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Gender, War and Technology: Peace and Armed Conflict in the 21st Century

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Emily Jones, Lecturer in Law, University of Essex

Technology is vastly changing contemporary conflict. While there has been a lot of recent focus by international lawyers on topics such as drone warfare and autonomous weapons systems, very little has been published on these issues from a gender and law perspective. Seeking to bridge this gap, I recently co-edited a Special Issue for the Australian Feminist Law Journal on Gender, War and Technology: Peace and Armed Conflict in the 21st Century alongside Yoriko Otomo and Sara Kendall. The issue brings together a wide array of voices. Several different technologies are discussed; from drone warfare to lesser known technologies being used in conflict settings such as evidence and data collection technologies and human enhancement technologies.

As the introduction to the Special Issue notes, gender is used throughout the Special Issue in multiple ways, highlighting women’s lived experiences in conflicts as combatants, victims, negotiators of peace agreements, military actors and as civilians, as well as being used as a theoretical tool of analysis, ‘considering issues of agency, difference, and intersectionality, and contesting gendered constructions that presuppose femininity, ethnicity, and passivity.’Intersectionality is also a key theme throughout the issue, with articles also ‘considering issues of race, colonialism, ability, masculinity and capitalism (and thus, implicitly, class).’ War is understood in light of feminist scholarship on conflict, noting how war and peace work on a ‘continuum of violence’ with neither war not peace being as easy to define as legal categorisations suggest.

One key theme which emerges throughout the Special Issue is a focus on the posthuman, with three of the articles bringing posthuman theory to the law. These articles overlap and use posthuman theory in slightly different ways to analyse different technologies. The Special Issue begins with one such article; Matilda Arvidsson’s ‘Targeting, Gender, and the International Posthumanitarian Law and Practice: Framing the Question of the Human in International Humanitarian Law.’ Using feminist posthuman theory, Arvidsson calls into question the central human figure of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) through drawing on examples of the gender and racial bias present in drone targeting decisions, thereby analysing and challenging the particular form of humanitarianism at the heart of IHL.

Also drawing on feminist posthuman theory, my own article, ‘A Posthuman-Xenofeminist Analysis of the Discourse on Autonomous Weapons Systems and Other Killing Machines,’ uses both feminist posthumanism and xenofeminsim to analyse current debates on autonomous weapons systems. Drawing on examples of existing weapons systems such as the Samsung SGR-A1, as well as on trends in emerging military technologies towards enhancing the human (from exoskeletons to brain augmentation), I call for an understanding of these technologies which problematises the idea that autonomy is distinct from automation and sees, instead, the ways in which the human and machine interact in making life-death decisions.

The third article to draw on posthuman theory in the Special Issue is by Gina Heathcote in her article entitled ‘War’s Perpetuity: Disabled Bodies of War and the Exoskeleton of Equality.’Focusing in on exoskeletons, Heathcote notes how debates around exoskeletons and their use by military personnel are used to promote ideas that “women can be as good as men on the battlefield.” Heathcote challenges the gender equality debates underlying such arguments, showing ‘how these technologies work very much within gendered and ablest norms, both being limited by and perpetuating them.’

Helene Kazan’s article, ‘The Architecture of Slow, Structural and Spectacular Violence and the Poetic Testimony of War,’ takes a slightly different theoretical turn, focusing in on the impact of conflict on human lives and lived experience, looking at who is impacted by conflict and how that is expressed. Kazan focuses on ‘the affective experience of both human and architectural structures in the context of Lebanon’s civil war’ via drawing on her own lived experience of conflict. Thus ‘Kazan, in the mode of écriture feminine, describes how Lebanon and its inhabitants become sensors of ‘slow, structural and spectacular’ violence,’ seeking forms of reparation for these inhabitants and proposing a possible turn to tort law as a means through which to create accountability.

