Lands for the Taking

This trend, also visible in Russia’s annexation of Crimea and Israel’s settlement policies, reveals a shift from legally disguised expansionism to overt land grabs, while violating different forms of sovereignty: including state sovereignty, Indigenous sovereignty, and food sovereignty. This pattern raises urgent questions about the possibility and limits of international law and human rights to shield against these various forms of land dispossession.  

This workshop will address how legal, economic, and geopolitical forces intersect in various processes of land dispossession:we will be attentive to the configurations between state and corporate powers, while also  looking at forms of resistance. The goal is to identify how law can be used–– and how we will have to  reimagine it to protect the right of peoples to self-determination, communal rights, and public goods in the face of expanding structural violence.