Postdoctoral fellow
@ACIL_UvA
, PhD
@MPILheidelberg
International Law & Money, critical theory, TWAIL, transformative constitutionalism; doing all of them poorly
In this
@JIEL_OUP
paper I bring conversations in
@LPE_Project
& IL to show how ideas & institutional frameworks transformed central banking from a political activity to a fundamentally technocratic one. So grateful to the feedback I received over the years
The ICJ case is 'unlikely to have effect on ground' is so absurd. Let's not infantilize Palestinians & advocacy groups who know the limits of IL better than your 'degree' & 'research' & yet they persist. Calling yourself a realist when you don’t face that reality is just farcical
Follow up on last week's intervention by
@ntinatzouvala
&
@pashukanist
, here is my outline on 'Marxist Approaches to IL' primarily addressd to students, but might be useful for others too. I highlight 'five' distinct Marxist perspectives on IL & the many blindspots which continue
New
#MPIL
Research Paper out now by our very own
@kanad_bagchi
! The paper is titled “Marxist Approaches to International Law: An Outline” and will also be part of the
@OpenRewi
Textbook on Public International Law
#openaccess
.
Find it
@SSRN
:
And it’s wrap. Cleared the office. But taking with me a bunch of lasting friendships and a community of people I have grown up with. Thank you
@MPILheidelberg
p.c: and co-sufferer in PhD and life
@RudraniB
So my project on "Legal Transformation of International Monetary Coordination: Institutions, Politics and Surveillance" was awarded an ECB Legal Research Scholarship
@ecb
. As much as I am thrilled, I am pretty anxious that I have to actually now write the paper I proposed. 😅😅
It took an entire village to make this happen. Kind and brilliant people have helped along the way and still do. Very much looking forward to working with colleagues
@ACIL_UvA
, many of whom I have come to admire.
Also I wish this was my profile pic instead! 🤫
I argue that mainstream international law remains oblivious to questions of power, equity, fairness or justice while taking refuge under ‘formal’ conceptions of ‘sovereign equality’ and ‘consent’ in the international realm.
@AjVBlog
This is bitter-sweet, with a journey that ended, but with many companionships that will continue for life. While also being fully conscious of where I stand, and what it means to do international law today! Thank you
@j_emtseva
for capturing this moment and for being there.
Please welcome Dr. Bagchi
@kanad_bagchi
(who is not yet allowed to use his title because well, it’s Germany but we certainly are 😛)
To new successes, my dear friend ✊👏 so incredibly proud of you!
'And it is true that while it was dressed up as a humanitarian summit to look at the welfare of locals, its agenda was almost purely economic.' Berlin 1884: Remembering the conference that divided Africa
@AJEnglish
I think the mandatory requirement for 'supervisor' reference/recommendation letters in so many postdoc/lectureships/nonacademic jobs tend to exclude a large number of applicants who may not have a relationship with their supervisor worth relying on or worse, is toxic or hostile
What is 'academic' or 'scholarly' as against what is not, is essentially an exercise of power directed at keeping the gates of academia open only for the few.
@Heidi__Matthews
very important thread on public writing.
*thread* While helpful in some ways, this piece by
@IvyLeagueLady
is discomfiting in others, particularly with regard to public-facing writing. In my experience this kind of work has myriad knock-on effects for an academic career:
— it builds your reputation;
#AcademicTwitter
There are several things amiss in this post! But I think more fundamentally it obfuscates the fact that we as lawyers/experts do not simply 'curate human knowledge' in a vacuum, but we create it in the image of our privileges, priorities and our politics!
This is going to be such a fantastic issue on TWAIL, jurisdiction and sovereignty. Curated by the brilliant
@Rohini_Sen
&
@KeitnerLaw
at
@NLSIRev
Highly recommended! Send in your papers!
"Reimagining Jurisdiction and Sovereignty Through TWAIL Perspectives"
Our friends from the National Law School of India Review (
@NLSIRev
) are putting together a fantastic Special Issue on Third World Approaches to International Law.
Do submit an article! Deadline: 1 Sept 2023.
