Call for Papers: Palestine Against and Through International Law, 13 June 2026
KÜREMER, The Center for Global Public Law, at Koç University is pleased to announce a Workshop to be held in Istanbul on 13 June 2026. The workshop will critically examine the role of international law in enabling, organising, and contesting the genocide in Gaza. It will explore how international law has been central to the historical and contemporary dispossession of the Palestinian people, and how law has helped normalise structures of domination under the guise of neutrality, security, or peace. At the same time, the workshop will interrogate whether and how international law can still be mobilised as a site of resistance and emancipation from these colonial and racialised legacies. In this context, it will investigate the role of the UN General Assembly in bringing the question of Palestine before the International Court of Justice, the implications of the Court’s advisory opinions, and the potential impact of the ongoing contentious proceedings initiated by South Africa and Nicaragua
Workshop Theme
What does it mean to seek redress for Palestine through a legal language and institutional architecture that is itself deeply implicated in Palestinian dispossession?
We invite submissions addressing, but not limited to, the following themes:
. How do we navigate the tension between exposing law’s colonial and racial foundations and still making formal legal claims in courts and institutions?
. What structural features of the current international legal order have allowed the genocide in Gaza and broader Palestinian dispossession to persist?
. What is the importance of discussing the legality and illegality of Israel’s acts?
. What is the role of ICJ, ICC or Special Rapporteurs in determining genocide, apartheid or other international crimes?
. Is it possible to conceive of international law as a progressive force in the context of settler colonialism and racial capitalism?
. Is international law capable of responding to settler-colonialism, or are its concepts and categories structurally inadequate to the task?
· How do doctrines such as occupation, self-determination, annexation, apartheid, genocide, humanitarian relief explain or obscure what is unfolding in Palestine?
. How is anti-Palestinian racism articulated, obscured or normalised through international law?
. What are the implications of Palestine’s recognition as a state?
. What does UN Security Council Resolution 2803 reveal about the involvement of the international legal order in governing, managing and furthering the dispossession of Palestine?
. How might anti-racist and decolonial methodologies reorient international legal scholarship on Palestine?
Submission Guidelines
Abstracts of no more than 500 words should be sent to kuremer@ku.edu.tr by 22 March. Please include your affiliation in the abstract, indicate whether you require funding, and provide a 200-word bio.
For more details, refer here