Taking a slightly different approach to gender, focusing in on masculinities, Kristin Bergtora Sandvik’s article, ‘Technology, Dead Male Bodies and Feminist Recognition: Gendering ICT Harm Theory,’ outlines the ways in which data collection and big data is being used in drone warfare and in the regulation of the human refugee consequences of conflict. Sandvik shows how such data collection is used to invisibilise male refuges, the vast majority of which are brown men. Thus, ‘Sandvik’s paper highlights the ways in which certain men are deemed more targetable or lessworthy of saving by nature of their perceived hegemonic masculinity.’

Another approach is used in Christiane Wilke’s article, ‘How International Law Learned to Love the Bomb: Civilians and the Regulation of Aerial Warfare in the 1920s.’ Wilke provides a historical account of attempts to regulate weapons, noting how such efforts are based upon ‘presumptions about which populations are worth protecting, a thoroughly racialised biopolitics bound up with a colonial framework.’ Wilke’s article thus asks questions about who is being affected and how these people are seen and through what biases, noting how the frameworks of international law in this area which were created in the colonial period still structure current frameworks.

The Special Issue thus ends with a praxis piece by Clare Brown of Legal Action Worldwide. In her article ‘The Use of ICTs in Conflict and Peacebuilding: A Feminist Analysis,’ Brown provides a practitioner’s perspective on the use of ICT’s such as messaging and data collection technologies in conflict and peacebuilding. Noting how many of these technologies are being developed to respond and record evidence in conflict situations, Brown highlights how these technologies have been developed without account either for women’s lived experiences or for feminist perspectives.

As the introduction to the Special Issue notes, ‘Beyond this special issue, the field would benefit from analysis of the broader range of intersectional concerns that emerge from recent technological developments in warfare.’ The use of technologies in conflict settings is only set to increase. Intersectional gender perspectives on this area are therefore required now to shape the development and use of these technologies as they are being deployed and developed. I hope that this Special Issue will be the beginning of an area of scholarship which I hope will continue to grow.

*Reblogged from the Human Rights Centre blog

 

Research on online news consumption

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Alexandros K. Antoniou, Lecturer in Media Law, University of Essex

On 13 July 2018, Ofcom, the UK communications regulator, published two qualitative research reports (here and here) on people’s attitudes towards online news consumption.

The purpose of the research was to acquire a more detailed understanding of the behaviours sitting behind the increase in the number of people accessing the news via online platforms in order to inform policy considerations. Respondents, who were selected to represent a cross-section of the United Kingdom, were asked to complete a combination of online pre-tasks as well as a set of activities on their media use. The data captured was followed by in-depth interviews and group discussions, exploring participants’ views on their own news intake and their engagement with such content.

Although news plays a significant role in people’s everyday lives in several ways, some respondents reported that they felt overwhelmed by the sheer volume of news in circulation and increasingly stretched across a wide range of sources and content. In some instances, a feeling of social pressure to keep up-to-date with the latest news was expressed. Feelings of negativity and fatigue featured strongly in the participants’ characterisation of the news, with some respondents claiming to have become ‘news avoiders.’ An important consequence of this overloaded news landscape appeared to be increased levels of faster and less critical processing of news, with participants often engaging with multiple sources only at a superficial level. Ubiquitous newsfeeds and features like push notifications were shown to drive further passive consumption.

The majority of the respondents’ news consumption occurred via news-aggregators or social media, which remain largely unregulated. The ‘blurred’ boundaries between news and other content (for instance, advertising and entertainment) on these platforms made it difficult for participants to discern what ‘counts’ as news and identify its original source. Most respondents had a general awareness of ‘buzzwords’ associated with current concerns around online news, for example ‘fake news’, but demonstrated varying levels of understanding of their meaning, whilst few of them adopted effective mechanisms to counteract these types of issues. In order to assess the accuracy, importance and reliability of online news, most individuals relied on shortcuts and their own heuristics, such as the number of times an article was shared, liked or retweeted. Some younger respondents used the rule of thumb that if an article had an embedded still or moving image, it was probably true.

The research also revealed a mis-match between the number of online stories participants said they looked at and those they actually saw, showing that people tend to underestimate how much news they consume online. This finding also suggests that the extent of online news consumption is essentially unknown. Unconscious processing of news, encouraged at times by smartphone user interfaces, might account, to some degree, for its under-reporting.