Many congratulations Silvia. Sending in lots and lots of ❤️❤️🤗🤗. And thank you for the companionship for the last several years. We were all crying 😢
@silviasteiningr
@MPILheidelberg
Ending this year with lots of ❤️🤗 from
@MPILheidelberg
. Also sending away
@AJrGolia
& Giacomo Rugge. Ever grateful to have found a community of love and care. Behind the facade, this is a group of absolutely mad people!
I can confirm the pages in 'THIS' textbook are exactly where they are meant to be.
Perhaps time to ‘shuffle’ and assign 'THAT' textbook to the dustbin of history, where it truly belongs!
The online version of "Public International Law: A Multi-Perspective Approach" is out now. You can download it via this link:
Here's a thread introducing the individual chapters in the first part of the book, dedicated to history, theory and methods👇🏼
If publishing is a political act, how do we structure a dialogue between GN & GS, given the imbalance of power & inequality? What epistemological challenges exists & who is excluded & included? And what becomes of Universality & knowledge production in deeply asymmetrical spaces?
I have found this constant Infantilizing of mothers extremely problematic. 'Explain your PhD as you would to your mother' or 'unpack your thesis so that even your mother understands' are statements we hear all the time.
So excited & privileged to be part of such an inspiring group, whose work has been invaluable to my own thinking. If you are interested in money & its relationship to hegemony, empire, subordination, please do join for the conversation. This also promises to be a lot of fun! 🤩
Hi nerds!
@j_e_s_s_whyte
and I are putting together what we think will be a cool event on dollar hegemony, state sovereignty and international order. We want to hear from lawyers, political economists, historians, political theorists, IR scholars etc etc. Some very cool people1/2
There is nothing 'natural' about one's choice of academia, nor is there any causality between being 'curious'/'inquisitive'/'independent' & academic career.I understand need to justify choices, but on most occasions, like any other job, academia is pliable, conservative & mundane
Really looking forward to participating in this forum with such wonderful colleagues. Please join us next Monday (15th April) for a conversation on IEL, its entanglement with empire & colonialism and alternative ways of imagination. Thanks to
@BrittaRedwood
for bring us together.
Here is my review of ‘The International Court of Justice and Decolonisation: New Directions from the Chagos Advisory Opinion’ (
@CUP
2021)
@yearbook_GYIL
. Its a fantastic collection. You should read it! Here, I leave you with what I found to be most challenging aspect of the book.
Hello twitter people, please do your thing. My partner and I are looking for accommodation in and around Amsterdam starting from Sept 2023. So far we haven't had any luck. We are on a budget (1500€). Any leads will be a life saver at this moment. Thank you. My DM is open!
I argue that the Chagos tragedy represents a story that in one way or the other is fundamentally a story of international law and its complicity in subjugating, oppressing and dominating an ‘inferior’ people.
@MPILheidelberg
@AjVBlog
Ohh wow! They managed to make me look at least a decade younger! And I am wearing a suit! This seems like a good start. Very happy to be a part of the initiative
@CclsrKiit
@KIITUniversity
This is far worse than you think! Everything related to control over your data is going to change. The new set of IT rules squarely puts your privacy and speech rights up in the air.
🚨 SOS!
Tomorrow, May 25, is the deadline for significant social media intermediaries like FB, Twitter, and Instagram to comply with new obligations under the IT Rules. If you use social media, pay attention- here's how this will roll out.
1/n
My weekend dose of academic boost! If only journals were this compassionate and realistic! The only thing I will say is this - A GOOD HUG back to you, sir!
It is grotesque that the WTO TRIPS Council is still mulling over
#TRIPSwaiver
proposal for almost 6months. If you thought this is where the global IP regime has failed us, you are wrong! This is the regime working at its best & serving interests it was always meant to.
@JohnLinarelli
@Margot_Salomon
& Sornarajah have put together a brilliant book. As against much of IEL scholarship beating the prosperity & progress narrative, they take IEL to task for constituting an oppressive, violent & exploitative economic & social order
Tremendous privilege to be a part of this panel & to be able to attend this in person
@law_soc
especially when many of our colleagues & comrades are simply unable to travel because of visa restrictions, border controls & funding constraints. Systematic exclusion remains the norm.
