| Centre for Critical International Law (CeCIL)
Second Annual Lecture
Crimes Against Humanity: One Hundred Years of Retribution |
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Professor Gerry Simpson Professor of Public International Law, London School of Economics
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Abstract: Outside the National Portrait Gallery in London stands a statue to a British nurse named Edith Cavell. On 12 October 1915, Cavell was executed by the Germans in Brussels and partly as a result, there emerged an almost entirely novel way of thinking about international law and war.
Defeated enemies became ‘war criminals’, atrocities became ‘crimes against humanity’ and (a certain sort of) war became ‘aggression’. The first half of the 20th century, then saw the appearance of an idiom and, then, architecture (Nuremberg, Tokyo) of what became known as international criminal law. This field (sometimes referred to also as ‘war crimes law’) began as tentative foothold (Versailles, Leipzig) but has now colonised much of our thinking about war and peace (Rome, The Hague).
When it comes to human rights abuses, it is de rigueur to call for war crimes trials for the perpetrators, and justice for the victims. But is it desirable to make “ending impunity” a supervening goal of war-making, peace-making and diplomacy? In this lecture I propose to engage in a critical stocktaking of this century of retributive humanitarianism.
Please also join us for a Reception before the Annual Lecture, from 5 pm in Eliot SCR Free Food and Drinks! |
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| Cecil Graduate Workshop Friday 18 March 11am-1pm Eliot Lyons Room & 2pm-5.15pm KS12
The Victims of International Law
Professor Simpson’s lecture will be followed by the Annual Cecil Workshop in which members of the Cecil community will present their work in progress on the theme that has run through Cecil activities this year The Victims of International Law. Please see the Workshop Programme attached. *************************************************************** |
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| Book Launch Wednesday 16 March, 6pm Templeman Library A108 and Library Gallery
Professor Gerry Simpson in conversation with Dr Luis Eslava
Professor Simpson’s lecture will be preceded by the launch of Dr Luis Eslava’s book Local Space, Global Life : The Everyday Operation of International Law and Development (CUP, 2015)
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| Everyone is warmly invited to the CeCIL Lecture, Graduate Workshop, Book Launch and Reception
Visit our new website: www.kent.ac.uk/law/cecil
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Gerry Simpson was appointed to a Chair in Public International Law at LSE January 2016. He previously taught at the University of Melbourne (2007-2015), the Australian National University (1995-1998) and LSE (2000-2007). He is the author of Great Powers and Outlaw States (Cambridge, 2004) and Law, War and Crime: War Crimes Trials and the Reinvention of International Law (Polity 2007), and co-editor (with Kevin Jon Heller) of Hidden Histories (Oxford, 2014) and (with Raimond Gaita) of Who’s Afraid of International Law? (Monash, forthcoming, 2016).
Research Interests
Gerry’s current research projects include an ARC-funded project on Cold War International Law (with Matt Craven, SOAS) and Sundhya Pahuja, (Melbourne) and a counter-history of International Criminal Justice. He is currently also writing about the literary life of international law; an exploratory essay – “The Sentimental Life of International Law” – was published recently in The London Review of International Law. A book of the same name will be published in 2017. He is an editor of The London Review of International Law and an occasional essayist and contributor for Arena Magazinein Melbourne (his latest essay is entitled “Syrian Fantasies”) and The Conversation. He will teach Rethinking International Law, Public International Law and International Criminal Law at the LSE in Lent, 2016. |
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