John Strawson works in the areas of international law, Middle East studies and Islamic jurisprudence. He has a particular interest in the creation of legal narratives through the colonial experience and the manner in which postcolonial theory offers both insights and limitations in analyzing this process. His current research interests include the politics of international law, the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations and debates about Islamic law in the context of terrorism.

He has held visiting positions at the Institute of Social Studies (The Hague, Netherlands) and Birzeit University (Palestine); and was Visiting Professor of Law at the International Islamic University Malaysia in 2007. He broadcasts on international law, the Middle East and Islamic Legal Issues.

His publications include (as editor) Law after Ground Zero (GlassHouse/Routldege-Cavendish, 2002) and Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (Pluto Press, 2010).

• Director of Law Postgraduate Programmes
• Director, Centre on Human Rights in Conflict
• Member of the Academic Board
• Member of the University’s Research and Knowledge Exchange Committee

• International Law
• Politics of the Middle East
• Palestinian-Israeli conflict
• Islamic Jurisprudence
• Law and postcolonialism
• Colonial legal history.

• LLM International Law
• LLM Islamic and Middle East Studies
• LLM  International Law and Criminal Justice
• LLM International and Financial Markets
• LLM International Law and the World Economy
• LLM Human Rights
• LLM General programme
• Msc Terrorism Studies
• LLM Dissertation Supervision in the areas of International law, Middle East studies, Islamic jurisprudence, International criminal law, law and postcolonialism, colonial legal history.

• Current Issues and Research on International Law
• Law and Policy in the Middle East
• International Criminal Law
• Islam and Human Rights
• Contemporary Islamic Legal Issues

• Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (London and New York: Pluto Press 2010).
• Provoking International Law: War and Regime Change in Iraq, in Sundhya Pahuja, Fleur Johns, and Richard Joyce (eds.) Events - The Force of International Law (Abingdon and New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2011), 246-259.
• Two-States after Gaza: Time to Compel the Parties? Democratiya, Vol. 16 (Spring-Summer 2009) at: http://www.dissentmagazine.org/democratiya/article_pdfs/d16Symposium.pdf
• Britain’s Democratic Vision for Iraq: Strategy or Contingency? International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies Vol. 2, No 3 (2008), 351-374.
• Islam and the Politics of Terrorism: Aspects of the British Experience, in Miriam Gani and Penelope Mathew (eds.) Fresh Perspectives on the War on Terror (Canberra: ANU E Press, 2008), 9-26
• Palestine: the pursuit of justice (interview with Rosemary Bechler) openDemocracy, January 28, 2008
• British (and International) Legal Foundations for the Israeli Wall: International Law and Multi-Colonialism, Palestine Yearbook of International Law, Vol. 13 (2007), 1-26.
• Conjuring Palestine: The Jurisdiction of Dispossession in Shaun McVeigh (ed.) Jurisprudence of Jurisdiction (Abingdon and New York: Routledge-Cavendish, 2007), 84-101
• On the Trail of the Palestinian State, in Jacqueline S Ismael and William W Haddad and Jacqueline Ismael (eds.) Barriers to Reconciliation: Case Studies from Iraq and the Palestine-Israeli Conflict (Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Oxford: University Press of America 2007), 195-227.
• Zionism and Apartheid: the analogy in the politics of international law, Engage Journal No 2, (May 2006)
• Two Peoples, One State? review essay, Virginia Tilley, The One State Solution: A Breakthrough for the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock, Democratiya, Issue, 4, March-May 2006

Recent Conference and Seminar papers:

• Legal Fundamentalism in International Law: Lessons from the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, May 27-31, 2010.
• Is Islamic Law, religious Law? Western Questions and Answers, 13th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, Brown University, Providence, March 19-20, 2010.
• International Law in the News: Goldstone and the Gaza War, 13th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law Culture and the Humanities, Brown University, Providence, Match 19-20, 2010.
• Law and the Colonial Moment: The Existential Decolonization of Palestine, Israeli Law and Society Association International Conference, Tel Aviv University, December 20-12, 2009
• Terrorism Revisited: Islam, Social Exclusion, and the Strange Case of Western Marxist Youth, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Denver, May 28-31, 2009.
• The Importance of Being Legal: how law became Earnest, 12th Annual Conference of the Association for Law, Culture and the Humanities, Suffolk Law School, Boston, April 3-4 2009.
• Britain’s Democratic Vision for Iraq: A War for Human Rights, Centre for Human Rights in Conflict, University of East London, February 25, 2009.
• Rising to the challenge of Universal Human Rights, European Institute for the Mediterranean, Open University of Catalonia, Barcelona, October 30 2008.
• Islam and Violent Extremism, Centre for Human Rights in Conflict, interdisciplinary research seminar on Counter-Terrorism, Human Rights and International Legality, University of East London, June 10, 2008.