In response to
@IngoVenzke
&
@kevinjonheller
fascinating edition, I argue
@Voe_Blog
that if we are to put our faith on IL as an emancipatory force, then contingency needs to embrace profound defiance & even impossible imaginations of what can be different
How might Rosa Luxemburg help us think about global money?
Here, I reflect on money's relationship to capitalist accumulation, its centrality to modern Empire & its proclivity for violence & exploitation at the periphery.
via
@critlegthinking
Ratna Kapur kicks of the symposium on Critical Approaches to IL
@Dublin
with her keynote on ‘Excluded Epistemologies’ and HR
@jay_shas
@TVA1607
It has been a pleasure working alongside such brilliant, kind & supportive cohort.
@ntinatzouvala
book is one that you keep coming back to, each time learning more than the last. Here, I write about book's engagement with Marxism but also with TWAIL & CLS
Delighted and grateful that the
@EJLS_eui
organised a symposium on my book. The contribution of
@QuirogaDr
@juliewetterslev
@kanad_bagchi
and Rohini Sen are: . My response essay is available here: I discuss periodisation 1/2
@PAVLMex
& I are thrilled to announce that
@MPILHeidelberg
will be hosting
@LN_Ruiz
of
@MPI_Luxembourg
for the 9th Masterclass on 'The Fate of International Courts';11-14May'20 Topics: Court interactions, Feminist approaches & role of ethics
More info 👇
We are excited to share the programme of the Law and Political Economy in Europe Summer Academy!
It includes writing workshops, masterclasses, touring the port and other fun stuff - but most importantly, a splendid line-up of scholars!🤩
This one by
@j_emtseva
will strike a chord with several of us. Compassionate, incisive, sharp and straight from the heart. Leave whatever you are reading today and READ THIS piece
@MPILheidelberg
Int'l law
#academia
is far from overcoming
#inequality
& entry barriers to marginalised groups & countries. In
#MPIL
Research Paper No. 2021-11
@SSRN
@j_emtseva
shares her experiences & reflects on how to build a better environment for future generations
last week was a true moment of reckoning. despite threats, hate, misinformation, violence & lost friendships, solidarity has only grown stronger, refusing to be brow beaten. Exposing the hypocrisy, racism, political illegitimacy of West & acceptability of genocidal violence.
This is not the death of liberal values or free speech or whatever but its most pristine manifestation as hypocrisy, violence and othering, perfected over centuries. This is and always has been Europe!
Within a week in Germany, Nancy Fraser was stripped off her professorship for signing a letter, Ghassan Abu Sitta was denied entry at the airport to give a lecture, and Helen Fares lost her journalist job for promoting non-violent boycott as a means of protest.
This is a brilliant account of the contradictions between radical thinking and movement, the material conditions that sustain it and the intimate relationship between racialisation and capitalist expansion. It just adds to the growing list of essential reads from
@pashukanist
My piece in
@TWAILReview
TheorizingWhileBlack symposium is out. In which I seek to think through - in a materialist way - how issues of racialisation and how they play out in the context of the academy.
Crisis is an old friend of IL academia. Careers turn,experts made even as conversations r flattened,decontextualised. Last week was reminder that IL is about same handful of scholars exercising outsized influence in equally familiar outlets. Exclusion is the essence of our field.
How blatantly the narrative that ‘Palestine civilians are victims of Hamas’ has completely turned the scales in which the IDF is not the aggressor but perhaps even the force for liberation in Gaza.
How war crimes & genocidal violence are made collectively acceptable and humane.
There is no justification for Hamas’ heinous act of terror.
Israel has the right to defend itself.
At the same time civilians in Gaza are also victims of Hamas.
This is why we are tripling our humanitarian aid for Palestinians in need.