The studies also highlight that concerns about online news should be set against a backdrop of distrust in media, public figures, politicians and other institutions. Although some participants recognised the role of news media in exposing wrongdoing, others expressed uncertainty over what the news is actually telling them. Finally, the research acknowledges that the rapid and significant changes to the current news landscape have given rise to complex challenges in relation to how people understand and navigate news today, thereby strengthening the argument in favour of independent regulatory oversight of the activities of online companies.

Reblogged from the IRIS Merlin blog

Blocking injunctions for boxing matches

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Alexandros K. Antoniou, Lecturer in Media Law, University of Essex

On 20 September 2018, the High Court granted an order aimed at tackling illicit streams of professional boxing matches. The application was made by Matchroom Boxing Ltd against the UK’s main retail Internet service providers, including Sky UK Ltd, British Telecommunications Plc, Virgin Media Ltd and others. The company stages more than 20 boxing events yearly, several of which feature the British boxer Anthony Joshua who currently holds three of the four major world championships in the sport. In the UK, the boxing matches are broadcast by Sky under exclusive agreements with Matchroom.

Matchroom owns the copyrights in broadcasts in the case of events featuring Mr. Joshua and Sky owns the copyrights in the case of other events, but assigned the right to bring these proceedings to Matchroom. Sky broadcasts boxing matches on either a standard or pay-per-view (PPV) basis. PPV events are of most interest to boxing fans and can attract millions of viewers. Sky shares the revenue accrued from the PPV events with Matchroom and pays a substantial fee for the broadcasting rights too. It is for this reason that Sky supported the application. The remaining defendants did not oppose it either.

In this case, an order was sought in respect of streaming servers to tackle the ‘growing problem’ of live boxing matches being delivered in violation of Matchroom’s and Sky’s rights. Mr Justice Arnold emphasised the evidence of ‘very large numbers of infringing streams having been watched for Mr Joshua’s most recent fights,’ causing Matchroom and Sky a significant loss of revenue. In July 2018, similar orders were made in favour of the Football Association Premier League Ltd (FAPL) and the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA), requiring the defendants to block their customers’ access to streaming servers which deliver infringing live streams of Premier League and UEFA matches footage to UK consumers.

However, the blocking injunction in the present case differed from those granted in the cases of the FAPL and UEFA in two aspects. Firstly, target servers cannot be easily identified in the same way, because of the irregular timing of the boxing matches. Hence, Arnold J. granted the order for a seven-day monitoring period prior to each event. The details of the particular form of monitoring were kept confidential to prevent circumvention. Secondly, whereas the FAPL and UEFA orders covered a season, or part of it, this was not possible in the present case, considering that boxing events are not fixed well in advance; thus, the order was made for two years but required Matchroom to notify the defendants ‘at least four weeks in advance’ of the scheduling of a match.

Having considered the evidence and the terms of the order, Arnold J. took the view that such an order did not impair the defendants’ rights to carry on business. He concluded that the interference with the Internet users’ rights to receive information was justified by the legitimate aim of preventing the infringement of Matchroom’s and Sky’s rights on a large scale and was proportionate to that aim: ‘it [was] effective and dissuasive; no equally effective but less onerous measures [were] available to Matchroom, it [avoided] creating barriers to legitimate trade, it [was] not unduly complicated or costly and [contained] safeguards against misuse.’ Finally, it was agreed that there should be no order in relation to costs.

Photo credit: Daily Express

Reblogged from IRIS Merlin site

References
■ Matchroom Boxing Ltd & Anor v BT Plc & Ors [2018] EWHC 2443 (Ch) (20 September 2018)

Transitional Justice in Colombia

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Entre Coacción / Colaboración – a new book co-authored by Professor Sabine Michalowski of the University of Essex Law School – looks at the recent peace agreement reached in Colombia, in the framework of transitional justice.

The Final Peace Agreement between the Colombian government and the FARC-EP created a complex transitional justice system which includes the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (SJP) as its justice component. Under the SJP, only those who have the highest responsibility for the gravest crimes will face criminal sanctions, and these sanctions will be reduced, provided they accept full responsibility and contribute to truth, reparations and guarantees of non-recurrence. Those whose participation in conflict-related crimes does not reach this high level of responsibility will benefit from amnesties or waivers of prosecution if they engage in truth, reparation and guarantees of non-recurrence measures.