Books and Edited Work:

• (ed.) Law after Ground Zero (London, Sydney, Portland Or: GlassHouse Press/Routledge-Cavendish 2002, reprinted with amendments, 2004)
• (ed.) with Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne, “Tracking the Postcolonial in Law”, Griffith Law Review, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2003)

Essays

• The International Community’s legal responses to Apartheid South Africa and the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Avocats sans Frontieres, December 2005
• Revisiting Islamic Law: Marginal Notes from Colonial History, Griffith Law Review Vol. 12, No.2 (2003), 362-383.
• (with Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne) Tracks and Traces of the Law, Griffith Law Review, Vol.12, No.2 (2003), 157-165.
• Holy War: in the Media: Images of Jihad, in Steven Chermak, Frankie Y. Bailey and Michelle Brown (eds.) Media Representations of September 11 (Westport CT. and London:: Praeger, 2003),  17-28.
• Islamic Law and the English Press in John Strawson (ed.) Law after Ground Zero (London, Sydney, Portland Or: GlassHouse Press/Routledge-Cavendish, 2002), 205-214.
• (with Kim van der Borght) Cuba and the Axis of Evil: An Old Outlaw in the New Order in John Strawson (ed.) Law after Ground Zero (London, Sydney, Portland Or: GlassHouse Press/Routledge-Cavendish, 2002), 59-70.
• In the Name of the Law, in John Strawson (ed.) Law after Ground Zero (London, Sydney, and Portland Or: GlassHouse Press/Routledge-Cavendish, 2002), xi-xxii.
• Reflections on Edward Said and the Legal Narratives of Palestine: Israeli Settlements and Palestinian Self-Determination, Penn State International Law Review, Vol. 20, No 2 (2002), 363-384.
• “Mandate Ways: Self-Determination in Palestine and the ‘Existing Non-Jewish Communities,’” in Sanford R. Silverburg (Ed.) Palestine and International Law: Essays on Politics and Economics (Jefferson N.C and London: McFarland, 2002), 251-270.
• “Orientalism and Legal Education in the Middle East: Reading Frederic Goadby’s Introduction to the Study of Law,” Legal Studies Vol. 21 No. 4 (2001), 664-678.
•  “Britain’s Shadows: Post-colonialism and Palestine” in Tareq Y. Ismael (Ed.) The International Relations of the Middle East in the 21st Century (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2000), 203-225.
• “Islamic Law and English Texts” in Eve Darian-Smith and Peter Fitzpatrick (Eds.), Laws of the Postcolonial (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1999), 109-126.
• “Legal Story Telling After Diana and Dodi: The Disappeared of the Postcolonial” in Mehmet Tahiroglu, Tareq Y. Ismael and Jacqueline S. Ismael (Eds.) Globalization in World Affairs: Socio-Economic and Political Dimensions (Gazimagusa: Eastern Mediterranean University Press, 1999), 311-328.
• “Palestine’s Basic Law: Constituting New Identities Through Liberating Legal Culture,” Loyola of Los Angeles International and Comparative Law Journal, Vol. 20, No.3 (1998), 411-432.
• “Netanyahu’s Oslo: Peace in the Slow Lane,” Soundings, Issue 8 (1998) 49-60.
• “A Western Question to the Middle East: Is There a Human Rights Discourse in Islam?”” Arab Studies Quarterly, Vol. 19, No. 1 (1997), 31-58.
• “Encountering Islamic Law,” School of Law Research Publications: University of East London, New Series No. 1 (1996) [41 pages] simultaneously published electronically by UEL, and subsequently by the International Islamic University Malaysia
• “Islamic Law and English Texts,” Law and Critique Vol. V, No. 1 (1995), 21-38.
• The Kuwait Crisis: Self-Determination, Self-Defence and the New Global Order, University of East London: School of Law Research Papers, No 4 (1992), 1-17.
• Book Reviews and Shorter Articles
• Book Review: Gina Clayton, Textbook on Immigration and Asylum Law, Times Higher Educational Supplement,  February 10 2006.
• Book Review: C.G. Weeramantry, Universalising International Law, Melbourne Journal of International Law, Vol.5, No. 2 (2004), 513-518.
• Book Review: Robert Winder, Bloody Foreigners: The Story of Immigration to Britain, Times Higher Education Supplement, December 24/31, 2004.
• Book Review: Sami Zubaida, Law and Power in the Islamic World, Modern Law Review, Vol. 67, N0.5 (2004), 879-881.
• Book Review: Dallal Stevens, UK Asylum Law and Policy: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, Times Higher Education Supplement, May 28 2004.
• The Israeli Wall, Palestine and the International Court of Justice, Student Law Review, Vol. 42 (2004), 48-50.
• Guantananamo Bay Prisoners: The Third Geneva Convention and the “War on Terror.” Student Law Review. Vol. 41 (2004), 44-45.
• Book Review: Frederic M. Goadby and Moses Doukhan, The Land Law of Palestine, Palestine Yearbook of International Law Vol.11 (2003), 399-401.
• Occupying Iraq – Regime Change and International Law, Student Law Review, Vol. 40 (2003), 44-45.
• Book Review: Javaid Rehman, International Human Rights: A Practical Approach; Rhona K. Smith, Textbook on International Human Rights, Times Higher Educational Supplement, May 30 2003.
• For a World at War – An International Criminal Court, Student Law Review, Vol. 39 (2003), 44-45.
• In the Name of the Law? Socialist Lawyer, Vol. 35 (Spring 2003), 14-15.
• The United Nations and the use of force: unilateralism and the international rule of law, Student Law Review, Vol. 38 (2003), 50-51.
• Book Review: Basia Spalek (ed.) Islam, Crime and Criminal Justice, British Society of Criminology Newsletter, No. 48, March 2003, 17.
• Iraq: A Threat to International Peace and Security? Student Law Review, Vol. 37 (2002) 49-50.
• The Middle East Crisis: International law and the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Student Law Review, Vol. 36 (2002), 50-52.
• Terrorism: Has Law Had a Good War? Student Law Review, Vol. 35 (2002), 50-51.
• Book Review: Lawrence Rosen, The Justice of Islam, Journal of Law and Society Vol.28, No.4 (2001), 628-632.
• International Law at Ground Zero, Student Law Review, Vol. 34 (2001), 52.
• Book Review: Keith Ansell Pearson, Benita Parry and Judith Squires, Cultural Readings of Imperialism: Edward Said and the Gravity of History, Socialist History Journal, Issue 14 (1999), 68-70.
• Book Review: Paul J.I. M. de Waart, Dynamics of Self-Determination in Palestine, Islamic Law and Society Vol. 2, No 3 (1995), 362-363.