Delhi Killings & Making of Violence: When law becomes the handmaiden for majoritarian advances & courts acquiesce in delegitimizing dissent & disagreement, it is but through large scale mobilization & social formations that transformative change becomes possible
@Verfassungsblog
Warning: Unpopular perspective - I speak with
@Amicus_Anuj
inter alia, about academia and PhD. The mad rush to publish, attend conferences, teach etc. mental health issues, loneliness, Unfinished-ness of things, PhD attritions, dejections and low pay in most cases. 9:02-14:16min
A remarkable collection of Prof. Alexandrowicz’s long forgotten works on IL, especially the intersection of colonialism, eurocentricism and methodological positivism and how they shaped and transpired in the different narratives of IL’s historical account.
‘Racism is that strange phenomenon, apparent everywhere and apparently nowhere. People believe that not “seeing” race or being “colour-blind” is progressive when it is merely evasive.’
@PriyamvadaGopal
#cronycapitalism
is
#capitalism
at its most basic, normal & banal form. To argue that former is bad cos it corrupts free-market, competition while
#capitalism
as such is good cos it supports both, is to ignore how capitalism is inherently structured. Thread (1/5)
This is absolutely brilliant from
@JTGathii
and
@ntinatzouvala
! So many tremendous contributions bringing race & racism in conversation with IEL and political economy - all in one place
@JIEL_OUP
! This is a DRILL and well worth your time!
THIS IS NOT A DRILL: the special journal issue on racial capitalism and international economic law that
@JTGathii
and I put together for
@JIEL_OUP
is now up. Our (modest) introduction is here: . A thread on the contributions follows.
This is not an anomaly. This is the blunt face of academia, structurally reinforcing occupation and apartheid. Claims to academic freedom are precisely steeped in this infrastructure of oppression.
This week, we are hosting a symposium on issues of customary law of armed conflict.
The contributions (by Roni Katzir, Hadar David,
@mspacholska
, & Jeffrey Kovar) are based on a conference panel at the 4th Israel Defense Forces MAG Conference on the Law of Armed Conflict.
Mere transfer of political power is not decolonisation. End of formal empire does not end imperialism. The nation-state more often is not an enabler of freedom but the cause of its very demise. Happy
#IndependenceDayIndia
#IndependenceDay
It is a system that rewards conformity & pliability in a relationship that is already so imbalanced in terms of power & material conditions. Asking for recommendations is the surest way to preserve structural status quo where one is necessarily beholden to the other.
And the culture of UNPAID internships at UN only gets better...
Not only will you be required to work FULL TIME, 40 hours UNPAID!
But you are "strongly recommended' to discontinue your current employment to take it up!
‘Disability leave’ was the best
@Princeton
could offer to a scholar who was pregnant! Think about what that means and think again! This is not an exception. This is academia at its most basic and routine.
I was hoping to do one of those feel-good new job announcement tweets: “I’m pleased to announce that I was offered a
@GlobalFung
Fellowship at
@Princeton
University”.
Alas, instead, I’m unpleased to announce that I was forced to reject said fellowship due to
#sexdiscrimination
.
It builds on my larger PhD where I look at how international law frames & rationalizes the politics of money & deeply distributive aspects of monetary coordination including (1) mandate of price stability & central bank independence (2) capital controls (3) exchange rate measures
"It is true that the Indian Constitution has witnessed several periods of extreme vulnerability in the past, but none perhaps has come close to the audacity and specificity of an evisceration, that resembles the present government’s response"
@Verfassungsblog
@MPILheidelberg
Very timely & comprehensive intervention by
@PAVLMex
& Prof. Bogdandy of
@MPILheidelberg
on the role of international law in the global governance of pandemics, bringing to light the myriad sets of mandates, obligations and exercise of authority by int institutions
#coronavirus
Don't miss the contribution of
#MPIL
's
@kanad_bagchi
to this fascinating symposium discussing
@ntinatzouvala
's new book. On May 20, we already had the pleasure of hosting her for a thought-provoking discussion at our own
#TheoryTalks
. Great to see the conversations continue!