One innovative characteristic of the SJP is that its competence is not limited to state actors and members of armed groups, but also includes third party actors – terceros civiles: those persons who participated in the armed conflict without being members of the armed groups. Nevertheless, as a consequence of a decision of the Colombian Constitutional Court, the SJP only has competence over third-party actors if they voluntarily submit to its jurisdiction. In the absence of a voluntary adherence to the SJP, the ordinary Colombian criminal justice system will retain jurisdiction over them. The book focuses on one particular subset of third-party actors, economic actors – that is actors whose participation in conflict-related crimes was linked to their economic or commercial activities. To address the potential criminal responsibility of these actors for their role in the conflict requires determining the patterns of their collaboration with the armed actors and translating that into concepts of criminal liability.

Countless judicial documentation of the role of economic actors in the Colombian armed conflict already exists. The decisions of the Justice and Peace framework, the Colombian transitional justice process that exclusively deals with the criminal responsibility of demobilised members of armed groups, in their vast majority paramilitaries, contain many mentions of economic actor involvement with paramilitary groups. Decisions against politicians in the ordinary criminal jurisdiction in the context of the so-called parapolitics phenomenon, the close collaboration between politicians and paramilitary groups, also provide some information one economic actors. Lastly, the implementation of the Victims and Land Restitution Law sheds light on the involvement of these actors regarding irregular appropriation of land from victims of forced displacement and dispossession.

The first part of the book examines the available information on economic actors in order to reveal patterns of macro-criminality and networks of support that have fuelled the development and entrenchment of armed groups and have contributed to the perpetuation of the armed conflict in Colombia. This empirical analysis highlights, inter alia, the regions and municipalities in which economic actor involvement was concentrated, which economic sectors most prominently collaborated with armed groups, and the most emblematic cases of collaboration: providing financial and logistical support to paramilitary groups and involvement in land displacement and dispossession. Another important finding is that in many cases, economic actors were coerced into collaborating with armed groups.

The discussion then moves on to an analysis of the particular problems caused by the fact that the transitional justice tribunals only had competence over the demobilised members of armed groups and had to refer the cases of economic actors, whose collaboration with them came to light, to the ordinary jurisdiction, where very few cases against economic actors were followed up and large-scale impunity instead prevails.

Clarifying the legal criteria according to which the criminal responsibility of economic actors can be determined is of immense importance not only for bringing an end to high levels of impunity, but also for determining which cases deserve criminal prosecution under the SJP, and which might instead result in waivers of prosecution. In the second part, the book therefore analyses how to hold economic actors to account for their participation in conflict-related crimes committed by the members of armed groups, in particular, in relation to the emblematic cases of financing armed groups and of land displacement.

These actors will regularly not have committed grave international crimes through their own hands, but rather have contributed through their commission by collaborating with the armed groups. The book therefore suggests that complicity, a legal concept that has rarely been used in the Colombian context but plays a predominant role in international criminal law, will in many cases provide the most appropriate way to conceptualise the role of economic actors in the Colombian conflict. Through providing an overview of international criminal law standards, key decisions from various other countries, and how they apply to the particular features of economic actor involvement, the book aims to answer difficult questions such as “What type of collaboration with an armed group gives rise to criminal responsibility?” and “Under what circumstances can they be absolved from criminal responsibility based on coercion?”

 

Con la firma del Acuerdo Final de Paz entre el Gobierno de Colombia y las FARC-EP, se ha puesto en marcha un complejo sistema de justicia transicional para procesar a los perpetradores de los crímenes cometido en el contexto del conflicto armado, contribuir a la verdad y el reconocimiento de lo ocurrido, y satisfacer los derechos de las víctimas. Este sistema integral incluye la Jurisdicción Especial para la Paz (JEP) como su componente de justicia, diseñado para investigar, juzgar y sancionar las graves violaciones de los derechos humanos y los crímenes internacionales. Bajo la JEP, los actores que participen por medio de aceptar la plena responsabilidad y contribuir al registro de verdad beneficiarán de sentencias reducidas (ya sea multas de reparaciones, privación de libertad reducida, o la renuncia de penalidad).

