In this CRIPT-sponsored roundtable, we will discuss the recently published The Humanity of Universal Crime by Sinja Graf. After initial comments by the author, Christine Schwobel-Patel, Luigi Corrias and Michael Struett will offer their reflections on the book. Q&A will follow.
From the book’s description: “The international crime of ‘crimes against humanity’ has become integral to contemporary political and legal discourse. However, the conceptual core of the term--an act against all of mankind--has a longer and deeper history in international political thought. In an original excavation of this history, The Humanity of Universal Crime examines theoretical mobilisations of the idea of universal crime in colonial and post-colonial contexts. Sinja Graf demonstrates the overlooked centrality of humanity and criminality to political liberalism's historical engagement with world politics, thereby breaking with the exhaustively studied status of individual rights in liberal thought. Graf argues that invocations of universal crime project humanity as a normatively integrated, yet minimally inclusive and hierarchically structured subject. Such visions of humanity have in turn underwritten justifications of foreign rule and outsider intervention based on claims to an injury universally suffered by all mankind.”
This event is free of charge to non-BISA members thanks to the generous sponsorship of the British International Studies Association.
Registration will close two hours before the event begins.