Called to the Bar: International Law over Drinks

This week Juliette McIntyre, having just finished her PhD, asks the rest of the panel about career planning. Where should you aim to work, how much should you publish, when should you turn the PhD into a book, and do you ever recover from post PhD mental exhaustion? Featuring Ntina Tzouvala, Douglas Guilfoyle and Tamsin Paige.

Recommendations:

Ntina Tzouvala

Andrea Lawlor, Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl, https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9781529007671/

Tamsin:

Seanan McGuire writing as Mira Grant, Newsflesh Trilogy, https://www.miragrant.com/series/newsflesh/

Douglas:

Michael Chabon, The Yiddish Policeman's Union, https://www.harpercollins.com.au/9780007373055/the-yiddish-policemens-union/

China Mieville, The City and the City, https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/9780330534192/

Roger Zelazny, The Chronicles of Amber, https://www.hachette.com.au/roger-zelazny/the-chronicles-of-amber

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

In this episode Douglas Guilfoyle hits the road for the Called to the Bar team and attends the American Branch of the International Law Association's "International Law Weekend" conference at Fordham University School of Law, New York and the Lieber Institute workshop at West Point. Along the way he chats with Chris Carpenter (PhD student, Cambridge), Martins Paparinskis (UCL, International Law Commission), Monique Cormier (Monash), Jay Batonbacal (University of the Philippines), Emily Crawford (Sydney), Craig Martin (Washburn) about life in academia and whatever else is on their mind.

In this episode Tamsin Phillipa Paige speaks with Juliana Santos de Carvalho about how we read the silences in international legal discourse and how some quasi-legal regimes (such as the women, peace and security agenda) are haunted by the shadow of legality. It's hauntology, just in time for Halloween! (Sort of.) Juliana also discusses what it's like to make a career in international law starting out as a first-in-family academic from a disadvantaged region of Brazil.

Recommendations:

Juliana Santos de Carvalho, ‘The Powers of Silence: Making Sense of the Non-Definition of Gender in International Criminal Law’ (2022) 35 Leiden Journal of International Law 963. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/powers-of-silence-making-sense-of-the-nondefinition-of-gender-in-international-criminal-law/4C07987AD98E326EEDE644AD7A61B306 ;

Juliana Santos de Carvalho, 'Under the Shadow of Legality: A Shadow Hauntology on the Legal Construction of the Women, Peace and Security Agenda' (2024) Leiden Journal of International Law (First View). https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/leiden-journal-of-international-law/article/under-the-shadow-of-legality-a-shadow-hauntology-on-the-legal-construction-of-the-women-peace-and-security-agenda/B637D4E3798E7EA4DDC39B90F005154C#article ;

Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure (Duke University Press 2011);

Maria Lugones, ‘Playfulness,“World”-Travelling, and Loving Perception’ (1987) 2 Hypatia 3 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/abs/playfulness-worldtravelling-and-loving-perception/C3670D079AD93578FB093CF09FBB87D6 ;

María Lugones, ‘Toward a Decolonial Feminism’ (2010) 25 Hypatia 742 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/hypatia/article/abs/playfulness-worldtravelling-and-loving-perception/C3670D079AD93578FB093CF09FBB87D6 ;

Tamsin Phillipa Paige‘“The Whore That Lost Everything”: The Tyranny of Law and the Queer Feminisation of Soft Power as Explored in Black Sails’ (2023) 17(2) 415-429 https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.1515/pol-2023-2014/html

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

This week Imogen Saunders chairs a discussion with Alex Green and Douglas Guilfoyle on their forthcoming article "The Australia-Tuvalu Falepili Union Treaty: Statehood and Security in the Face of Anthropogenic Climate Change". Can a state still exist without land territory? Is the new Australia-Tuvalu treaty a landmark climate mobility agreement of a neo-colonial arrangement?

An advance access version of the article is available at: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4961093

The text of the Falepili Union Treaty is available at: https://www.dfat.gov.au/sites/default/files/australia-tuvalu-falepili-union-treaty.pdf

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

This week Imogen Saunders chairs a conversation with Douglas Guilfoyle and Ntina Tzouvala about the deal, announced on 3 October 2024 between Mauritius and the UK which transfers sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius. This deal – once thought inconceivable – has caused a great deal of commentary in the international legal community. We delve into the issues and why death, taxes, and US bases are (international) life's only certainties.

