Core principles of the global order are under overt attack. The government of the USA’s ambitions to turn the Gaza Strip into the “Riviera of the Middle East”, to absorb Canada as the “51st state”, and to “acquire Greenland” all bear troubling parallels to imperial expansion by conquest, in violation of the territorial integrity and sovereignty of nation states and territories. This moment also unfolds alongside Russia’s continued territorial conquest in Ukraine since its full-scale invasion, with occupied land increasingly treated as a negotiable asset within putative “peace talks”, as well as recent US military actions against Venezuela, accompanied by explicit claims over its resources and announcements of an intention to effectively “run” the country for a period of time. These attacks on fundamental principles of international law are neither confined to a single actor nor reducible to the current political moment.
This panel explores contemporary challenges to the principle and exercise of sovereignty. It examines how international law responds to neo-imperial practices and asks whether law constrains, enables, or normalises these developments, including through doctrines, institutions and political processes that render territorial conquest, resource extraction and external governance legible and negotiable within the language of legality. It pays particular attention to the renewed global rush for resources.
Moderator
Nico Krisch, Professor, Geneva Graduate Institute
Speakers
- Vasuki Nesiah is Professor at New York University where she teaches human rights, legal and social theory. She is also faculty director of the Gallatin Global Fellowship in Human Rights. She has published on the history and politics of human rights, humanitarianism, international criminal law, reparations, global feminisms, and decolonization. Nesiah was awarded the Gallatin Distinguished Teacher Award in 2021 and the NYU Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Faculty Award in 2020. Her current book projects include International Conflict Feminism (forthcoming from University of Pennsylvania Press) and Reading the Ruins: Colonialism, Slavery, and International Law.
- Priya S. Gupta is Associate Professor of Law at McGill University's Faculty of Law, where she teaches and writes in the areas of property law and critical race theory. She previously served as Professor of Law at Southwestern Law School, where she taught Property, Critical Race Theory, Public International Law, and Law & Development. Prior to joining Southwestern, she was assistant professor and Co-Director of the Centre for Women, Law & Social Change as part of the founding faculty of Jindal Global Law School in Delhi NCR, India. She has visited at a number of institutions, including most recently Osgoode Hall and King’s College, London.
This public panel is part of the conference “Lands for the Taking: (Neo-)Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Unravelling of International Law".
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