Opinion Pieces:

• Can Blair Prise Open his Window of Opportunity in the Middle East? Yorkshire Post, July 24, 2007
• The World Can Turn Gaza Crisis into and Opportunity, Yorkshire Post, June 20, 2007.
• Kidnapping Casts Shadow over Peace in Palestine, Yorkshire Post, April 18, 2007
• Call Time on ‘Iraqi Adventure,’ East London Enquirer, November 16, 2006
• Why I am Against the Boycott of Israeli Universities, Engage, May 2005

Memberships of Professional and Scholarly Organizations:

• Fellow, Higher Education Academy
• Member, Society of Legal Scholars
• Member, American Society of International Law
• Member, European Society of International law
• member, Law and Society Association
• Member, MIddle East Studies Association
• Member, British Society of Middle East Studies
• Member, International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies

Research grants held:

•  British Council, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, British Academy

Conference and Seminar Papers:

• Narrating Palestine: Law on the Border, Joint Meeting of the Law and Society Association and the Canadian Law and Society Association, Montreal, May 29-June 1 2008.
• Britain’s Democratic Vision of Iraq: Strategic Interest or Contingency? State University of California at Fullerton, May 1-2 2008.
• More Law, Less Space: Disappearing Palestine, 11th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, University of California and Berkeley  and San Francisco State University, San Francisco, March 28-29, 2008.
• International Law and the Palestinians, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, August 29 2007.
• Islam, Orientalism and the Human Rights Debate, International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, August 24 2007.
• Socio-Legal Studies in Times of Colonial Legal Occupation: Law and Society in Palestine, Law and Society Association and Research Committee on the Sociology of Law (ISA), Humboldt-Universitat Zu Berlin, Berlin, July 25-28 2007.
• Occupation and the Footprints of International Law,  Forty Years after 1967: Reappraising the Role and Limits of the Legal Discourse on Occupation in the Israeli-Palestinian Context, Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv University, June 5-7 2007.
• Images of the Muslim terrorist 5 years after September 11 The New Orientalism, 10th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, Georgetown University, March 23-24, 2007.
• The Case for Palestine: Overcoming Occupation, National Critical Lawyers Conference, University of Kent, Canterbury, February 24, 2007.
• The Postcolonial Decolonization of Palestine: State-Building as National Liberation Movement, International Conference, Law and Economic Development: Towards Constructive Engagement in the Middle East, Faculty of Law and Criminology, Vrije Universiteit Brussel, February 22-23 2007.
• Global Nation Building in the Middle East: Israel and Palestine as creations of International Law, Birkbeck School of Law – Thematics: A Workshop Series supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, January 12 2007.
• Islam and Human Rights as Islam or Human Rights, International Security and Global Issues research group, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, London, November 23 2006.
• Between religion and Politics: Muslim identity and the emergence of Culture Islam, Workshop on Religion, Secularism
• and Identity, Birkbeck College, University of London, July 11 2006
• The Basic Law and Palestinian-State building, Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, Baltimore, July 6-9 2006
• Legal Transplants in the Colonial Era: British Projects and Ottoman Initiatives in the Middle East, World Congress of Middle East Studies, Amman, June 11-16 2006.
• The Israeli Wall and Colonial Annexation: legitimizing the Acquisition of territory by force, Birkbeck International Law Workshop, London, May 15-17 2006.
• Global legal responses to Terrorism, European Law Students Association, University of Central England, Birmingham, May 5 2006.
• The Anti-Terrorist Jihad: Muslims and Islam in the War on Terror, Expert Workshop “Ensuring accountability – Terrorist challenges and State responses in a free society, Australian National University/University of New South Wales, Canberra, April 20-21 2006.
• Illegality as Tragedy: Staging the Gaza Disengagement, Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities, 9th Annual Conference, University of Syracuse, New York, March 17-18, 2006.
• From Disengagement to Self-Determination: International Law and the Making of Palestine, Sussex Law School, University of Sussex, March 8 2006. 