Una característica novedosa de la JEP es su competencia sobre terceros civiles: aquellas personas que, sin hacer parte de ninguno de los bandos en confrontación, participaron en el conflicto armado interno. La Corte Constitucional ha fallado que la JEP tiene la competencia sobre estos terceros civiles solo si abordan voluntariamente su jurisdicción. En ausencia de someterse voluntariamente ante la JEP, la jurisdicción ordinaria retendría la jurisdicción sobre estos actores. Un subconjunto particular de terceros civiles, actores económicos, ha recibido poca atención con respecto a su implementación en el sistema transicional, así se deja una plétora de cuestiones sin resolver. En particular, los temas de fragmentación del tratamiento de los actores económicos (ya sea aborden voluntariamente ante la JEP o se juzguen bajo la jurisdicción ordinaria) se discuten robustamente.

En la primera parte del libro se presente un análisis transversal de la participación de los actores económicos en el conflicto armado, como se discute dentro de las sentencias del marco de Justicia y Paz, el escándalo parapolítica, y la implementación de la Ley de Víctimas y Restitución de las Tierras. A través de analizar los datos extraídos de las sentencias jurídicas, los autores de este libro exploran las metodologías que se utilizaron los jueces, fiscales y investigadores bajo cada de los marcos. En particular, el libro discutirá los efectos negativos de esta fragmentación y descentralización del proceso judicial y su efecto en la responsibilidad penal de los actores económicos, una problemática que deriva predomanente del los diseños estructurales institucionales de cada de los tres procesos.

La segunda parte discute los existentes estándares nacionales e internacionales del tratamiento de los actores económicos. Un asunto problemático que se elabora es la dificultad de determinar las varias formas de participación de los actores económicos. En particular, la complicidad como forma de responsabilidad penal, es un concepto jurídico cuya aplicación apenas se ha invocado en Colombia. Resaltando la jurisprudencia importante de derecho internacional así como decisiones clave desde otros países, los autores pretenden de contestar preguntas difíciles como ¿Qué tipo de colaboración con un grupo armado es necesaria para que un actor económico pueda ser considerado como responsable penalmente? y ¿Qué nivel y tipo de coacción puede servir para eximir el actor económico de responsabilidad penal?

Clarificando cuales criterios se usan y en cual manera para determinar responsabilidad penal de actores económicos es de suma importancia no solo para poner fin a los niveles altos de impunidad sino también para poder construir un registro comprehensivo de los patrones de macrocriminalidad y las redes del apoyo que han persistido en el conflicto colombiano. Por ende, la contribución crítica de este libro a la aclaración de los papeles que desempeñan los actores económicos se erige como un indicador para la JEP de nuevo funcionamiento, así como los académicos, las organizaciones y gobiernos tanto a nivel nacional como globalmente. `

Photo credit: International Law Blog

Business and human rights: how to reconcile them in investor-State dispute settlement?

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How can business and human rights be reconciled in investor-State dispute settlement? This controversial issue is examined in two recent contributions by Anil Yilmaz Vastardis, a lecturer at the University of Essex law school.

The first  is a submission made jointly with Tara Van Ho and Luis Felipe Yanes (PhD Candidate) to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights. This was submitted to the Working Group’s Crowd-Drafting session for designing a human-rights compatible international investment agreement which took place on 27 November 2018 at the UN Forum on Business and Human Rights.  The proposal includes 10 clauses that States can adopt into their investment treaties to ensure compatibility with international human rights law.