The joy and pleasure has been all mine
@silviasteiningr
. Thank you for the friendship and the comradeship and for being there on those countless moments when this journey felt completely hopeless. I think for both of us Olivia changed everything!!
Congratulations to Dr.
@kanad_bagchi
🎓! It has been one of the greatest joys of my PhD journey to share it with Kanad, having a friend and comrade as brilliant *and* kind at your side made all the joys much happier & all those sorrows less. Thanks for being our 🩷 Kanad!
I cannot recommend the JIEL-Junior Faculty Forum enough for creating such a kind and rigorous space for engagement and dialogue. Many thanks to the editors of
@JIEL_OUP
@WaibelM09
@Claussen_K
@LawProfPuig
for putting in their time, effort & expertise into the process.
The March 2024 issue of
@JIEL_OUP
is out. 10 articles & 3 book reviews on trade, investment, finance & national security, incl. 2 esp. topical articles by JFF participants
@LaurieDurel
&
@kanad_bagchi
on carbon border adjustment and depoliticizing money.
On the legality of drones, judicial review and International law! Comprehensive review of the German Higher Administrative Court's ruling on Germany's involvement in the US drone programme by
@leanderbeinlich
@ejiltalk
Some of the most interesting works I have read and continue to be inspired by have been within discourses outside of my 'core' PhD topic. Makes me think if I am doing something terribly wrong here!
Absent an express acknowledgement & condemnation of historical/continuing violence of colonialism, state sanctioned apartheid & forced displacement of Palestinians, any element of solidarity rings hollow. India's statement does not go nearly far enough.
‘The failure to address substantive issues in ISDS, and to only focus on procedural aspects of reform, will lead to the consolidation and re-legitimatisation of this system, under the guise of “modernizing” it.’
Reading three of my favorite scholars
@shaimabdelkarim
@FarnushGhadery
@Rohini_Sen
come together to write such a brilliant and personal account around the praxis of feminist collectivity, neo-liberal academia and the idea of resistance through collaboration
@FeministaJ
This is an extremely important & commendable decision coming from Manipur High Court recognizing Art. 21 of Indian Constitution (Right to life) includes principle of non-refoulment. Also that the government cannot stop Myanmar citizens to approach UNHCR
In part I,
@RaphSchaefer
& I look into the ICJ decision on Jadhav case, especially on the question of jurisdiction, admissibility, the applicability and resulting violations of VCCR. In part II, we deal with the more tricky issue of 'Remedies'
@opiniojuris
@MPILheidelberg
On how the right to equality, the idea of transformative constitutionalism and the essence of constitutional morality together acquired a unique purpose in the Indian Supreme Court's decision on Sec 377
@Verfassungsblog
Decriminalising Homosexuality in India as a Matter of Transformative Constitutionalism: KANAD BAGCHI comments on the Indian Supreme Court's seminal judgment on sec 377
Very excited to be a part of this workshop put together by
@CSchwobelPatel
&
@Serena_Natile
. Join us to reflect together on how Rosa Luxemburg’s insights on capitalist accumulation & imperial expansion opens up different avenues to think through the history and present of Int'Law
“That capitalism is a social totality...Once law facilitates the constitution of capitalist social relations, social order becomes a specifically capitalist social order. Under those conditions, the breakdown of capitalism would become the breakdown of society pure and simple”
How is the "legal" related to the "economic"?
@n_hold
tackles this age-old question of Marxist social and legal theory, discussing the legal-historical work of Chris Tomlins and reflecting on the debate about legal instrumentalism in the Marxist tradition.
Today a bunch of historians, political scientists and lawyers got around to discussing questions of history, economic sovereignty and int law
@MPILheidelberg
. Interdisciplinary research is never easy but is always hugely rewarding
@msomos
@MattHGoldmann
@rometostandrews
Not to even mention that other markers of social division (race, class, sex, gender) play a crucial role in who has access to this system of adulation! IMHO this really needs to change!