Recommendations! From Douglas:

Articles by Douglas and Philippa Webb on the Chagos litigation in https://law.unimelb.edu.au/mjil/issues/issue-archive/213 ;

Philippe Sands, The Last Colony, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2022/aug/14/the-last-colony-by-philippe-sands-review-britains-chagos-islands-shame ;

From Ntina:

Daniel Immerwahr, How to Hide an Empire: A History of the Greater United States, https://www.penguin.com.au/books/how-to-hide-an-empire-9781473545335

Tom Frost and CRG Murray, The Mists of Time: Intertemporality and Self-Determination's Territorial Integrity Rule in the ICJ's Chagos Advisory Opinion, https://law.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0005/5034695/Frost-and-Murray-Final-Approval-28.07.2024-For-PL-without-Track-1.pdf.

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

This week Juliette McIntyre talks with Tamsin Phillipa Paige and Aoife O'Donoghue about Security Council reform. Is it possible? (Spoiler: not really. Additional spoiler: Tamsin taps the sign.)

Aoife's recommendations:

Dipo Faloyin Africa is not a Country (Penguin, 2022) https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/444389/africa-is-not-a-country-by-faloyin-dipo/9781529114829

Priyasha Saksena, "Building the Nation: Sovereignty and International Law in the Decolonisation of South Asia". (2020) 23 Journal of the History of International Law 52

Jonn Elledge A History of the World in 47 Borders (Hachette, 2024)

Only Murders in the Building https://www.imdb.com/title/tt11691774/

Silo https://www.imdb.com/title/tt14688458/

And the speech where Ursula K le Guin said "We live in capitalism. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings." https://www.ursulakleguin.com/nbf-medal

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

Language warning! This week Ntina Tzouvala chairs a discussion with Douglas Guilfoyle and Tamsin Phillipa Paige on Israel’s attacks on Lebanon in its conflict with Hezbollah. We discuss the pager attack, the recent ground offensive, and the implications of this conflict for the discipline of international humanitarian law.

Recommendations:

Douglas' tweet thread on the "Solferino moment" https://x.com/djag2/status/1836741318242099283;

Adil Haque and Janina Dill interviewed by Craig Martin on the JIB/JAB podcast https://jibjabpodcast.com/episode-39-dill-haque-on-ihl-and-the-idf-conduct-of-hostilities-in-gaza/;

Samuel Moyn interviewed by Ayesha Malek on the @War podcast https://share.transistor.fm/s/c4a63027;

Gerry Simpson, "Law, War and Crime" https://shorturl.at/4c5Bw;

Rob McLaughlin, "Recognition of Belligerency and the Law of Armed Conflict", https://global.oup.com/academic/product/recognition-of-belligerency-and-the-law-of-armed-conflict-9780197507056;

David Kennedy, "Of War and Law", https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691128641/of-war-and-law.

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

This week Douglas Guilfoyle, Tamsin Phillipa Paige, Imogen Saunders and Ntina Tzouvala discuss the challenges of teaching international law and the trend towards more online education. Recommendations:

Open access textbook: Sué González Hauck, Raffaela Kunz, Max Milas (eds), Public International Law: A Multi-Perspective Approach https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003451327;

Henry Jones and Aoife O’Donoghue, "History and self-reflection in the teaching of international law" https://academic.oup.com/lril/article/10/1/71/6587156;

Jean-Pierre Gauci, Barrie Sander (eds), Teaching International Law: Reflections on Pedagogical Practice in Context https://www.routledge.com/9781032551517; and

a seminar on Gauci and Sander's book featuring contributors talking about legal eduation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_DzxIekK1k.

In this week's episode Imogen Saunders discusses her work with Shruti Rana (University of Missouri School of Law) and Peter Danchin (University of Maryland Carey Francis King Carey School of Law.) on engagement with international law in a populist era, and the impact of populism and American exceptionalism on international law.

Peter recommends (both open access):

Antony Anghie, "Rethinking International Law: A TWAIL Retrospective", https://academic.oup.com/ejil/article/34/1/7/7167027; and

Nehal Bhuta, "Recovering social rights", https://academic.oup.com/book/56391/chapter/448353512 .

Shruti recommends:

Jessica Calarco, Holding It Together: How Women Became America's Safety Net, https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/697130/holding-it-together-by-jessica-calarco/ .

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait

Content warning: some discussion of death threats.

How do we get the message out about what is happening in the world of international law, and what it means for national and international politics?

This week, Douglas Guilfoyle discusses international law and public communication with: regular Called to the Bar co-host, Dr Juliette McIntyre, Lecturer in Law at the University of South Australia; Dr Alonso Gurmendi-Dunkelberg, Fellow in Human Rights and Politics at the LSE; and Molly Quell, a Dutch-American journalist based in The Hague, who covers international law for Courthouse News Service. All three are active communicators in the field of international law across a range of media. It's a lively and entertaining discussion, albeit one that does touch on the dark side of social media.

Music: Sam Barsh, Oils of Au Lait