• The International legal community’s legal response to Apartheid and the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Avocats Sans Frontieres, Beit Hanina, December 16 2005.
• Race after Racism: South African approaches to Judicial Education, International Judicial Education Conference, co- organized by the Palestinian National Authority and Birzeit University, Jericho, December 15, 2005.
• Jihad against the Jihadis: Islamic Jurisprudence in an Age of Terror, Public Lecture, University of Kent, November 30 2005.
• Captive Self-Determination: The case of Palestine, Department of History, University College London, November 4 2005.
• Narratives of race and nation in anti-terrorist legislation, University of New South Wales-University College London joint roundtable on Law and Terrorism, University College London, September 26, 2005.
• Late Colonial, Late Orientalism: continuing the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Faculty for Israeli-Palestinian Peace, School of African and Oriental Studies, London, September 2005.
• The research agenda for Human Rights and Civil Society in Iraq, Founding Conference of the International Association of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, University of East London, September  1-2, 2005.
• The Legal Lexicon of Colonial Dispossession: Contesting Palestine, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Amman Office, June 10-13, 2005.
• International Law and the Israeli unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, Birzeit Legal Encounters, Birzeit University, April 13 2005.
• Imagining the Nation: The Jewish National Home in Selected Legal and Political Literature 1917-19137, Association of Law, Culture and the Humanities, 8th annual meeting, University of Texas, Austin,  March 11-12, 2005.
• Reconstructing Palestine: Reforming Palestinian Institutions in the context of the roadmap to peace, Conference on Reconstruction and Development in War-Torn Muslim Counties, Carlton University, Ottawa, December 2004.
• On Critical Beings, Birkbeck Law School, London, November 2004.
• British Colonialism and Islamic Law in the Perspectives of September 11, Islamic College of Advanced Studies, London, October 2004.
• Popular International Law: The Iraq War, the Media and the Public Debate, Critical Legal Conference, University of
• Westminster, London, September 2004.
• Colonizing the Self: Jews and Jewish Colonial Administrators in British Mandate Palestine in Jonathan Wilson’s “A Palestinian Affair,”12th International Conference of the Law and Literature of Australia, Griffith University, Queensland University of Technology and University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, July 9-11, 2004.
• The Shock of the new: Regime change since 1945, Imperialism and International Law Workshop of the Foundation for New Research in International Law, Birkbeck College, London, May 2004.
• Self-Determination behind Walls: Palestine’s Vanishing Territory, International Center for the Contemporary Middle East Studies, Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus, April 2004.
• International Law as Ideology, National Critical Lawyers Conference, University of Kent, Canterbury, February, 2004.
• British (and International) Legal Foundations for the Israeli Wall: International Law and Multi-colonialism, Legal Aspects of Segregation Conference, Institute of Law, Birzeit University, December 2003.
• From Samuels to Sharon: English Law and the Israeli Fence, University of Westminster, November 2003.
• What is the Postcolonial? Israelis and Palestinians returning to the Community of the Past, Critical Legal Conference, Rand Afrikaans University, Johannesburg, September 2003.
• Palestine and Self-Determination in late colonialism: the problem of law’s occupation, Polis Human Rights Conference, London Metropolitan University, July, 2003.
• History is still alive in the new Middle East: Late colonial rule in Palestine and Iraq, The New International Law workshop jointly organized by the Foundation for New Research in International Law and the Birkbeck Law School, University of London, June 2003.
• Law and Liberation in Late Colonial Palestine, International Center for Contemporary Middle East Studies, Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus, April 2003.
• Beyond Occupation: Perspectives for Islam in the reconstruction of international legal culture, 41st International Affairs Symposium. Lewis & Clark College, Portland, Oregon, April 2003.
• Speaking of the Enemy: the Bush Administration’s Legal discourses on Iraq, 6th annual meeting of the Association of Law, Culture and the Humanities, Cardozo Law School, New York, March 2003.
