Kent Law School is hosting a book launch and reception on Monday 23 March for two books: The Slave Trade, Abolition and the Long History of International Criminal Law and The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion.

The Slave Trade, Abolition and the Long History of International Criminal Law, by Kent international law specialist Dr Emily Haslam offers a close and critical examination of litigation that arose from British efforts to capture slave ships in the nineteenth century. Drawing upon archival-based research, it explores the legal construction of so-called ‘recaptives’ (slaves found on board captured slave ships). The book argues that, notwithstanding its promise of freedom, the law actually constructed recaptives restrictively. Speakers for this book will be: Professor Michael Lobban (LSE) and Dr Christine Schwobel-Patel (University of Warwick).

The Exclusionary Politics of Digital Financial Inclusion, by Dr Serena Natile (Brunel University London), examines and critiques the narratives and institutions of digital financial inclusion as a development strategy for gender equality, arguing for a politics of redistribution to guide future digital financial inclusion projects. Speakers for this book will be: Dr Luis Eslava (Kent Law School) and Professor Kate Maclean (Birkbeck).

The book launch will be held from 4pm – 6.30pm in Eliot Senior Common Room. It is jointly hosted with the Law School by the Centre for Sexuality, Race and Gender Justice (SeRGJ), the Centre for Critical International Law (CeCIL) and the research group Social Critiques of Law (SoCRIL).