International Law

In this two-part blog post series, I will discuss Indigenous understandings of time and reflect on personal experiences in an early academic career in international law. Part 1 of this blog post series will be devoted to a discussion on a circular perspective of time, which Indigenous peoples use. Subsequently, Part 2 will illustrate how valuable such approach is by reflecting upon personal experiences in an early academic career in international law.

The African Society of International Law (AfSIL) is pleased to invite you to submit your contributions to its eleventh annual conference which will take place in Cairo, Egypt on 28 and 29 October 2022. The theme of this year’s conference is "Africa and the Challenge of Climate Change".

I’m privileged that my time as an early career researcher (ECR) has been a positive experience. I’ve worked with and been helped by brilliant lawyers and researchers in a collegial, welcoming environment. I’m indebted to them for their time, knowledge, and guidance. Yet, despite this, since I began my doctoral research, I have the unshakable sense that I simply do not belong among these people.

Some years ago, at a different institution, I reached a point where professional, workplace, and personal pressures intersected for a period and I was simply unable to function as normal. Depression is certainly a possible label, so is burnout. I sometimes think of it as an implosion. I was fortunate enough to get help, recover, move on, and I have not since relapsed. However, what one finds on the other side of such events is not a return to things as they were before. Indeed, returning to what went on before is quite likely to repeat the patterns which caused one to burn out in the first place. Hopefully, one finds instead a new, better normal.

This symposium’s idea was born out of at least four reflections on that question – the experiences of the four editors. While our experiences are unique, we could agree on one thing: there are junior international legal scholars struggling with various challenges that are inherent to the field. The hierarchies of academic institutions, the political economy of modern universities, geographical location, language, race, gender, and mental health struggles are some of the issues of concern to junior legal researchers, and often even to those advanced in their career. Difficulties emerge not only from structures of oppression and exclusion but also from insufficient familiarity with basic aspects of academic life. All four of us agreed that at the beginning of our careers we had/have little understanding of how to prepare a book proposal, an abstract for an interesting conference, a polite rejection email for an attractive offer, a teaching plan, a justification for chosen methods, and much more.

For International Women’s Day 2022, Afronomicslaw.org is proud to celebrate the brilliant achievements of Professor Phoebe Okowa.

Apart from important recent examples that will be formative, we believe it is long past time for international economic law to take stock of its hidden heritage (including settler colonialism) and how this ongoing legacy invariably intersects with IEL’s impoverished notions of economy, as well as its impoverishing approach to migration.

This symposium is focused on reimagining IEL for migration, underscoring the place of migration within the larger IEL discourse and unpacking the complex relationship between IEL rules and norms and international migration. The six essays in this symposium gather original and analytical work from established, mid-career, and young academics and practitioners that focus on critical, trans-disciplinary, and regional perspectives on the intersections of IEL and migration. In addition to theoretical analysis, this symposium also showcases empirical findings on the relationship between IEL and migration

COP26 ended with a palpable sense of despair as industrialised states failed once again to deliver on long-standing commitments to finance adaptation and mitigation efforts in the Global South. As attempts to reach accord floundered, private capital materialised as the most likely source of this vital funding. Whilst their dire situation may leave post-colonial states with no option but to accept this investment, its continued entrenchment in the economies and polities of the Global South can only serve to perpetuate the centuries-long cycle of subordination, dependence, and debt.

Black traditions in international law express and foreground the goals, histories and thoughts of black struggle. Black traditions have long offered visions of global order that challenge the color blindness embedded in accounts of international law. Black traditions counter visions of international law that order the world in accordance with predominantly European and white conceptions of hierarchy and order.