This book explores times, spaces and imaginings relating to international law through the lens of queer theory. For some time now, queer theorists and legal scholars who think with queer theory have asked, what happens when queer theory moves out of its home base of gender and sexuality? The chapters in this book begin to answer this question by applying insights from queer theory to a diverse array of international law topics, from travaux préparatoires and international judging to the environment, oceans and outer space. While some contributions maintain a focus on gender and sexual diversity, all are characterised by a shift away from questions about LGBTIQA+ people towards wider discussions about power, normality, difference and liberation in international law. Through these engagements, the book demonstrates how queer theory can provide insights into a range of international law issues by allowing us to ‘make strange’ the taken-for-granted and contributing to a broader practice of reading for difference rather than dominance. The book engages with contemporary challenges in international law, from the climate crisis to new military technologies, such as automated naval vessels. It also showcases the diversity of approaches to queering international law that are emerging, with some authors drawing attention to the violence of (neo-)colonial international law and others engaging in more utopian and reparative thinking. This collection of queer theoretical engagements with international law will be invaluable to scholars of international law and international relations with an interest in critical approaches to these areas; as well as to researchers, activists and practitioners working in cultural, gender, queer and/or postcolonial studies.

This book focuses on queer people and their encounters with international law. Traversing a wide range of topics, from trans discrimination and conversion therapy to sadomasochism and abolitionism, this book asks questions about the (im)possibility of freedom and equality for queer communities in the world and the role that different areas of international law have to play in such a pursuit. It considers how queer lives and bodies are rendered legible or illegible to the law through how we define concepts such as ‘gender [identity]’ or ‘private life’. It also reflects on whether legal activism focused on LGBTIQA+ rights can ever reflect the insights of queer theory. The book engages with new issues in international law, such as recent contestation over the meaning of ‘gender’ in international human rights law and international criminal law. It also showcases the diversity of approaches to queering international law that are emerging. While some chapters offer a critique of international law’s violent and exclusionary tendencies, others re-invest in international law as a tool in the struggle for queer liberation by seeking to re-imagine it in queer directions. The questions addressed in this book are wide-ranging and approached differently by the authors. However, all centre on the complex relationship between international law, queer theory, and queer lives and what the future holds for these encounters going forward. This collection of queer encounters with international law will be invaluable to scholars of international law, human rights, and international relations with an interest in critical approaches to these areas, as well as to researchers, activists, and practitioners working in cultural, gender, and sexuality studies.

This ground-breaking collection reflects the growing momentum of interest in the international legal community in meshing the insights of queer legal theory with those critical theories that have a much longer genealogy – notably postcolonial and feminist analyses. Beyond the push in the human rights field to ensure respect for the rights of people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, queer legal theory provides a means to examine the structural assumptions and conceptual architecture that underpin the normative framework and operation of international law, highlighting bias and blind spots and offering fresh perspectives and practical innovations. The contributors to the book use queer legal theory to critically analyse the basic tenets and operations of international law, with many surprising, thought-provoking and instructive results. The volume will be of interest to many scholars, students and researchers in international law, international relations, cultural studies, gender studies, queer studies and postcolonial studies.

In the last 15 years, queer movements in many parts of the world have helped secure the rights of queer people. These moments have been accompanied by the brutal rise of crony capitalism, the violent consequences of the ‘war on terror’, the hyper-juridification of politics, the financialization/ managerialization of social movements and the medicalization of non-heteronormative identities/ practices. How do we critically read the celebratory global proliferation of queer rights in these neoliberal times? This volume responds to the complicated moment in the history of queer struggles by analysing laws, state policies and cultures of activism, to show how new intimacies between queer sexuality and neoliberalism that celebrate modernity and the birth of the liberated sexual citizen, are in fact, reproducing the old colonial desire of civilizing the native. By paying particular attention to the problematics of race, religion and class, this volume engages in a rigorous, self-reflexive critique of global queer politics and its engagements, confrontations, and negotiations with modernity and its investments in liberalism, legalism and militarism, with the objective of queering the ethics of our queer politics. Published by Zubaan.

For almost 30 years, scholars and advocates have been exploring the interaction and potential between the rights and well-being of women and the promise of international law. This collection posits that the next frontier for international law is increasing its relevance, beneficence and impact for women in the developing world, and to deal with a much wider range of issues through a feminist lens.

Beyond the push in the human rights field to ensure respect for the rights of people with diverse sexual orientations and gender identities, queer legal theory provides a means to examine the structural assumptions and conceptual architecture that underpin the normative framework and operation of international law, highlighting bias and blind spots and offering fresh perspectives and practical innovations.

This edited collection provides a forum for rigorous analysis of the necessity for both legal and social change with regard to regulation of same-sex relationships and rainbow families, the status of civil partnership as a concept and the lived reality of equality for LGBTQ+ persons. Twenty-eight jurisdictions worldwide have now legalised same-sex marriage and many others some level of civil partnership. In contrast other jurisdictions refuse to recognise or even criminalise same-sex relationships. At a Council of Europe level, there is no requirement for contracting states to legalise same-sex marriage. Whilst the Court of Justice of the European Union now requires contracting states to recognise same-sex marriages for the purpose of free movement and residency rights, unlike the US Supreme Court, it does not require EU Member States to legalise same-sex marriage. Law and Sociology scholars from five key jurisdictions (England and Wales, Italy, Australia, Canada, and the Republic of Ireland) examine the role of the Council of Europe, European Union and further international regimes. A balanced approach between the competing views of critically analytical rights based theorists and queer and feminist theorists interrogates the current international consensus in this fast moving area. The incrementalist theory whilst offering a methodology for future advances continues to be critiqued. All contributions from differing perspectives expose that even for those jurisdictions who have legalised same-sex marriage, still further and continuous work needs to be done. The book will be of interest to students and scholars in the field of human rights, family and marriage law and gender studies.

Gender and the Law of the Sea successfully establishes the relevance of gender at sea and posits that feminist perspectives can help develop a more inclusive law for the oceans.

The Finnish Yearbook of International Law aspires to honour and strengthen the Finnish tradition in international legal scholarship. Open to contributions from all over the world and from all persuasions, the Finnish Yearbook stands out as a forum for theoretically informed, high-quality publications on all aspects of public international law, including the international relations law of the European Union. The Finnish Yearbook publishes in-depth articles and shorter notes, commentaries on current developments, book reviews and relevant overviews of Finland's state practice. While firmly grounded in traditional legal scholarship, it is open for new approaches to international law and for work of an interdisciplinary nature.

In the past decade, a sense of feminist 'success' has developed within the United Nations and international law, recognized in the Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security, the increased jurisprudence on gender based crimes in armed conflict from the ICTR/Y and the ICC, the creation of UN Women, and Security Council sanctions against perpetrators of sexual violence in armed conflict. Contributing to the development of feminist and gender scholarship on international law, Gina Heathcote provides a feminist analysis of the central pillars of international law, noting the advances and limitations of feminist approaches. Through incorporating into mainstream international legal studies specific critical and feminist narratives, this book considers the manner in which feminist thinking has changed international law, and the manner in which international law has remained impervious to key feminist dialogues. It argues for a return to structural bias feminism that engages the foundations of international law and uses gender as a method for challenging post-millennium narratives on fragmentation, the role of international institutions, the nature of legal authority, sovereignty, and the role of international legal experts.