• Pinochet and the English Courts: The intersection of International law and imperial crime, Institute of Law, Birzeit University, at the Center for  Strategic Studies, University of Jordan, Amman, December 2002.
• The Colonial Authorship of Islamic Law: Mujtahids and Orientalists, Law and Literature Association of Australia, University of Melbourne, December 2002.
• At Law’s End: The Bush Administrations Discourses on Saddam Hussein, Critical Legal Conference, London Metropolitan University, September 2002.
• Islamic Jurisprudence and Civil Society: The Colonial State’s Entrapment of Islamic Law, Postcolonial Legal Studies Workshop, Manning Park, British Columbia, June 2002.
• Islamic Law and the English Press: Representations since September 11th, Law and Society Association and Canadian Law and Society Association Joint Meeting, Vancouver, May 2002.
• International Relations after September 11, International Relations Forum, University of North London, June 2002.
• Representing Islamic Law: English Images since September 11th. International Center for Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies, Eastern Mediterranean University, Cyprus, April 26-28, 2002.
• The Colonial Moment and the Politics of the Postcolonial, Instances of Critique Seminar, Birkbeck School of Law,  London, February 2002.
• Edward Said and the Legal Narratives of Palestine, Birkbeck school of Law Seminar Series, January, London 2002.
• From Ground Zero to the Palestinian State, Polis research group, University of North London, November 2001
• Islamic Law and September 11: the complexities of legal cultures, St John’s College, Oxford, November 2001.
• Palestine and Self-Determination: Narrating the Law, International Law research seminars, University of Hull, May 2001
• Reflections on Edward Said and the Legal Narratives of Palestine, 4th annual meeting of the Law, Culture and the Humanities Association, University of Texas at Austin, USA, March 2001.
• Colonialism and Islamic Law, Muslim College, London, November 2000.
• Modernity’s Theft: Islamic Law, Reason and the Jurisprudential Debates of the Contemporary Middle East, International Association of Middle Eastern Studies, Free University of Berlin, Germany, October 2000.
• Encountering Legal Cultures, International Institute for the Sociology of Law, Onati, Spain, September 2000.
• Frederic Goadby and the English Legal Narratives of Egypt and Palestine: A Colonial Bequest, Middle East Studies Association, Washington D.C. USA, November 1999.
• Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: Tracking Narratives of Past/Present (in)Justice in Nadine Gordimer, Critical Legal Conference, Birkbeck College, London, September 1999.
• The Legal Status of the Palestinian Authority, Faculty of Law, University of Gent, April 1999.
• Human Rights and Legal Culture in the Middle East: Implementing International Human Rights Law, Institute of Sociology of Law, Lund University, Sweden, March 1999.
• Between Oslo and the People: Palestine’s Basic Law, National Critical Lawyers Groups Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, March 1999.
• Legal Story Telling After Diana and Dodi: The Disappeared of the Postcolonial, International Center of the Contemporary Middle Eastern Studies, Eastern Mediterranean University,  Cyprus, November 1998.
• Why Do I Teach Law in Palestine? Antinomies of the Postcolonial, International Institute of the Sociology of Law, Onati, Spain. September 1998.
• Netanyahu’s Oslo, Meretz International Seminar, Gaza, Palestine, August 1998.
• Legal Education with and without Law, London Legal Theory and Research Seminars, London School of Economics, March 1998.
• Palestine’s Basic Law: Constituting New Identities through Liberating Legal Culture, Middle East Studies Association, San Francisco, USA, November 1997.
• Legal Culture in Orientalist Discourse, Critical Legal Conference, University of East London, September 1996.
• Law as Postcolonial Culture, Damoude Group, Bergen aan Zee, Netherlands, June 1996.
• Postcolonial Land Law Narratives in Palestine, International Association of Middle Eastern Studies, Al al-Bayt University, Mafraq, Jordan April, 1996.
• Reflections on the Question: “Is there a Human Rights Discourse in Islam?” Critical Legal Conference, University of Edinburgh, September 1995.
• Colonizing Islamic Law, Socio-Legal Association Annual Meeting, University of Leeds, April 1995.
• Western Texts, Islamic Law and Orientalism, Law and Postcolonialism research group, University of Kent, Canterbury, April, 1994.
• Islam and Europe: A New Legal Encounter? Critical Legal Conference, New College, Oxford, September 1993.
• The Kuwait Crisis and the United Nations, Taking Liberties Conference, Manchester, 1992.