Secondly a paper recently published in the London Review of International Law concerns EU proposals for investor-State dispute settlement.  Entitled “Justice bubbles for the privileged: a critique of the investor-state dispute settlement proposals for the EU’s investment agreements”, the article criticises the judicialisation of investor state dispute settlement in the direction envisaged by the EU’s Investment Court System because it prioritises institutions of justice for foreign investors over the improvement of local institutions that could provide justice for members across society, including foreign investors.

photo credit: Human Rights Council of Australia

Article 50 can be revoked: here’s what it means for Brexit

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Carlo Petrucci, Lecturer in Law, University of Essex

*This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

 

Article 50 of the Treaty on European Union can be divided into two parts. The first recognises the right of a member state to withdraw from the European Union. The second establishes the procedure that the withdrawing member state and the EU institutions have to follow to manage that withdrawal.

Article 50 says that the member state has to notify the European Council of its intention to withdraw from the European Union. However it does not say whether, once such notification has been made, such intention may be revoked and membership retained.

This was the issue under consideration in a case brought before the European Court of Justice. The court has now ruled that a withdrawing member state may revoke its intention to withdraw from the EU unilaterally.

The key word here is “unilaterally”. In this context, it means that the revocation decision is not subject to the unanimous consent of the European Council, the European institution representing the member states.

However, it’s important to note that the court added that the decision to revoke Article 50 must be “unequivocal and unconditional”. This means that the member state has to make it clear that it wishes to maintain its EU membership. This is not about extending the Article 50 process to extend the Brexit transition period beyond March 2019. That would still require agreement from the EU member states. Rather, a notification revoking Article 50 means not leaving the EU at all. In other words, it would stop Brexit.

Of equal importance is timing. The court said a member state can only revoke Article 50 while its withdrawal agreement with the EU, which sets outs the terms of departure, has not yet entered into force. If the withdrawal agreement has not been concluded, revocation may take place during the two-year period that starts when Article 50 is triggered, or even beyond the two-year period if the remaining member states decide to grant such an extension.

In Brexit terms, this means that the UK can revoke Article 50 unilaterally before its agreement enters into force or, if it does not enter in force, until March 29 2019. It can also revoke it after that date if the European Council agrees to extend the transition period of Article 50 beyond 29 March 2019.

A legal first

The ECJ case originally started in a Scottish court, which asked the Court of Justice to clarify the issue of revocation of the intention to withdraw from the EU. Given the misrepresentation given by Brexit supporters about the Court of Justice and their sudden hostility towards it, it’s important to remember that the Court of Justice interprets and applies EU law. It does not, nor can it, interpret or apply national law. This has always been the case since its establishment in 1952.

This was a challenging case because the the UK was the first country to ever trigger Article 50, so there was no legal precedent to rely on when making a decision. If the text of the law is silent, should it be implied that a particular conduct is allowed because it is not expressly prohibited, or should it be implied that it is not allowed because it is not expressly permitted?

In this typical interpretative dilemma, the court reasoned that if EU law recognises the sovereign choice of a member state to leave the EU, then revoking that intention should also be seen as a sovereign decision. It also noted that “given that a state cannot be forced to accede to the European Union against its will, neither can it be forced to withdraw from the European Union against its will”.

In this regard, the court noted that if a member state cannot unilaterally revoke its decision to leave the EU, then this would amount to allowing the expulsion of a member state. Indeed, the court noted that when drafting what eventually would become Article 50, a number of amendments to allow the EU to expel member states were rejected. This further supports the conclusion that a member state is entitled to reverse its decision unilaterally.

The ECJ ruling is not surprising. Legally speaking, it would have been much harder to justify the opposite conclusion. It is also in line with the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which allows revocation of a decision to withdraw from an international treaty.

The immediate implication is that the EU member states are not allowed to interfere with the United Kingdom’s future course of action, for example by setting new conditions for allowing the UK to remain in the EU. However, like many domestic and international rulings, it has an internal political implication: it adds a further option to the current ones on the table. The pressure taken off from the EU is now entirely on the UK.

A revocation decision would run counter to the outcome of the UK referendum. It would be unpalatable, unattractive, and risky, but so are the other choices. By approving the withdrawal agreement, the UK becomes a rule-taker with no voice. By rejecting the withdrawal agreement, it faces serious and radical economic disruption. Either way, the ultimate decision must be made through the British political system. The ECJ ruling is another stark reminder of this enormous responsibility.

