For two days, on the 3rd and 4th of March of 2019, the first Joint Workshop of BirZeit University and of the School of Economics and of Political Science of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki will be held conducted in Ramallah.
The title of the workshop is “Statehood ramifications on Palestine and the Palestinians- Legal, Political and Economic Implications”. Its goals are to address the challenges posed to the Palestinian rights by the concept and practice of statehood in International law and the role of the law in political struggle. It aims to look beyond the traditional consequences of statehood in international law and will attempt to critically examine if and how statehood perceived as an end goal is undermining Palestinian rights. Operating within a colonial context, Palestine has a history in its efforts to achieve statehood, “the state” oscillates from being a means goal to an end goal; hence, creating a situation of utilizing international law without any critical examination of such law. The workshop aims to examine such utilization of law. The workshop also aims to shed light on Israeli Statehood and its colonial formation, and its current legal practices to root itself as a Jewish nation state. The workshop will therefore attempt to analyze different aspects of statehood, as it is constructed in general, and particularly in this specific region, as well as under the imprint of the Israeli colonialism and Palestinian resistance.
The workshop will try to examine how different conceptions of statehood can contribute to understanding the dynamics of the occupation and the ongoing conflict, as well as in addition, the reverse relation of how the conflict and the occupation alter the components and the conceptions of statehood. Such imprint is captured and described under the term of statehood ramification. In order to achieve a more holistic comprehension of these ramifications, an inter-disciplinary approach is utilized, combining the areas of law, history, economics and political science.
Within this framework, papers are invited to tackle the set of issues and perspectives which emerge in relation to statehood in the framework of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the occupation, including:
- Statehood within the colonial structure and international law;
- The statehood of Palestine and its implications in law and politics, both in the region and beyond;
- The economic and legal consequences of the occupation on Palestinian state formation;
- The responsibility of States (including third States) international organizations, corporations and/or individuals in international law;
- The relevance of the Oslo Accords under international law;
- Israeli Statehood: apartheid and colonialism in international law;
- Statehood and Self-determination of peoples in international law;
- Palestine’s accessions to international treaties;
- The BDS movement and international legal responsibility for economic interactions with occupying powers;
- The impact of the colonial structure of the Israeli state on its legal framework; the utilizing of law to affirm the Israeli colonial structure;
- Palestinian statehood and the politics of human rights;
- The duality of the Palestinian Liberation Organization and the Palestinian State within international law.
Prospective contributors should express interest by e-mailing themis.tzimas@gmail.com and hshoaibi@birzeit.edu, and sending an abstract of the suggested paper of no more than 500 words by January 17th, 2019 along with the CV.
Accepted abstracts will be informed by January 22nd, 2019.
On behalf of the organizing committee,