Full house today
@MPILheidelberg
when Sundhya Pahuja discussed for whom and from where we write on the histories of international laws
#TheoryTalks
, fascinating prelude to tomorrows conference
#JHIL2019
This is such wonderful news! Prof
@SundhyaPahuja
's work especially in situating the discourse of IL within the spheres of the humane, the mundane and everyday struggles has been formative for so many of us. Crucially also, she remains as approachable, kind and supportive.
In other words, we as experts are a dangerous breed. We exercise tremendous cognitive & material power to determine outcomes & 'balance' concerns. That in interpreting the legal world we also create it in some sense. This politics of expertise which the post chooses to ignore
Any and all attempts to delink race and racism from larger relations of capitalist accumulation needs to be resisted. Powerful intervention by
@pashukanist
on the Sewell report
@critlegthinking
The always amazing
@Rohini_Sen
on teaching CIL 'the only ethical relationship I can have with eurocentric international law is one of objection. And, I choose to articulate this dissent by invoking the teaching of critical international law in these spaces
@afronomicslaw
This is a call to lend in your support & solidarity against attacks on students and teachers in Indian universities.
European Solidarity Statement with Academics and Students in India |
@Verfassungsblog
Very powerful intervention by
@MashaVelickovic
on the idea of ‘Planned obsolescence’: ‘ means that we are working towards a generation of international scholars and practitioners who would be more committed to their utopias than to the law’
New Unbound symposium on the "Impact of Indigenous Peoples on International Law" introduced & edited by S. James Anaya & Antony Anghie is now available online.
In a wonderful review of the conference on 'Politics and Histories of IL"
@MPILheidelberg
Sebastian brings to life, the continuing disparities, divisions and approaches to IL thinking and practise and how so much of what we do is a product of power, privilege and access
@AjVBlog
Sebastian Spitra on the recent
#JHIL2019
conference
@MPILheidelberg
which reflected on the eurocentric and US-american bias that characterizes the rise of historiography of
#IntLaw
. And which also addressed the elephant in the room.
#JHIL
#Jamestown
Symposium
@griffithcollege
Critical Approaches to International Law (1-4 Aug). Topics: colonial and imperial legacies of IL, Feminist approaches, role of global corporations, ecologies of law, among others. Global south scholars especially welcome
@MPILheidelberg
@CeCIL_UniKent
Another amazing opportunity
@griffithcollege
this summer: the first Symposium on Critical Approaches to International Law.
Ten scholarships available to participants from the Global South, generously funded by Irish Aid. Disseminate and share widely!
"The End of International Public Authority? Contestation, Crisis, and Resilience in International Institutions" this week
@MPILheidelberg
- I am so, so excited for all the amazing experts who will join us...
Just read an 14 page article by a very senior academic where the person has cited himself 45 times!! Male scholars cite themselves a lot more than their counterpart’s in general, but this is some weird level of self-adulation.
Alexandrowicz was a scholar much ahead of his times. Unfortunately his contributions have been largely forgotten. Thx
@silviasteiningr
for the opportunity to revisit some of his works on the history of international law in its non & extra European contexts
@MPILheidelberg
Join us on 27th June for our next
#TheoryTalks
session
@MPILheidelberg
! This time our very own
@kanad_bagchi
will talk about "Challenging the Narrative of European International Law: A Glimpse into the Life and Work of Professor Charles Henry Alexandrowicz (1902–75)" So exciting!
Sometimes theory is difficult because it is written against the grain, against accepted wisdom, boundaries of acceptable standards, about the mundane which we don’t question. Sometimes calling it ‘difficult’ is the surest way to maintain status quo.
It brings its own set precarity, hierarchies and exclusions. And for many of us, we benefit out of it. Heard three dfferent senior acedemics in the last week charecterize academia as something different or beyond all this. This is simply obfuscation.
Friend and colleague
@hjamil_haris
powerful analysis on the colonial origins and continuities of the contempt of courts law in India. Especially it’s role in ‘maintaining institutional hegemony, and guaranteeing the legitimization of ruling ideas’
@TWAILReview
📢TWAILR Reflections, new post:
@hjamil_haris
explores the colonial inheritance of current contempt of court laws in India & how the civilising mission is reinvented domestically to stifle radical dissent