Photo: European Sanctions Blog

Saving Italian chocolate companies – and reforming Italian law

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Eugenio Vaccari, lecturer at the University of Essex School of Law, has written for The Conversation on the problems of Italian chocolate company, Pernigotti, and how Italy’s approach to corporate rescue hurts the country.

Cases like Pernigotti, Ilva and Alitalia have become all too common in a country (Italy) whose industries often struggle to successfully compete, particularly with developing countries. And in spite of jobs being saved at Ilva, they also reveal serious problems with Italy’s approach to rescuing companies. It is a major drag on the economy, and desperately needs to be reformed.

Feminist Scholarship on International Law in the 1990s And Today: An Inter‑Generational Conversation

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Hilary Charlesworth (University of Melbourne), Gina Heathcote (SOAS), Emily Jones (University of Essex)

(Full text of the article)

The world of international relations and law is constantly changing. There is a risk of the systematic undermining of international organisations and law over the next years. Feminist approaches to international law will need to adapt accordingly, to ensure that they continue to challenge inequalities, and serve as an important and critical voice in international law. This article seeks to tell the story of feminist perspectives on international law from the early 1990s till today through a discussion between three generations of feminist international legal scholars: Hilary Charlesworth, who, with her colleagues, contributed to the area in the immediate post-Cold War years, Gina Heathcote, who over the past decade has published extensively on feminist perspectives on the use of force and collective security, and Emily Jones, an early career scholar working on feminist approaches to international law.

The conversation, which began as a Skype discussion, considers both the ways in which feminist approaches to international law have changed over the past two decades, as well as the ways in which they have been shaped by global politics, before turning to consider the future for feminist approaches to international law. The impact of feminist approaches to international law has been considerable. However, it seems that feminist approaches still lack legitimacy and credibility in many mainstream circles, remaining on the disciplinary periphery. Charlesworth, Heathcote and Jones discuss potential ways in which to manage some of these tensions, noting both the importance of ‘speaking to ourselves’ (Charlesworth in Feminist perspectives on contemporary International Law: Between resistance and compliance? Hart, Oxford, pp. 17–32, 2011) as a creative and nurturing space, as well as the need to be seen as a more credible voice in the mainstream. They note the need, too, for further feminist work beyond the realms of sexual violence and women’s representation. While the great amount of work in this area is, indeed, foundational, having achieved many important legal and political outcomes, feminist approaches should now develop beyond these areas.

Doing so will not only propel this area of scholarship in new and exciting directions, but it might help feminist scholarship gain further traction by avoiding categorisation only under the umbrella of “women’s issues” and thus ready dismissal as just another specialist area of international law in the era of fragmentation.

 

 

 

Extradition law research

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Extradition law researchers at the University of Essex include Professor Geoff Gilbert.

His most recent publication in the area is ‘Undesirable but Unreturnable – Extradition and other forms of Rendition‘, published in the Journal of International Criminal Justice in 2016. It concerns the fight against international crimes, considering how extradition and other forms of rendition might be utilized to rid a state of an undesirable alien, particularly one who is excluded from refugee status, whether that be to the International Criminal Court or, more likely, to another state with jurisdiction. The text is available here – for those who can log in to  the Essex Research Repository.

Rule of Law in the EU

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The issue of the rule of law within the EU is timely, given current disputes regarding Spain/Catalonia, Hungary and Poland. A new book by Theodore Konstandinides – a Senior Lecturer in the Law Department at the University of Essex – looks at the internal dimension of the concept of the rule of law within the EU.

The book argues that the preservation of the values underpinning the rule of law (such as legality, legal certainty, prohibition of arbitrariness, respect for fundamental rights) is essential to the success of EU integration. However, the idea of the EU rule of law often faces criticism: it is only window dressing for the EU to obtain new powers, and does little to constrain EU institutions or Member States in practice.

Does the EU rule of law deserve those criticisms? The book answers that question first of all by setting out an analytical guide to the EU rule of law. It also asks if the EU is based on the rule of law – taking account of the degree of compliance and the overall effectiveness of the EU enforcement acquis.