Comments on Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict

In his highly original contribution to the Israel-Palestine problematic, John Strawson focuses on the three key legal texts of 1922, 1947 and 1993-99. He writes in the spirit of Edward Said, who emphasized the power of discursive images in texts. According to Strawson’s critique, the international law of these texts has been turned into a magical substance to ensure that good triumphs over evil, as if in the world of Harry Potter. Strawson therefore wishes to break the spell of the past, in which each party has constantly refreshed its confidence in the legal justice of its case. He intends to irritate many Palestinians and Israelis, and their supporters. This fascinating and erudite analysis will without doubt succeed.

(Professor Bill Bowring, Birkbeck, University of London)

From reviews of Law after Ground Zero

Law after Ground Zero is offered as offered as a contribution to this necessary debate about the relationship between law and human rights in an insecure global society. The new period has presented us with opportunities to review and reflect on legal culture, especially international law,constitutional law and human rights.Significntly, this also extends to Islamic law - and I would suggest, by implication to other non-Western stystems as well.

Law after Ground Zero also offers an alternative picture of the 'clash of civilizations' so pressed on us in the aftermath of September 11. The complexities of international society, including multinational states, mass mirgration, regional and international groupings means thart that 20th century stereoptypes no longer work well. The discussions in this collection of Islamic law and traditional legal institutions in Afghanistan underline the implications they have for law. The aftermath of September 11 seems to have created a new space in which to think about legal theory and practice. Law after Ground Zero places critical issues on the agenda.
James L Patton, Chinese Yearbook of International Law and Affairs, Vol. 20 (2002).

this is a book that will provide a useful contribution to the literature of September 11. The best chapters raise stimulatiing issues that all those with an interest in international law post September 11 need to conisder.
Kanishka Jayasuriya, European Journal of International Law, Vol. 15, No. 3 (2004)