Yesterday, Jason Cone, MSF’s Executive Director in the U.S., issued a press release entitled, “Even War Has Rules: A Fact Sheet on the Bombing of Kunduz Hospital.” He wrote:
This was not just an attack on our hospital-it was an attack on the Geneva Conventions.… The Geneva Conventions are not just an abstract legal framework-they are the difference between life and death for medical teams on the frontline.
It is interesting to contrast Cone’s view to that of former Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales. In his famous January 25, 2002 memo, he referred to Geneva Convention provisions as obsolete and quaint in light of the new war on terrorism.
This session is designed to examine these various positions on the Geneva Conventions and the laws of war more broadly (i.e., LOAC, IHL, etc.) by interrogating the relationship between the law and spatial logics and practices. To this end, we hope to draw from legal geographies scholarship and focus especially on the transnational spatial and material dimensions of the law. We invite papers on legal narrative and the disciplining function of law, as well as on operational issues, compliance problems, and any other aspect of implementation. Historical as well as contemporary topics are welcome.
A few possible themes:
- Legitimizing function of the law
- Geopolitics and the LOAC
- Spatial protections
- Temporalities and the law
- Biopolitical dimensions of the law
- Legal standing and the subjects of IHL
- Legal pluralism and interlegality
- Customary practices
- Compliance and violations
- Spatial dimensions of key legal principles (e.g., proportionality, distinction, etc.)
Please submit a brief expression of interest to Margo Kleinfeld (kleinfem@uww.edu) as soon as possible; abstracts byOctober 23.