1st Edition

Backstage Practices of Transnational Law

Edited By Lianne J.M. Boer, Sofia Stolk Copyright 2019
    196 Pages
    by Routledge

    196 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book explores the ‘backstage’ of transnational legal practice by illuminating the routines and habits that are crucial to the field, yet rarely studied. Through innovative discussion of practices often considered trivial, the book encourages readers to conceptualise the ‘backstage’ as emblematic of transnational legal practice. Expanding the focus of transnational legal scholarship, the book explores the seemingly mundane procedures which are often taken for granted, despite being widely recognized as part of what it means to ‘do transnational law’. Adopting various methodologies and approaches, each chapter focuses on one specific practice: for example, mooting exercises for law students, international travel, transnational time, the social media activities of lawyers and legal scholars, and the networking at the ICC’s annual Assembly of States Parties. In and of themselves, these chapters each provide unique insights into what happens before the curtain rises and after it falls on the familiar ‘outputs’ of transnational law. It does more, however, than provide a range of different practices: it takes the next step in theorizing on the importance of the marginal and the everyday for what we ‘know’ to be ‘the law’ and what the international legal field looks like. Furthermore, by interrogating undiscussed academic practices, it provides students with a candid view on the perils and promises of transnational legal scholarship, inviting them to join the discussion and to practice their discipline in a more reflexive way.

    Written in an accessible format, containing a readable collection of personal and recognizable accounts of transnational legal practice, the book provides an everyday insight into transnational law. It will therefore appeal to international legal scholars, alongside any reader with an interest in transnational law.

    List of contributors

    List of figures

    1 Backstage practices of transnational law

    LIANNE J.M. BOER AND SOFIA STOLK ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿

    2 Handshakes and hashtags in the ICC

    JILLIAN DOBSON ¿ ¿

    3 The pace of law (in a transnational time)

    GEOFF GORDON ¿ ¿

    4 Let us save our good project: looking at an international law gathering to workshop chapters for a volume

    JOHN D. HASKELL ¿ ¿

    5 ‘All the world’s a stage’: constituting international justice at the ICC’s Assembly of States Parties meeting

    MARIEKE DE HOON AND KJERSTI LOHNE ¿ ¿

    6 Academic travel and exclusion in the backstage of transnational legal practice

    JESSICA C. LAWRENCE ¿ ¿

    7 Blind justice and the portraits on the wall

    SARAH-JANE KOULEN ¿ ¿

    8 Logistics of participation in international law

    AMIN PARSA

    9 Insta-scholarship: the self-branding practices of the ‘digital humanitarian’

    CHRISTINE SCHWÖBEL-PATEL ¿ ¿

    10 A walk along the Rue de la Loi: EU façades as front- and backstage of transnational legal practice

    RENSKE VOS ¿ ¿

    11 Moot courts, theatre and rehearsal practices

    WOUTER WERNER ¿ ¿

    12 Epilogue: critical intimacy and the performance of international law

    ANNE ORFORD ¿ ¿ ¿ ¿

    Index

     

    The symbols listed here suggest different routes you may take through this book. In the Introduction, we provide an account of what these routes signify.

    ¿ Route 1 – The guided tour

    ¿ Route 2 – The rehearsal space

    ¿ Route 3 – A day in the life of a legal academic

    ¿ Route 4 – A drink in the foyer

    Biography

    Lianne J.M. Boer is Assistant Professor of Transnational Legal Studies at the Faculty of Law, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law.

    Sofia Stolk is a postdoctoral researcher at the T.M.C. Asser Institute/University of Amsterdam and a Research Fellow at the Centre for the Politics of Transnational Law.