Call for Papers: Foucault and International Law

Our friends at the Leiden Journal of International Law — an exceptional journal — have asked us to post the following call for papers:

Special Issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law (2011)

Foucault and International Law

Abstracts due by 12 May 2010; Complete articles by 17 September 2010

The Leiden Journal of International Law is now soliciting articles for a special issue exploring the relevance of Foucault’s oeuvre to international law and legal theory. Apart from its merits for philosophy, political theory and sociology, the importance of Michel Foucault as a legal thinker (both as a thinker of law in his own right and as a thinker whose work can be illuminating for legal studies) is increasingly being felt. With the continuing translation and publication of Foucault’s lecture courses at the Collège de France and the ongoing importance of his already published work, Foucault’s work continues to provide fertile suggestions for rethinking many of our established notions of law, right(s), sovereignty and legal subjectivity. Yet to date there have been, with some notable exceptions, few sustained treatments of Foucault’s relevance to international law and international legal theory. This is the subject of Issue 2 of volume 24 (2011) of the Leiden Journal of International Law (LJIL).

What is the relevance of Foucaultian methodologies (archaeology, genealogy, problematisation) to international law and international legal theory? What does a Foucaultian analytic of international law entail? How can we use it to analyse international legal subjectivity? How does that relate to, inter alia, sovereign statehood and/or human rights law? How can the Foucaultian toolbox contribute to our understanding of the devolution of international public law, its fragmentation and specialisation (e.g. as an instance of governmentality)? What about international law ‘from below’ (the relevance of Foucaultian models of power/resistance, anti-globalisation perspectives and critiques of neoliberalism and the global rule of law, for example). These questions are just a number of suggestions, intended as provocations for thought, within the general theme of ‘Foucault and International law’ we invite contributors to interrogate and critically engage with.

Contributors will be asked to prepare an article of approximately 10,000 words (including footnotes) for publication in the LJIL, consistent with its instructions for authors. Those interested in contributing are requested to respond to this Call for Papers by email to managing editor Christine Tremblay (ljil@law.leidenuniv.nl) by 12 May 2010, attaching a 300-word abstract of the article you propose to contribute.

The selected authors are requested to submit the full articles by 17 September 2010. All contributions will be subject to double-blind peer review in accordance with the usual procedures of the LJIL. Please contact the LJIL (guest) editors with any further questions: Tanja Aalberts (taalberts@fsw.leidenuniv.nl) and/or Ben Golder (b.golder@unsw.edu.au).

The Leiden Journal of International Law is published with Cambridge University Press, and provides a forum for two vital areas, namely international legal theory and international dispute settlement. For further information, please visit the journal’s website: http://www.journals.cambridge.org/LJL

It sounds like a fantastic special issue.  My second article, written when I was a grad student at the New School for Social Research, was on Foucault’s concepts of power, subjectification, and resistance.  Forgive the shameless self-promotion, but here is the cite for anyone interested in reading it: 79 SubStance 80 (1996).