From 28-30 May, I was a Laureate at the Seventh Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law, where I presented my paper, “There is Nothing Humanitarian about Giving ‘Terrorists’ Rights: Revisiting the Neoconservative Critique of the Development of International Humanitarian Law during Decolonisation”.

The paper revisits what I term the “neoconservative critique” of the development of international humanitarian law during decolonization. I argue that this critique persuaded the Reagan administration to refuse to send to the Senate the first Additional Protocol to the 1949 Geneva Conventions for advice and consent to ratification after a spate of terrorist attacks targeting US citizens in the 1980s. Disconcerted by the ‘Third Worldism’ of the Carter administration, the interests of neoconservatives and Vietnam War veterans became aligned during the armed conflicts in the Lebanon and Nicaragua when Israel was aiding the Lebanese Forces and the US the Contras.

Participants of the 2018 Seventh Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law

Closely modelled on the Yale/Stanford Junior Faculty Forum devised by Alan Schwarz (Yale Law School) and Ronald Gibson (Stanford Law School), the Annual Junior Faculty Forum for International Law involves an annual competition open to all international legal scholars who are in no more than their sixth year of an academic position. The Forum is aimed at bringing together junior faculty working in the field of international law in order that their work can be presented before an audience of peers and experts and then discussed by established and senior scholars in international law and related fields.

My paper was selected and was critiqued by Anne Orford, Redmond Barry Distinguished Professor at Melbourne Law School, whose feedback was very helpful and thoughtful in shaping the paper as I look towards publishing it. The paper was also discussed by other conveners of the forum, including J.H.H. Weiler, Dino Kritsiotis, Martti Koskenniemi, Dianne Otto, and Dan Bodansky, who, along with other Laureates, all provided thoughtful comments.

The forum was an intimate environment and was held on one of the top floors of the Law School with stunning views of Melbourne’s skyline.

View from the top of Melbourne Law School

I presented the same paper to the conference on Humanitarianism and the Remaking of International Law: History, Ideology, Practice, Technology, which was organised by the Laureate Program in International Law right after the Faculty Forum ended from 31 May – 2 June. The conference was also held at Melbourne Law School in one of the lecture theatres.

Martti Koskenniemi speaking at the conference

I spoke on a panel with Jessica Whyte, Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Social Analysis at the University of Western Sydney and Cheah Wui Ling, Assistant Professor at NUS Law. The panel was chaired by Ntina Tzouvala, ARC Laureate Program in International Law.

Cheah Wui Ling, Jessica Whyte, Ntina Tzouvala and me speaking at the panel

The questions asked following the panel by the other scholars attending the conference were excellent and helped clarify and focus some of the claims I was making in my paper.

The setting provided a congenial opportunity to meet with new scholars and to catch up with old friends. On one of the evenings of the Faculty Forum I found time to catch up with former MEI Senior Research Fellow Jeremy Kingsley over dinner. Jeremy is now Senior Lecturer in Law at Swinburne University of Technology.

Former MEI Senior Research Fellow Jeremy Kingsley