Lectures, Seminars and Talks

In this episode, Julian A. Hettihewa presents on ‘The Principle of Distinction in International Humanitarian Law’. According to the principle of distinction, the parties to a conflict shall at all times distinguish between civilians and combatants. Described as one of the cardinal principles of international humanitarian law, the principle thus requires that civilians are never made objects of attacks. Underneath these seemingly objective and neutral concepts are real human beings. Available data indicates that the vast majority of victims of direct conflict are young men. Against this background, this talk seeks to examine the relevance of the principle of distinction for young people. It suggests that youth as a social category is constructed by international law as dream/nightmare and that this may inform decisions on targeting. The talk concludes with an invitation to use existing critical approaches to explore further areas of international law with a sensibility for young people and youth. The episode is an edited recording of a seminar presented on 5 December 2023, chaired by Dr Carrie McDougall and hosted by IILAH.

Julian A. Hettihewa is a research assistant and PhD candidate at the Institute for Public International Law, University of Bonn. His research focusses on the relationship between youth and international law and forms part of what may be called Young Approaches to International Law.

In this podcast on ‘The Role of International Law in the Rise of Populism’, Professor Margaret Young (IILAH Director, Melbourne Law School) and Chair Dr Alice Palmer (IILAH Program Director, Melbourne Law School) are joined by Professor Peter Danchin, University of Maryland Carey School of Law, and Professor Jolyon Ford, ANU College of Law.

This seminar addresses work being undertaken as part of a 2022-26 Australian Research Council Discovery project on “Reconceiving Engagement with International Law in a Populist Era” that seeks to address the fundamental problem of how to reconceive engagement by states with the international legal order in the face of a sustained populist backlash. The chief investigators are Professors Jeremy Farrall and Jolyon Ford and Associate Professor Imogen Saunders from ANU College of Law and partner investigators Peter Danchin from the University of Maryland and Shruti Rana from Indiana University.

The Amsterdam Center for International Law and IILAH present Unpacking Transitional Justice: International Law, Memory, and Power, convened by Dr Eliana Cusato (ACIL) and Valeria Vázquez Guevara (MLS). The aim of the Series is to bring together scholars from around the world employing interdisciplinary and critical approaches to the study of transitional justice and international law, broadly understood.

This episode is the second seminar of a four-part series on Unpacking Transitional Justice. Our speakers include Professor Lucas Lixinski (UNSW) and Dr Maria Elander (La Trobe). This seminar focuses on how transitional justice institutions and international law shape post-conflict societies by giving meaning, or organising in particular ways the meanings, to culture, cultural heritage, victimhood and victims, broadly speaking.

Lucas Lixinski is a Professor at the Faculty of Law and Justice at UNSW Sydney. He researches and teaches across a range of fields in international law, primarily international cultural heritage law and international human rights law.

Maria Elander is a senior lecturer at La Trobe Law School. Her research is primarily in the broader field of international criminal justice, and engages with theories in cultural and feminist legal studies.

The Amsterdam Center for International Law and IILAH present Unpacking Transitional Justice: International Law, Memory, and Power, convened by Dr Eliana Cusato (ACIL) and Valeria Vázquez Guevara (MLS). The aim of the Series is to bring together scholars from around the world

For the first seminar of the series, our convenors, Valeria Vazquez Guevara and Dr Eliana Cusato, provide a series introduction with a discussion on the role of international in truth commissions and post-conflict state-building, in the aftermath of the 1980s-1990s civil wars of El Salvador (1980-1992), Liberia (1989-1996) and Sierra Leone (1991-2002). Professor Sundhya Pahuja provides the series opening. A selection of the presentation slides displayed at the seminar are available for context here:

Valeria Vazquez Guevara is a doctoral candidate at the Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne. Dr Eliana Cusato is Marie Skłodowska Curie postdoctoral fellow at the Amsterdam Center for International Law, University of Amsterdam.

This episode is the third seminar of a four-part series on Unpacking Transitional Justice. Our speakers include Associate Professor Christine Schwöbel-Patel (Warwick) and Dr Hannah Franzki (Bremen). This episode discusses 'Justice: The political economy of international law'.

Dr Christine Schwöbel-Patel is an Associate Professor at the University of Warwick School of Law. Her research spans areas of international law, global constitutionalism, governance, and critical pedagogy.

Dr Hannah Franzki is a Research Fellow in the Transnational Force of Law Project since 2015. Her research interests include legal theory and philosophy, international political economy with a particular focus on transnational investment law and international criminal law.

The modern study – and practice – of security has been largely concerned with the protection, preservation and sustaining of the material, the tangible and the visible. For many people around the world, however, feelings of security also derive from understandings of an individual or community’s relationships with invisible and spiritual forces. Religious devotion and divine protection represent a central plank of security for many, just as fears of divine retribution, demonic possession or witchcraft feature as a central dimension of insecurity for many others. This remains, however, a conceptual and empirical blindspot in much of Critical Security Studies.

Drawing on fieldwork undertaken in north-western Uganda, this study reflects critically on the provenance and implications of this central oversight and argues for an expanded scholarly and practitioner understanding of what “counts” as (in)security – one which better captures how the phenomenon is experienced. In doing so, the article emphasizes the global character of spiritual (in)security and the challenges such an understanding of (in)security poses to longstanding scholarly and practitioner associations of (in)security with state authority.

Jonathan Fisher is Reader in African Politics in, and Director of, the International Development Department of the University of Birmingham. His research focuses on the intersections between conflict, (in)security and authoritarianism in Africa, and he has a particular interest in Eastern Africa.

In this lecture, Helen analyses the notable degree to which early colonial Australian visual culture was dependent upon the skill-set of convicted and transported forgers from Great Britain. As the eighteenth century progressed, forgery crimes were subject to increasingly harsh sentencing, including a gallows death and transportation. This severity reflected broader efforts to enshrine the sovereignty of money at a time when credit systems—exemplified by the widespread use of paper instruments—threatened the perceived intrinsic (or metallurgic) value of coins. Perhaps not surprisingly, given the shared technical skills in mimesis and reproduction, over half the artists who arrived in Australia on The First Fleet were convicted forgers.

Beginning with a case study of two scenes of Bristol’s Newgate Prison painted by the convicted forger cum Colonial Architect Francis Greenway, Helen examines the ways in which changes to sentencing for forgery crimes in eighteenth-century Britain delivered a range of artists and artisans—including Thomas Watling, Joseph Lycett, Charles Constantini, Richard Read Senior, Knud Bull, and Thomas Griffiths Wainewright—to the penal colonies in Australia.

Dr Helen Hughes is a Lecturer in Art History, Theory and Curatorial Practice at Monash University in the Faculty of Art Design and Architecture. She co-founded and co-edits the Melbourne contemporary art journal Discipline, and is an editor of the peer-reviewed art history journal Electronic Melbourne Art Journal.

Listen to Jonas Staal who delivered a lecture on 'Propaganda Art in the 21st Century