10 Oct Rethinking International Law After Gaza Symposium: A Thought Experiment – What if we Tried to Organise the “Rethinking International Law after Gaza” Conference in the UK?
[Victor Kattan is Assistant Professor in Public International Law at the University of Nottingham School of Law]
The conference “Rethinking International Law After Gaza” held at Boğaziçi University’s Faculty of Law in Istanbul in early August marked a significant engagement by Türkiye with the Question of Palestine. The conference was noteworthy for bringing together distinguished scholars from the Global South and Global North – including many Palestinian and Arab speakers. It also coincided with Türkiye’s announcement that it intended to submit a statement in support of South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice under the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Whether such a conference could have been held in the United Kingdom (UK) is the topic of this post. In this thought experiment, I propose to contrast the experience of hosting events on Palestine at institutions I have worked at in the past, including in Southeast Asia where I spent a considerable part of my career and where there are statutory restrictions on free speech. Türkiye also has its sensitivities, and it is worth mentioning at the outset that it would have been very difficult to organise events in Turkish universities on certain ‘sensitive’ political issues.
And yet, it is still worth asking what would happen if we tried to organise a two-day conference on the Question of Palestine in the UK, along the lines of the conference at Boğaziçi University, which addressed various topics including the occupation, resistance, apartheid, zionism, and the right of return. What institutional obstacles might arise, and could such an event even take place?
In the following post, I describe the institutional requirements that would need to be met before such a conference could be held in those universities that have adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of Antisemitism, whose list of examples of antisemitism include strident criticisms of the policies of a nation state (Israel, as opposed to hatred towards Jews because they are Jews). In addition, conference organisers would need to factor in the UK’s counterterrorism legislation and the Prevent duty if speakers plan to address the right to resistance of national liberation movements classified as proscribed organizations. I then explain that despite the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism by many British universities in 2020, organising events on the conflict in Palestine that predated the adoption of the IHRA definition was already fraught with difficulties, as demonstrated by the cancellation of a conference at the School of Law at the University of Southampton almost a decade ago.
I end by suggesting that the situation in the UK is in some ways worse when organising events on the Question of Palestine than those countries with statutory restrictions on free speech that I have worked and organised events at in the past (see here, here, and here, and this collection on Jerusalem that followed a workshop). I am aware this is quite an indictment. As I explain below, the ‘adoption’ of the IHRA definition of antisemitism by many British universities was ideologically driven by the previous Conservative government which threatened financial sanctions against those institutions that refused to adopt it or raised concerns about free speech and academic freedom. The result has been a serious deterioration of academic freedom in British universities in organising events on Palestine especially if they stray from “safe topics” like peacebuilding and people-to-people programmes to discuss the rights and wrongs of the conflict and/or its root causes.
There is a danger that if the current situation continues, we may lose sight of the very purpose of a university, which is not just to prepare students for the market, but to stimulate critical thinking and critical dialogue, and to expose students to a diversity of views, not just the echo chambers of social and legacy media. As Paulo Freire (1921-1997), the Brazilian educator and advocate of critical pedagogy, argued in Education for Critical Consciousness, students should be able to discuss the “problems of their country, of their continent, of the world” – for ultimately, “education is an act of love, and thus an act of courage”. The fact that tens of thousands of students are protesting the current wars in the Middle East on campuses across the Global North demonstrates that these are issues they care deeply about.
The Institutional Framework for Holding Events in the UK
The UK prides itself on being an “open society” and academic comment receives a high level of protection in the law. Despite this, the previous government acknowledged that many scholars were self-censoring on a range of topics and that something needed to be done. This was one of the reasons Parliament passed the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act 2023, which, inter alia, created a new statutory tort that would allow students, academics and visiting speakers to bring civil proceedings against higher education providers for any loss they suffered from being “cancelled” or “no-platformed”. (This would have allowed me, and other speakers, to bring a claim against the University of Southampton for the financial losses we sustained, when a conference we were due to speak at was cancelled, as I explain below).
