Joint Event: 'The Juridification of Justice'

This is a two-day in-person event. It is open to the public but pre-registration is required.

Tuesday 29 April 10.30 am-5 pm and Wednesday 30 April 9 am-4 pm.

Register to attend 

Programme

Convenors

Tor Krever (University of Cambridge)
Nora Jaber (University of Edinburgh)

Speakers

Zoe Adams (University of Cambridge)
Michael Becker (Trinity College Dublin)
Michelle Burgis-Kastallho (University of Edinburgh)
Tanzil Chowdhury (Queen Mary University of London)
Noura Erakat (Rutgers University)
Anastasiya Kotova (Lund University)
Carl Emilio Lewis (T.M.C. Asser Institute)
Robert Knox (University of Liverpool)
Sumi Madhok (LSE)
Matilde Masetti Placci (University of Edinburgh)
Lara Montesinos Coleman (University of Sussex)
Mireia Garces De Marcilla Muste (University of Exeter)
Nicola Palmer (University of Cape Town)
Nicola Perugini (University of Edinburgh)
Marius Pieterse (University of the Witwatersrand) Francisco-José Quintana (Geneva Graduate Institute and European University Institute)
Fernando Quintana (Queen Mary University of London)
Francisco-José Quintana (Geneva Graduate Institute and European University Institute)
Juliana Santos de Carvalho (University of Cambridge)
Fionn Toland (University of York)
Leila Ulrich (University of Oxford)
Dimitri Van Den Meerssche (Queen Mary University of London)
Marina Veličković (University of Warwick)

Description

Calls for justice are increasingly articulated in the language of human rights and legality, injustice framed in turn as an issue of illegality. The crystalisation of legality as the vernacular of justice movements can be seen at both the domestic and international level— the proliferation of ‘rights talk’ and turn to litigation by social movements in national courts; global injustice challenged in the language of international law and international justice increasingly synonymous with international criminal justice. Courts and international legal fora are increasingly the privileged sites in which political demands are articulated and battles over rights and legality are fought and settled. The connection between political demands for justice and their articulation in and through the language of rights and legality is often taken for granted. These developments have received only limited scrutiny, their domestic and international dimensions rarely analysed as part of the same phenomenon. Nor has the historical specificity of these developments received sufficient attention.

This symposium brings together scholars to reflect on the potentials, limitations, and dangers of the juridification of struggles for justice. It questions and explores the relationship between conceptions of justice and law in diverse contexts and across time. How and to what extent do contemporary justice struggles differ from their antecedents’ uses of law? What is gained—but also potentially lost—through the juridification of political demands for justice? Under what circumstances can (and have) rights/legality be(en) mobilised in pursuit of justice? When might such framing weaken or depoliticise such demands, potentially collapsing conceptions of justice into mere calls for legal remedies?

Speakers will bring specific examples from their own work to consider local and international aspects of the juridification of justice. Collectively, we will assess how these historical and contemporary case studies can best inform new strategies of social transformation and to evaluate the uses and limits of rights/legality within such strategies.

There will be a sandwich lunch provided on both days. All registered attendees welcome.

This event is supported by:

CRASSH
The Lauterpacht Centre for International Law
Girton College, Cambridge (Sheila Lesley Law and Innovation Grant)