'Reconstituting Legal Orders': System Change and Resilience in Law, Community, and Politics
When:
—
Venue:
Birkbeck Main Building, Malet Street
Synopsis
This seminar will discuss a new research initiative to build a team of scholars and experts, and establish the grounding concepts and questions for a multinational, cross-jurisdictional research program focused on system change in law, community, and politics.
The research project begins with the assumption that post-WWII institutions and their concomitant regimes of rights and duties are increasingly under threat at the same time as the world community faces a number of challenges that no one nation or region can tackle alone. The research programme will focus on the rapid changes to international security and societal and ecological systems that we are currently facing; changes that fundamentally challenge legal, political and institutional structures from the multi-lateral to the local.
At the heart of the project are questions about how system change can be addressed through adaptability and resilience, in order to avoid the kind of stark polarisation and escalation of conflict that we have witnessed over the past decade, ranging from the undemocratic transitions in Afghanistan, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and beyond, to the increasingly polarised politics in the UK, US, and in several European countries.
By bringing together a small group of academics and experts from different institutional, and geographical settings, the project seeks to take an initially broad perspective both to the question of what systems are changing and how the change can be accommodated without total fracture or loss of hard-won progressive rights and duties.
Preliminary Research Questions
· During the Covid pandemic discussions about how our societal systems - from law and politics to the social fabric - deal with crisis became prevalent. The discussions remain important in an era marked by climate change, an increasing number of conflicts that risk spilling over into regional wars with international repercussions. We wish to establish the parameters for further research on an evidence-base that can provide a framework for contending with the risks of ‘system change’. What is this evidence? How can such profound social and political changes be studied?
· Over the past years, the rules-based international system has been increasingly challenged. The UN Security Council’s ability to provide responses and solutions is severely hampered, and the increasing number of unconstitutional transitions (e.g. the Taliban takeover of power in Afghanistan, the coups d’etats and rejection of the international community presence in the central Sahelian states) have certainly brought one era of liberal and human rights interventionism to an end. What next for the post-WWII international order and its institutions?
· The global shifts in climate and wide-spread ecological destruction; the Paris Accord and the IPCC framework have given rise to questions about the adequacy of international regimes in tackling natural resource extraction, and ecologically harmful production, and consumption. The status of ‘nature’ vis-a-vis juridical regimes has thus emerged as an urgent concern. Can ‘nature’ be given a different juridical status within existing juridical and political systems? What normative systems can frame and respond to the demand for planetary justice?
· The accelerating shifts in technology, AI, and communication systems have plunged democratic and legal mediation of social life into crisis. The post-WWII institutional consensus on rule of law, democracy, and the conventions of public discourse have been fundamentally challenged by the emergence of new ‘publics’ in technologically constructed and mediated platforms. What are the implications of these new ‘publics’ when sustaining the progressive achievements on global health, governance, and equality?
Supported by seed funding from the Faculty of Business and Law, Birkbeck; and the Centre for Law & Humanities, Birkbeck.
Contact name:
Stewart Motha
-
Alofipo So'o alo Fleur Ramsay
-
Alofipo So’o alo Fleur Ramsay is an international indigenous and human rights lawyer and has extensive experience as an environmental and climate justice lawyer in Australia and across Oceania. Prior to joining Blue Ocean Law, Fleur was pivotal in decolonising environmental law organisations, having spearheaded the creation of two indigenous-led programs at a peak Australian mainstream environmental law firm. She was awarded the Winston Churchill Fellowship to undertake travel and research innovative lawyering and best practice Indigenous environmental law practice. Fleur has an excellent pedigree in law, having worked as a solicitor at one of the top law firms in Australia, and as a barrister at a prestigious chambers in Sydney, and as an associate to a judge at the Federal Court of Australia. She has been bestowed the chiefly orator titles of Alofipo from the Sale’aula village and So’o alo from Samauga village, both on the island of Savaii in Samoa. Fleur is a Visiting Professor of Practice at Birkbeck Law School, University of London. Fleur is also on the Steering Committee of the Fossil Fuel Non Proliferation Treaty and a founder of the Pasifika International Lawyers network.
-
Prof Stewart Motha
-
Professor Stewart Motha’s current major project explores the multiple forms and sources of legal norms, breaking down the historical separation between law and nature. This research is linked to questions of climate justice and legal responses to ecological crises. It investigates the relationship between 'matter' (materiality) and norms.
Stewart has published widely on issues of sovereignty, memory, history, and decolonisation with a particular focus on the Indian Ocean region. In 2023 he held the John Hinkley Visiting Professorship at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore. He has also held visiting fellowships at Sydney Law School, Melbourne Law School, and the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS).
Stewart is also a podcaster, and hosts COUNTERSIGN, available wherever you get your podcasts.