The Act also established a Director for Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom with a mandate to champion freedom of speech on campuses with responsibilities for investigating alleged infringements of freedom of speech duties in higher education. Professor Arif Ahmed of Cambridge University was appointed to this post – prior to his appointment he had publicly criticised the IHRA definition of antisemitism by describing it as obstructing ‘perfectly legitimate defence of Palestinian rights’.
The Act was supposed to enter into force on 1 August 2024 and would only apply to English universities. However, in July 2024, the Secretary of State for Education of the incoming Labour government announced a postponement, and that options were being considered going forward, which could include the amendment or repeal of the Act, a delay that was notably welcomed by the Russell Group of Universities. The delay was also welcomed by the Union of Jewish Students who complained that the new Act would have required ‘the removal of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition [of antisemitism]’.
Accordingly, as things stand, organising conferences in the UK remains subject to existing rules and regulations, which are described below. The focus of this post is on the processes that an academic would likely have to undertake (depending on the institutional requirements of that particular university) before they could even contemplate organising a conference like the one held at Boğaziçi.
To begin, any proposal for a conference like Boğaziçi’s would likely be flagged by the relevant university faculty, department, or school, for raising controversial issues of a social, political, or religious nature, pursuant to the university’s code of practice for hosting events. Depending on your university’s policy, the university’s executive – the VC and the registrar – may then be informed of the proposed conference. The academic in question might then be asked to fill in an equality, impact and assessment (EIA) form. This form would require the academic to consider several issues such as the topic, timing, diversity of speakers, and potential impact of the event on individuals, staff, and students. Other university policies would also intervene. In the UK, these usually take the form of “codes of practice and rules” to provide guidance on “good practice”. Most UK universities have codes on the Prevent duty, antisemitism, islamophobia, dignity, and freedom of expression. In the process of reading through these policies it may become apparent that the code on freedom of expression conflicts with certain other codes.
The most problematic of these codes when hosting events on Palestine on UK campuses is without doubt the IHRA definition of antisemitism. While most universities initially refused to adopt the IHRA definition, claiming that it was contrary to academic freedom, the tide turned when Robert Jenrick MP and Gavin Williamson MP, who both held ministerial posts in the previous Conservative government, threatened financial sanctions against those universities that did not adopt the definition, which was made clear in this 9 October 2020 letter addressed to vice-chancellors.
If your university surrendered to government diktat and adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism, following your submission of the EIA form, you may be asked to consider and cross reference that definition to the topics at issue at the conference, including the examples given on the webpage. Although the IHRA definition is not legally binding, it is university policy, after all. As Rebecca Gould has argued, despite it being described as a “non-legally binding working definition”, as reiterated on its website, the IHRA definition functions as “quasi-law” in that it has acquired “the de facto authority of the law, without having acquired legal legitimacy”. In other words, the definition is not law, but it is treated as such by universities that oblige academics to take the code into account when organising events and disciplining students.
The same logic may apply to the universities’ codes on Prevent Duty, which is a statutory requirement in the UK that aims to prevent people from becoming terrorists or supporting terrorism. Accordingly, you would have difficulty inviting speakers, for example, that plan to address the right of Hamas – an Islamic liberation movement – to resist Israel’s occupation, because both its wings (armed and political) have been proscribed as an international terrorist group in the UK since November 2021. (Lebanon’s Hizbollah is as well).
At this point, organising an event like the one held at Boğaziçi might place you in a quandary – even if you were to dispense with a panel on the right of resistance. The conference clearly raises controversial topics and may conflict with codes on antisemitism because the examples given on the IHRA website include: ‘Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor’. This example could cause difficulties for scholars who want to organise a panel, for example, on systemic racial discrimination in Israel and the West Bank – even though this was addressed at length by the International Court of Justice, the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, in its latest advisory opinion. At this point, you might consider giving up or making it a closed “Chatham House rule” conference, by invitation only. Presumably, in making this assessment, a lot might depend on whether invitations have been sent and money has been spent.
