Fresh Squeezed! Podcast

Fresh Squeezed! seeks to broaden both expert and popular understandings of international law. We strive to challenge prevailing narratives by offering fresh perspectives and fostering interdisciplinary and intercultural conversations. The significance of diverse voices is paramount, and we are committed to promoting underrepresented scholars and advocating for a more inclusive and equitable approach to international law, across its theoretical, ideological, and linguistic dimensions. Join us in thought-provoking discussions about the universe – though not the universal! – of international law.

All contributors record Fresh Squeezed Podcast episodes in their individual capacity, and their opinions do not necessarily reflect the official position of Opinio Juris, the ICJ, or any organisation with which the author is affiliated.

“From the Land of Witches and Wolves”: A Conversation with Francesca Albanese

Israel’s consolidated interpretation of ceasefires: “you cease, I fire” (cit.). Francesca Albanese Israel recently stopped bombing Gaza, sort of, offering a moment of respite for Palestinians. This is a welcome development, to be sure. Having brutalised the enclave for nearly 18 months, collapsed the delivery of aid, obliterated health, education, and housing infrastructures, slaughtered tens of thousands, maimed tens of…

Domicide as Legitimating Narrative: A Conversation with Balakrishnan Rajagopal

Every juristic tradition has at least one point in common: they seek to distinguish between lawful and unlawful behaviours, usually extrapolating a normative parallel between right and wrong or, with ecclesiastical fervour, between good and bad. Tied up with this narrative are notions of accountability (for wrongdoers) and restoration (for those wronged). Of course, morality almost always morphs into moralisation,…

People Make the World: A Conversation with Georges Abi-Saab

In Representations of the Intellectual, Edward Said paints a portrait of the public intellectual. Part description and part aspiration (and maybe a little autobiography as well), he represents the intellectual as an outsider, a subversive whose role is to challenge the status quo by “speaking truth to power.” While this statement was probably never intended as more than a catchy…

Fresh Squeezed! Episode 1:3 – China and the Rise of a New International Legal Order: An Interview with Cai Congyan

In the field of international legal scholarship, Eurocentrism has traditionally overshadowed culture, ideology, and epistemology. Yet, as the world becomes more multipolar, these perspectives become indispensable for addressing global legal challenges in an effective manner. In our latest episode of FreshSqueezed!, Professor Cai Congyan from Fudan University Law School shared his thoughts China and the rise of a new international…

Fresh Squeezed! Episode 1:2 – Margot Salomon

I don’t think there’s any part of international law that isn’t integrated and fully embedded within capitalism. Margot Salomon Margot Salomon is a sought-after voice in the field of international law. She has a long history of challenging the conventional wisdom upon which international economic law is structured. I first encountered her work during my PhD and have been an…

Fresh Squeezed! Episode 1:1 – Freedom Dreams for Palestine and International Law: An Interview with Noura Erakat

In her book “Justice for Some: The Role of International Law in the Palestinian Struggle,” Noura Erakat makes a provocative claim: that international law, often hailed as a neutral guardian of justice, has actually strengthened Israeli settler-colonialism. Erakat contends that international law’s supposed neutrality is but a mirage, shaped and coloured by global power imbalances. In this episode, Erakat delves…

Reimagining Palestine in TWAIL Scholarship

If you’re not careful, [international lawyers] will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing. Malcolm X The Power of Mythmaking Origin stories are always more fiction than fact, more myth than reality. At times, origin stories serve to redeem a dubious past, while at others they enable us to…