CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL
CRITICAL LEGAL THINKING
LAW AND THE POLITICAL

Blog Carnival: Aesthetics and Counter-Aesthetics of International Justice
The politics of aesthetics are at the heart of Rob Knox and Christine Schwöbel-Patel’s energetic edited collection Aesthetics and Counter-Aesthetics of International Justice brings together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and artists. The editors approach the aesthetics of international justice in terms of tactics that can be deployed for good and ill. Essays in the first half of the collection interrogate hegemonic tactics. The anaesthetising, romanticising, distracting, and otherwise legitimising use of aesthetic objects in service of the status quo and the even worse. Contributions in the second half consider and enact counter-aesthetics, which “shift[] the dominant gaze or frame” (144) and “tak[e] the side of the downtrodden” (151). As well as essays, counter-aesthetic contributions include poems, parables, and graphic narratives, which the editors read through three counter-aesthetic tactics: rupture, détournement, and solidarity aesthetics. None of...
ARTICLES
Blog Carnival: Aesthetics and Counter-Aesthetics of International Justice
The politics of aesthetics are at the heart of Rob Knox and Christine Schwöbel-Patel’s energetic edited collection Aesthetics and Counter-Aesthetics of International Justice brings together a diverse group of scholars, practitioners, and artists. The editors...
Dream-walker in the Academy: Self, Time, and the Borders of Critique
I have returned to the classroom. After years inside bureaucracy – the slow gravity of minutes, clearances, and protocols – I am again among students, texts, and the low hum of ideas. The air is lighter; my wings that carry my creativity remember their work. It has...
The UK’s recognition of the State of Palestine is meaningless without the proper recognition of international law on the aid flotillas
Israel has boarded the Global Sumud flotilla, representing a further escalation of their response to flotillas seeking to deliver aid to Gaza. The boarding of the flotillas in international waters and the taking of people by force into Israeli territory violates...
The Culpable Liberal, The Latte Legalist and the End of the Settler Siege at Sea
**We are delighted to say that this post has been translated into Japanese by Yota Negishi, available here** It is the early hours of the morning on the 8th September 2025 and I am in Tunis at Sidi Bou Said Port listening to the sounds of stress, solidarity, and the...
CfP: Second International Conference of Critical Legal Geography
The second International Critical Legal Geography Conference, that will take place at the Universidad de Concepción, Chile, from 17 to 20 March 2026, will bring together transdisciplinary scholars to discuss the mutual constitution of space and law, broadly conceived....
CONOR GEARTY
With greatness sadness we heard of the untimely and sudden death of Conor Gearty at the age of 67. Conor was the professor of human rights law at the LSE. He was born in Ireland and this led to his lifelong interest in terrorism, state crimes, violations of human...
From Hyper-Chaos to the Irreversible
My philosophical project of radical democracy stands on two foundational intertwined discoveries that offer a firm ontological grounding of power.[i] 1. The world is radically contingent but is simulated by a world that presents itself...
The Architecture of Inequality: What Apartheid Teaches About Qualified Immunity
Oppression does not arrive wearing a hood; it arrives stamped, filed, and countersigned. What looks like order—forms, doctrines, jurisdiction—can be a choreography of domination. Fanon taught that colonial violence is not only the blow of the baton but the quiet...
The Outframe: How International Law’s Core Excludes Its Margins
International law is frequently represented as universal, neutral, and inclusive; however, from its inception, it has been influenced by, and primarily serves, a limited group of states historically categorised as "civilised.” This hierarchy is subtly embedded in...
Reclaiming the Ground: Lawful Expropriation and Land Justice in South Africa
Colonialism rarely dies; it mutates. Its uniforms change—from khaki to suits, from passbooks to policy papers—but the arrangement it protects remains the same: some live on the land, others live off it. Post-apartheid South Africa knows this intimately. Political...
Speed Limit: What does it mean to regulate AI?
Elena Esposito argues that artificial intelligence is misnamed and that a more accurate descriptor would be ‘artificial communication’.[1] Here, communication is closely connected to the idea of being informed: a communication is pertinent to the extent...
On the relationship between trans politics and disability
In the aftermath of the decision in For Women Scotland Ltd v The Scottish Ministers [2025] USCK 16, many disabled people sought to give practical solidarity to trans people. Disabled activists offered to share their RADAR keys with trans friends. Articles...
No Hearing, No Harm? Rethinking Jurisdiction and Protection in UAE v Sudan
On 5 May 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) removed the case of UAE v Sudan from its docket, declaring it “manifest” that it lacked jurisdiction under Article IX of the Genocide Convention (Order, para 14). Sudan alleged that...
How to Reanimate Rotting Brains in the Age of AI
As artificial intelligence (AI) seeps into our daily lives, its impact on our thinking capacities is becoming increasingly clear. AI is replacing our jobs, increasing government and corporate surveillance, and luring vulnerable internet users into rabbit holes of...
Reflections on the Proscription of Palestine Action
VX Photo/ Vudi Xhymshiti Remember that we are living, writing, waking up, sleeping, lamenting, breathing, resisting, and working amid an acceleration of Israel’s 75-year settler colonial project (underwritten by the US and Europe), or what we have come to...
Resisting Neocolonial Genocidal Hyperreality: A Middle Eastern Voice
Amidst the intellectual and political tumult surrounding the genocide of the Palestinian people, this essay seeks to foreground and amplify a marginalised voice. We aim to intervene in ongoing debates within academia and the wider public in the Global North, which...
In the Crack, a Method: Hope, Utopia, and the Critique of International Law
The rhetoric around the complete erosion of international law has recently proliferated mainstream political discourse and scholarship. But, surprisingly the current state of the international legal order or its lack thereof is not unprecedented. Trump’s...
CfP: Feminist Approaches to International Law in Times of Atrocity, Anthropocene and Authoritarian Capitalism
In a Declaration appended to the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) Advisory Opinion concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2024, Judge Hilary Charlesworth drew attention to the discriminatory effects of Israel’s policies on Palestinian women and...
Illegality and Law-full-ness
A week before the 13th Berlin Biennale’s opening in June 2025, a social media account took to criticizing Biennale curator Zasha Colah’s contention, made in a recently published interview, that “there is no censorship in Germany”.[1] The social media response was...
CfP: Critical Legal Conference – Exeter
The Call for Papers for this year's CLC will remain open until the 31st of July. Please read the full description below. If you would like to participate – send short abstract of your proposed paper to the stream organisers (as mentioned under their stream heading)....
Israel’s Military Aggression against Iran: Some preliminary reflections
We are excited to have the following piece by Iranian theorist Parviz Sedaghat,[1] translated into English by Leila Faghfouri Azar and first published in Farsi in pecritique.com. 1)Israel’s military attack against Iran started in the early hours of Friday June 13 by...






