Should you consider pressing ahead with hosting the conference on university premises, and decide to make it open to the public, you may also have to persuade the university that mitigations have been put in place to ensure respect for lawful speech by informing them of the content of university codes, for example, which would include the IHRA definition. Only then may they give you permission to host the conference. But your problems are likely just beginning. First, informing the speakers of the university’s policies would likely provoke a backlash from speakers claiming that it infringes academic freedom. You may find yourself caught in the crossfire – between the university administrators whose role is to “protect the reputation of the institution” and the speakers whose role is to “educate and debate”. Second, as I explain in the next section, you will have to carefully consider how, where, and when to advertise the event.
You’re Being Watched! The Pernicious Influence of Social Media
In states with strong media regulations, you do not have to worry about private interest groups or lobbies harassing you – for they simply do not exist. (You have other factors to consider – namely, the government, but you quickly learn what you can and cannot say and do). While private interest groups/lobbies can have a positive role to play in any democratic society, they can also exert a negative influence, especially if their modus operandi is to stoke fear. This is especially the case with well-funded groups that employ armies of lawyers to send threatening letters to university administrators. While American readers of this blog will be familiar with Campus Watch, in Britain the equivalent is UK Lawyers for Israel.
In the UK, advertising an event like that at Boğaziçi would have to be given careful consideration (presuming it was given approval). How far in advance should you circulate the event? Should you share the full programme? Should you mention it on social media, and if so, which platforms? Have you invited experienced chairs? Is there a balance of viewpoints? Do speakers require registration and ticketing? What about security? If there is a problem, can you delay the event or advertising? What if you’ve already sent the invitations?
These are the sorts of questions most likely going through university administrator’s heads when contemplating how to promote an event like the one held at Boğaziçi. What if a university, school, or research centre is criticised on social media, or worse, in the mainstream media? What if a pro-Israel group gets wind of the event and complains? These issues are likely to give colleagues with particularly sensitive dispositions sleepless nights. Any whiff of controversy is to be avoided at all costs. It would be better not to host these kinds of events at all. And there is the problem.
The irony is that it is in the West that these problems principally arise. University administrators are asking themselves these questions on the supposition that someone will complain (which may, or may not, transpire). The scenario reminds me of Foucault’s “Panopticism” (named after Jeremy Bentham’s panopticon prison design) in Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison (1975). People behave in certain ways because they fear certain consequences for their own reputation or the reputation of an institution. Bentham’s panopticon (as illustrated by Foucault) is not just a physical structure – it is being wired into people’s minds. In other words, you don’t need to lock people up physically anymore and monitor them from a watchtower, you just need to make them think they are being continuously monitored online and they will fall into line. That is what groups like Campus Watch and UK Lawyers for Israel seek to do: to scare university administrators into silence.
If you think this scenario is fantastical, think again. Just under a decade ago, a conference on “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Responsibility and Exceptionalism” scheduled to take place at the University of Southampton’s School of Law was cancelled following a social media campaign. I mention this example because it was widely reported in the press and affected me personally.
The University of Southampton
In the summer of 2014, I recall seeing notice for a conference at the University of Southampton School of Law scheduled for April 2015. The conference was the brainchild of Oren Ben-Dor, an Israeli law professor based at Southampton University and was co-organised with George Bisharat, a Palestinian-American law professor based at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. (Coincidentally, George is also a contributor to this symposium).
The call for papers was considered controversial at the time because it did not limit its analysis of Israeli violations of international law to East Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza, the so-called “occupied territories.” It also included Israel, with a special focus on “the Jewish nature of the state” and how that state “has profoundly affected the economic, constitutional, political and social life of those non-Jewish Arabs who were allowed to stay” following the traumatic events of the 1947-1948 Palestinian Nakba. The call for papers additionally sought those that explored “linked reflections on the relationship between international law and: identity and injustice; violence and morality; nationality and citizenship; self-determination and legitimacy, responsibility and exceptionalism”. It explained that the conference and the book of its proceedings would be dedicated to Henry Cattan (1906-1992), a leading Palestinian international lawyer.
