sea. This is a dynamically developing area of public international law, marked in recent years by action taken to address the challenges of such phenomena as rising sea levels and environmental pollution. The highlight of 2023 was the successful completion of negotiations on the UN High Seas Treaty (on the conservation and sustainable use of marine biological diversity of areas beyond national jurisdiction). Traditional disputes relating to maritime delimitation (of which the renowned South China Sea arbitration may be an example) have been complemented by promoting climate change action through resort to the advisory jurisdiction of ITLOS (a request for an advisory opinion submitted by the Commission of Small Island States in December 2022) and the ICJ (at the initiative of the small island state Vanuatu, a proposed request for an advisory opinion on state obligations on climate change). The symposium will explore the particularities and efficiency of dispute resolution and treaty making in the law of the sea. It will provide a forum for analysis and debate also on other developments in this field, such as the blockade of Black Sea ports. The symposium will be divided into three sessions. The first session will cover contentious dispute resolution mechanisms and practice. The second session will be devoted to the use of advisory jurisdiction of international tribunals to promote important environmental policy goals. The third session will concern other developments. For further information contact Dr Joanna Gomula jg218@cam.ac.uk .

This lecture is a hybrid event. There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome. Lecture summary: Cultural rights have been invisible in the human rights discussions. They are the main absent from discussions on SDGs and the achievement of social justice. The lecture will explore the main reasons for this. It will argue that unfortunately culture and cultural heritage are still discussed in really restrictive ways, pushing aside their transformational natures. I will discuss the main issues where in my view cultural rights are needed but not fully used; they include gender equality, sustainable development, and the right to science. The main argument is that leaving no one behind, a well-known phrase of the United Nations, cannot really be materialise without the implementation of cultural rights. Alexandra Xanthaki was appointed UN Special Rapporteur in the field of cultural rights in October 2021. She is Professor of Laws at Brunel University London, United Kingdom. Alexandra has published on cultural rights of minorities and indigenous peoples, cultural diversity, cultural heritage, balancing cultural rights with other rights and interests, and multicultural aspects of international human rights law. She holds a law degree from Athens University, a masters degree in 'Human Rights and Emergency Law' from Queen's University, Belfast and a PhD from Keele University, on the 'Rights of Indigenous Peoples in the United Nations' that she did under the supervision of Patrick Thornberry. Alexandra is a member of the Summer Human Rights Faculty in Oxford University.

This lecture is a hybrid event. There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome. Lecture summary: From European colonialism to the ‘post’colonial constellation, modern international law has developed in parallel with the changing legal forms of industrialised countries’ access to the natural resources of the global South. Following this development, we can see how imperial environmentalism was translated to the transnational law of natural resources. The historic perspective also highlights that the specific ambivalence of colonial and postcolonial environmental protection (exploitation vs. protection) is an ambivalence built into international law itself. In accordance with its colonial origins, international law has institutionalised a specific path to economic growth and development that presupposes and stabilises a world order supported by the industrialised countries of the North. At the same time, with the principle of equal sovereignty and self-determination, it recognises difference from the dominant economic and industrial culture as a political principle. Analysing international law’s approach to natural resources also directs our attention to changing ideas of nature and to the heart of international law's anthropocentrism, questioning its efficacy in tackling the ecological crisis. What we see here is an extractivist rationality that is intrinsically linked to the commodification of natural resources and green economy approaches in international environmental law. Last not least, a natural resource perspective highlights the fact that the legal concepts devised to determine how we share the world’s resources entail distributive processes among humans themselves. Sigrid Boysen is Professor of International Law at Helmut Schmidt University in Hamburg and a Judge at the Hamburg State Constitutional Court.

This lecture is a hybrid event and will not be recorded. There is a sandwich lunch at 12.30 pm in the Old Library at the Centre. All lecture attendees welcome. Lecture summary: Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) has aspirations to transform the tools and institutions of international law — which have served for centuries to construct, enact, and extend Western exploitation and domination — into tools and institutions for Global South empowerment, agency, and freedom. Characterizing itself as an intellectual and political movement, TWAIL promises to pave a path forward through a combination of scholarship and politics to achieve radical change. In this Article, I argue that TWAIL’s promise is unfulfilled — and that, if TWAIL’s current trajectory continues, its promise is likely to be unfulfillable. I first sketch TWAIL’s origin and key successes, including bringing awareness to the colonial roots and neo-imperial present of international law. Yet I contend that TWAIL’s diverse critical insights have not led to cohesive conceptual, doctrinal, or political positions, which would serve as tools to empower Global South-based actors. I argue that this is, at least partly, due to TWAIL’s ambivalence towards the Third World state, its absence of a theory of legitimate political violence in international law, its failure to identify a methodology of representing the ‘voices’ of the Global South, and to the growing influence of an academic ethos I call ‘critique-as-wellness.’ For those motivated by TWAIL’s ambitions, I suggest three possible directions to take: the construction of a grassroots-centered campaign in the service of Global South peoples; the formation of a movement focused on empowering Global South states; or a coalition originating from the Global North aimed at reshaping Western attitudes and actions towards the Global South. Naz K. Modirzadeh is a Professor of Practice at Harvard Law School.