Juristalks: Law’s Authority- Arboreal Jurisdiction

Wednesday, March 15, 2023 from 10:30 am to 12:00 pm

• In-person event
• D492, Loeb Building, Carleton University
• 1125 Colonel By Drive, Ottawa, ON, K1S 5B6

Please join us for a paper talk by Gina Heathcote of SOAS University of London in the UK. 

This will be a hybrid event: in person at D492 Loeb (space is limited) and via Zoom (link to be sent to attendees upon registration). Please register below

Abstract: In this paper I draw on the Djab Wurrung peoples’ protest against the Victorian government’s road building project that encroached upon an important site for the Djab Wurrung people of the Kulin Nation. The paper examines feminist approaches to decolonising international law and I return to reflections on law’s authority (Heathcote 2019). In examining the authority of the scholar and the privilege of talking and speaking international law, my approach is influenced by recent academic encounters focused on legal argumentation outside of the courtroom, on jurisdiction and on the nature of legal obligations and the implied knowledge frames that exclude and include different speakers and scholars, as well as expectations on ways of speaking. I examine the privilege of being listened to when speaking about law and why some speech acts are rendered far from law’s domain (Watson 2014). To this end the paper deploys a postcolonial and posthuman feminist methodology to explore the jurisdiction of trees and the limits of laws that are closed to alternative legal frames, as well as the diverse experiences of insecurity that are produced by the perpetuation of specific knowledge frames to inform the contours of international law. The examination of the jurisdiction of trees develops a series of conclusions regarding the legal consequences for feminist and critical legal approaches writing into and about the international legal system, as well as the place of decolonising practises which remain on the peripheries of international legal consciousnesses. I conclude with an examination of the potential for decolonised approaches to be ‘brought’ into critical legal scholarship (including feminist and queer approaches) and simultaneously undone through accommodation within the status quo – something feminist scholars are familiar with through their own experiences of incorporating feminist agendas into the work of the Security Council via the women, peace and security framework.

About the Presenter

Gina Heathcote is Professor of Gender Studies and International Law at SOAS University of London. Gina is the author of Feminist Dialogues on International Law (OUP 2019) and The International Law on the Use of Force: a Feminist Analysis (Routledge 2012) and co-author, with Sara Bertotti, Emily Jones and Sheri Labenski, of The Laws of War and Peace: a Gender Analysis Vol 1 (Bloomsbury 2021). Her current work examines the International Law of the Sea and develops a feminist analysis with attention to posthuman feminisms, queer scholarship and the blue humanities. Recent projects include co-editing of a Special Issue of Feminist Review titled, Oceans, and an entry in the More Posthuman Glossary (Braidotti, Jones and Klumbyte, 2022) on Feminism and the Oceans.