John Strawson

Professor John Strawson

Emeritus Professor

Department of Law, Justice and Policing

School of Business and Law , Royal Docks School of Business and Law

Areas Of Interest

  • International law
  • Middle East studies
  • Palestinian-Israeli conflict
  • Islamic legal studies
  • Human rights
  • Conflict resolution
John Strawson

OVERVIEW

John Strawson works in the areas of international law and Middle East studies with special reference to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Islamism and conflict resolution. He is a member of the Centre of Justice, Law and Society at the University of East London and is a Research Fellow at the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism. He has held visiting positions at the Institute of Social Studies (The Hague, Netherlands) and has been a visiting professor at the Institute of Law, Birzeit University (Palestine) and at the International Islamic University Malaysia (Kuala Lumpur). His publications include Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (2010), editor of Law after Ground Zero (2002) and Co-Editor of Injustice, Memory and Faith in Human Rights (2018). His currently writing and commenting on Middle East politics.

Research and impact

John Strawson discussing Human Rights at the Pinsker Center.

John Strawson debating the legality of any Israeli attempt to annex Palestinian Occupied Territory.

Publications

Book Reviews and Shorter Articles

Books

  • (eds) Injustice and Memory and Faith in Human Rights with Kalilopi Chainoglou, Barry Collins and Michael Phillips (London and New York: Routledge, 2018). ISBN 9781472462329. Paperback edition 2019, ISBN 9780367267049.
  • (ed.) with Barry Collins, Iraq and Human Rights, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011). ISSN17512867
  • Partitioning Palestine: Legal Fundamentalism in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict (London and New York: Pluto Press, 2010). Paperback: ISBN 978 0 7453 2323 7; hardback: ISBN 978 0 7453 2324 4.
  • (ed.) with Roshan de Silva Wijeyeratne, Tracking the Postcolonial in Law, Griffith Law Review, Vol. 12, No. 3 (2003) ISSN 1038-3441.
  • (ed.) Law after Ground Zero (London, Sydney, Portland: GlassHouse Press, 2002, reprinted with amendments, 2004) ISBN 978 1 904 385 028; Hardback issue, Law after Ground Zero (London and New York: Routledge, 2016), ISBN 798-1-138-16013-2

Most recent research

Essays

  • Communists for the Jewish State: British Communists and the Daily Worker in 1948, Fathom. Issue 24 (September 2020)
  • A Radical Law School? in Michael Rustin and Gavin Poynter (eds.) Building a Radical University: The History of the University of East London (London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2020), 243-265.
  • Colonialism, Israel Studies, Vol. 24, No. 2 (2019), 33-44.
  • Islamic Memory and the ISIS ‘Caliphate,’ in (eds.) Kalliopi Chainoglou, Barry Collins, Michael Phillips, John Strawson (eds.) Injustice and Memory: Faith in Human Rights (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), 28-42.
  • (with Kalliopi Chainoglou, Barry Collins and Michael Phillips), Introduction, in Kalliopi Chainoglou. Barry Collins, Michael Phillips (eds.), Injustice, Memory and Faith in Human Rights (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), 1-8.
  • (with Mertkan Hamit) Vasrosha: A Memorial to Conflict, by Kallipoi Chainoglou and Barry Collins. Michael Phillips and John Strawson (eds.), Injustice, Memory and Faith in Human Rights (London and New York: Routledge, 2018), 209-214.
  • One-State is a Trap for Two Peoples in Palestine and Israel, Fathom, Vol. 12 (2016)  (reprinted in Solidarity, No. 521 (October 16, 2019).
  • Translating the Hedaya:  The Colonial Foundations of Islamic Law, in John McLaren and Sunnah Dorest (eds.) Legal Histories of the British Empire: Laws, Engagements, Legacies (Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 2014), 157-170.
  • Islamic Law after the Arab Spring: The Challenges of Islamism and Modernity in Robert P. Barnidge (ed.) The Liberal Way of Law (Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate 2013), 259-278.
  • State-Sponsored Riot: Tales of Revolt and Crime in Egypt 2011, in Daniel Briggs (ed.) The English Riots of 2011: The Summer of Discontent (Hook: Waterside Press, 2012), 329-345.
  • (with Barry Collins) Iraq and Human Rights, International Journal of Contemporary Iraqi Studies, Vol. 5, No. 3 (2011), 311-318.
  • Provoking International Law: War and Regime Change in Iraq, in Sundhya Pahuja, Fleur Johns, and Richard Joyce (eds.) Events - The Force of International Law (Routledge-Cavendish, 2011), 246-259.
  • 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.
  • 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 (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, 34-48.
  • The International Community’s legal responses to Apartheid South Africa and the Israeli Occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem, Avocats sans Frontières, 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, 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, 2002), 59-70.
  • In the Name of the Law, in John Strawson (ed.) Law after Ground Zero (London, Sydney, and Portland OR: GlassHouse Press, 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.) Globalisation 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. [reprinted in Denise Ferreira da Silva and Mark Harris (eds.) Postcolonialism and the Law, Vol 3 (London and New York; Routledge, 2018). Chapter 28]
  • “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.
  • “Islamic Law and English Texts,” Law and Critique Vol. V, No. 1 (1995), 21-38. [reprinted in Denise Ferreira da Silva and Mark Harris (eds.) Postcolonialism and the Law, Vol 2, (London and New York; Routledge, 2018), chapter 41].
  • 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.

Opinion Pieces

Modules Taught

  • International Law: Problems and Process (Mental Wealth) - LA7040
  • War and Human Rights - LA7013
  • International Criminal Law - LA7010

External roles

  • Advisory Editor of the journal Fathom

Publications

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