Call for Papers: Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law

The University of Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice has issued a call for papers for a conference on "Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law," to take place December 6-7, 2012. Here's the call:

Call for Papers – Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law

The first conference on Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law, organised by the University of Liverpool School of Law and Social Justice, will take place on Thursday 6th December and Friday 7th December 2012.

The field of International Criminal Law (ICL) has recently experienced a significant surge in scholarship, in institutions, and in the public debate. The contemporary debate is predominantly focussed on ICL’s contribution to projects of justice, peace, legality, addressing impunity and accountability. While there are individual sites of critique, they are largely limited to effectiveness arguments: If the International Criminal Court is not functioning as well as it could be, then it must be made more effective; if peace is not yet achieved through tackling impunity, then there must be more accountability. This limited critique has fostered a seemingly self-congratulatory, uncritical, and over-confident area of international law which has marginalised deeper critical approaches.

What is missing from the mainstream debate are the possible complicities of ICL in injustice, conflict, exclusions, and biases. Arguably, the numerous conferences this year on the topic of the 10-year anniversary of the coming into force of the Rome Statute are largely a testament to this limited critique. In this conference, we hope to shift the debate towards such complicities and limitations in the contemporary understanding of ICL. We hope to question some of the assumptions which inform the field and which may cause injustice, conflict, exclusion and bias.

Tentative sites of critique, which are envisaged as central to an idea of Critical Approaches to International Criminal Law (CAICL), are:

• ICL and the political
• ICL and individualism
• ICL and neo-liberalism
• ICL and ideology
• ICL and gender
• ICL and afrocentricism
• ICL crowding out other disciplines
• ICL and the emergence of a judiocracy

The first day of the conference is open to all and will take place at the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool. The second day will be a closed session including a writing workshop and an exchange of ideas on teaching CAICL; participation of this requires an invitation.

More information will be online shortly here.

Please send abstracts of 500 words (max.) and a short bio (100 words max.) to C.Schwobel@liverpool.ac.uk by 01 September 2012. Selected speakers will be contacted by 28 September 2012. Draft papers will be due by 01 December 2012. A number of papers will be selected for an edited collection and/or a special issue. Completed papers will be due by end January 2013. The manuscript will be sent for consideration by March 2013.

A registration fee of £50 for academics and £100 for practitioners will be incurred. The registration fee income will go towards a travel grant for postgraduate students.