When the call for papers was released, the working definition of antisemitism had yet to be adopted by the IHRA, nor by any British university. UK Lawyers for Israel did not exist. But this made little difference to the firestorm that followed (see here, here, and here). A petition organised by the Zionist Federation UK (ZF) claimed that the conference went “beyond being an academic discussion” because it blamed the “suffering and injustice in Palestine” on “Israel’s creation and continued presence”. The petition garnered 6,400 signatures. Sussex Friends of Israel said they would protest the event. The Board of Deputies of British Jews and Conservative government ministers – including Michael Gove and Eric Pickles – waded into the fray, with Pickles calling it a ‘one-sided diatribe’ and Gove describing it as an ‘anti-Israel hatefest’. The University of Southampton could not withstand the pressure and folded. It withdrew permission to hold the three-day conference allegedly on “security grounds”. Attempts to challenge the decision through judicial review came to naught.
The cancellation of the conference and the furore that followed was quite a spectacle. At the time, I was watching events from afar, as I was working at the National University of Singapore and was scheduled to speak at the conference. Due to the time difference between London and Singapore, I did not find out that the conference had been cancelled until I landed at Heathrow.
Reading the call for papers now, almost ten years later, is a quaint experience. It is difficult to understand what the controversy was all about, especially given all the developments that have since transpired: the annexation of the West Bank, apartheid, and allegations of genocide. In many ways, the conference organisers were visionary, if not prophetic. They recognised that the violence and racism of the consecutive Israeli governments was not ephemeral but part of the foundational features of the State of Israel, a repetitive pattern or policy of a state that was manifestly not established for all its citizens, as Netanyahu proudly told the world on Instagram. It is a state that, as a matter of law, accords more rights to its Jewish citizens than to the indigenous Palestinians who were uprooted to establish it. In the words of the Nation State Law: “The exercise of the right to national self-determination in the State of Israel is exclusive to the Jewish people”. And as the current government’s coalition agreement makes clear, “the Land of Israel” includes “Judea and Samaria” (the West Bank).
The Palestine Exception
It seems to me that the UK never recovered from the Southampton debacle—a situation that has worsened following 7 October 2023 (see here and here). Watching the events in Southampton from a country with strict limits on freedom of expression (including the enforcement of criminal libel laws to limit expression and serious restrictions on internet freedom) was something to behold. To be clear, I am not suggesting that the situation in the UK is comparable to these countries with strict controls on the freedom of expression, except when it comes to organising events on Palestine. It is clear that the IHRA definition, and its examples, have been designed by its authors and promoters to prevent and stifle any discussion of the root causes of the longstanding conflict between Israel and Palestine.
To answer the question, I posed at the start: it is highly doubtful that permission would be given to host an event like the one at Boğaziçi University in a British university unless the event was a closed, “by invitation only” workshop, with detrimental impact on student engagement and public participation. The current situation is lamentable because the ongoing conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and beyond, are important matters of international concern that affect all of us—for what happens in the Middle East rarely stays there (and could have implications for trade, the environment, immigration, security, etc. not to mention human rights). But more to the point, academic freedom is a foundational right in itself and is essential to education and scholarship. To abandon the defence of academic freedom ‘or to tolerate tamperings with any of its foundations’, warned Edward Said in his 1993 BBC Radio Four Reith Lectures, would be to ‘betray the intellectual’s calling’. Scholars and subject experts need to be able to discuss what is happening – freely – without fear, above all in universities, and this may involve addressing “controversial topics” or, quite simply, talking about Palestinian liberation and self-determination.
Photo attribution: “Gaza – Stop the Massacre – Protest in London’s Trafalgar Square” by Alisdare Hickson is licenced under CC BY-SA 2.0
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