How has international law been strategically deployed to shape the Palestinian struggle for freedom across a century-long arc, from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza. Join host Sahar Aziz in conversation with Noura Erakat about the promise and risk of international law in the pursuit of Palestinian freedom and the broader relationship between law and liberation.

Our discussion examines the concept of "legal work"—the deliberate efforts by powerful actors to bend legal doctrine to their objectives—and how this has transformed international law to advance certain interests over others. We delve into the "sovereign exception" framework that has enabled the creation of exceptional legal categories excluding Palestinians from otherwise applicable protections, from the British Mandate period through Israeli occupation and colonization. Legal strategies have been used to consolidate territorial control, facilitate dispossession, and legitimize military tactics that compromise civilian protections globally, while also exploring moments when weaker actors have leveraged law's emancipatory potential through strategic and tactical ingenuity.

Professor Noura Erakat’s groundbreaking work demonstrates that the law's current outcomes were never inevitable—that law is politics, and its meaning depends on political intervention by states and people alike. Through original interviews with principals from Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and comprehensive historical analysis, she reveals how Palestinian leaders gained significant legal victories at the UN before eventually exchanging hard-won international recognition for a bilateral peace process that accelerated their dispossession. Her work shows both the profound limitations of international law when serving the powerful and its counterintuitive utility when mobilized in support of political movements seeking liberation.

Biography

Noura Erakat is Professor of Africana Studies and Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She is the author of Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019), which received the Palestine Book Award and the Bronze Medal for the Independent Publishers Book Award in Current Events/Foreign Affairs. She is a legal scholar with research interests in humanitarian law, human rights law, critical race theory, national security law, and Palestinian Studies. She has published over two dozen academic articles and book chapters, including in the American Journal of International Law, American Quarterly, and the Oxford Bibliographies in International Law.

Recommended Reading

Noura Erakat, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford 2019)

Rashid Khalidi, The One Hundred Years’ War on Palestine (MacMillan 2020)

#Israel #Palestine #Gaza #Genocide #ICC #HumanRights #InternationalLaw

Support the show

Support the Center for Security, Race and Rights by following us and making a donation:

Donate: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html

Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rucsrr

Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr

Follow us on Threads: https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr

Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/rucsrr

Follow us on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/rucsrr

In this episode, Professor Vernellia Randall presents a groundbreaking analysis of how centuries of systemic racism have created and perpetuated devastating health disparities within African American communities. Drawing from extensive research, she traces the direct lineage from the "slave health deficit" established during slavery through Jim Crow segregation to today's persistent health inequalities, revealing how African Americans continue to experience disproportionately higher rates of disease, infant mortality, and premature death. Her work demonstrates that these disparities are not coincidental but represent the ongoing legacy of institutionalized racism that has never been adequately addressed through legal or policy interventions.

Professor Randall's work extends beyond documenting health disparities to exploring the systemic barriers within healthcare delivery itself, including discriminatory access to hospitals, nursing homes, and quality medical care. She argues that current health disparities represent an unrepaired historical injustice that requires more than incremental reform—instead calling for a comprehensive reparations framework that addresses both the root causes and continuing manifestations of racial health inequality. Her proposed solution involves equitable rather than merely compensatory reparations, including transformative healthcare civil rights legislation designed to repair, not just acknowledge, centuries of harm to Black health and wellbeing.

Biography

Vernellia Randall is Professor Emerita of Law at the University of Dayton School of Law. She is the founder and editor of Race, Racism and the Law. Professor Randall is a recipient of the Chairman’s Award from the Ohio Commission on Minority Health and has been honored by a Commendation from the Ohio House of Representatives. Randall is an accomplished webmaster and has received awards for her website development. Some of her sites include: “Race, Health Care and the Law” and “Gender and the Law”.

Recommended Readings

Vernellia Randall, Dying While Black (2006).

#Racism #Segregation #Black #Health #Inequality

Support the show

Support the Center for Security, Race and Rights by following us and making a donation:

Donate: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html

Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rucsrr

Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr

Follow us on Threads: https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr

Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/rucsrr

Follow us on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/rucsrr

The complex history of slavery within Islamic legal traditions spans from pre-Islamic times through the nineteenth century, revealing how religious law intersected with economic and social systems that perpetuated human bondage across centuries and cultures. This comprehensive examination of Islamic jurisprudence demonstrates how Western abolitionist efforts, while well-intentioned, ultimately failed to address the theological and legal foundations that allowed slavery to persist within Muslim societies, rendering the notion of abolition nothing more than a cruel illusion.

Join host Sahar Aziz and Professor Bernard Freamon as they explore the groundbreaking legal history detailed in his book "Possessed by the Right Hand: The Problem of Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures." The contemporary revival of slavery by extremist groups like ISIS and Boko Haram represents a disturbing exploitation of these historical legal precedents, highlighting how ancient justifications for human trafficking and enslavement continue to find expression in modern conflicts. This legal and historical analysis reveals the urgent necessity for Islamic scholars and communities to confront their own juridical traditions and achieve true abolition through internal reform rather than external pressure.

Biography:

Professor Freamon is Professor of Law Emeritus at Seton Hall Law School and Professor of Law at Roger Williams University School of Law. Professor Freamon has taught Islamic Jurisprudence at New York University School of Law and brings his unique perspective as an African-American Muslim scholar to examine slavery's persistence within Islamic legal frameworks.

Professor Bernard Freamon founded Seton Hall's Center for Social Justice, litigating civil rights cases before the Supreme Court, and representing underrepresented persons in constitutional law matters involving religious minorities, prisoners, and criminal defendants. Through his innovative teaching approach, including courses on slavery and human trafficking based in Zanzibar, Tanzania, and his recent election as co-chairperson of the Bristol Middle Passage Port Marker Project, Professor Freamon demonstrates how historical scholarship intersects with contemporary justice advocacy to address both past wrongs and present-day human trafficking challenges.

Recommended Reading:

Bernard Freamon, Possessed by the Right Hand: The Problem of Slavery in Islamic Law and Muslim Cultures (Brill 2019)

#Islam #IslamicLaw #Slavery #Abolition #MiddleEast #SouthAsia

Support the show

Support the Center for Security, Race and Rights by following us and making a donation:

Donate: https://give.rutgersfoundation.org/csrr-support/20046.html

Subscribe to our Youtube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEbUfYcWGZapBNYvCObiCpp3qtxgH_jFy

Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/rucsrr

Follow us on Instagram: https://instagram.com/rutgerscsrr

Follow us on Threads: https://threads.com/rutgerscsrr

Follow us on Facebook: https://facebook.com/rucsrr

Follow us on TikTok: https://tiktok.com/rucsrr