Law’s Entities: Complexity, Plasticity and Justice

In the early twenty-first century, and looking beyond it, the landscapes of law’s operation are characterised by a growing degree of complexity and pressure. Law is called upon to coordinate relations in a world facing a significant complexities produced by a convergence between bio-technological developments capable of transforming the very conditions of life itself, climate-change pressures and the threat of the collapse of bio-diversity and eco-systems, and intensifying global inter-dependencies deepening vulnerability on a whole set of scales and measures

Three feminist critiques of varying feminist capitulations to crisis-hegemony

The seemingly intractable pull between the Scylla of 'resistance' and the Charybdis of 'compliance' and the agonistic dilemmas presented by the complexity and difficulty of positioning feminism in relation to them both is well-traced in these chapters by Dianne Otto, Julie Mertus and Maria Grahn-Farley. While a range of themes emerges from reflection on these nuanced and thoughtful chapters, at the heart of each, in different ways, the colonisation of certain emancipatory feminist projects and agendas by the crisis-driven post 9/11 international legal discourse emerges as a central concern, along with a set of related sub-themes: The traction (and inequality) of hegemonic and counter-hegemonic thought-worlds and actions; the pernicious effects of decontextualisation (either the transcendence or the 'emptying out' of context (including,worryingly, lived experience of violation)); the fragile potency of ground level viewpoint, action and perspective; the false totality of the securityhegemon; its liquid propagandism, and related concerns circling around co-opted feminist responses

Human rights, property and the search for ‘worlds other’

While some accounts of rights and property paradigms see property as an inherent incident of a colonizing form of human rights law and discourse, others draw out the contradictions between them, suggesting that human rights and property have opposing impulses towards inclusion and exclusion respectively. While not rejecting the insights of either of these positions, the author argues that a fundamental ambivalence lies at the heart of human rights law and discourse demonstrating both oppressive and emancipatory potential. This ambivalence is, the author argues, also internal to the Western property concept – a claim facilitating a renewed emphasis upon property's inclusory potential as an institutional foundation for a more eco-humane and vulnerability-responsive ordering of legal relations

Rights and property paradigms: Challenging the dominant construct hegemony

The interrelationship of (human) rights and property paradigms raises particularly profound questions when played out in respect of environmental claims. It is therefore no surprise that contributions to this edition invoke ontological and epistemological concerns fundamental to the unsettled interface between the mutable richness of living spatial and socio-cultural ecologies and the abrupt reductionisms so often imposed upon them by law. At the same time it speaks of the power and dominance of property paradigms that even the most critical analyses tend to seek reformulation of property’s parameters rather than its abandonment

Human rights and the environment: a tale of ambivalence and hope

This chapter argues that international environmental law and international human rights law—despite the existence of very real separations and tensions between them—show hopeful signs of progress in their relationship. Notwithstanding such hopeful signs, however, both human rights law and environmental law share underlying subject-object relations inimical to their stated aims. This reality, once acknowledged, might, with sufficient imagination, become the departure point for a reconfigured engagement between them and for their transformation

Climate justice involves more than a fair distribution of benefits and burdens: It requires radical, structural change

As part of our series on the Dahrendorf Symposium, Anna Grear writes on the concept of ‘climate justice’. Broadly speaking, climate justice incorporates a view of the effects of climate change as an ethical issue relating to principles such as social and environmental justice. She argues that climate justice is best illustrated by focusing on the nature of ‘climate injustice’, and that rather than simply requiring a fair distribution of the effects of climate change, climate justice will require radical structural change if it is to be realised in practice

Human rights and new horizons? thoughts towards a new juridical ontology

The much-lamented anthropocentrism of human rights is misleading. Human rights anthropocentrism is radically attenuated and reflects persistent patterns of intra- and inter-species injustice and binary subject-object relations inapt for 21st century crises and posthuman complexities. This article explores the possibility of re-imagining the “human” of human rights in the light of anti- and post-Cartesian analyses drawing—in particular—upon Merleau-Ponty and on new materialism. The article also seeks to re-imagine human rights themselves as responsibilized, injustice-sensitive claim-concepts emerging in the ‘midst of’ lively materialities and the uneven global dynamics of 21st century predicaments

Clearing a Misunderstanding: Rehearing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (1878) with the “Changing Background” Technique

Composed in 1878, Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto shows evidence of an important collaboration that took place during the genesis of the work. As is widely acknowledged, Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto was composed with the assistance of virtuoso violinist Yosif Kotek whose violin-technical advice Tchaikovsky gratefully accepted. Tchaikovsky himself acknowledged: “there is no denying that without him [Kotek] I could not have done anything” (Roland John Wiley, Tchaikovsky [New York: Oxford University Press, 2009], 193). The planned dedication to another violinist — Leopold Auer — who eventually did not want to perform the piece; and the official dedication to yet another violinist — Adolph Brodsky — who did perform the piece, have contributed to a story of the genesis, which largely excludes Kotek’s important input. Only recent research by queer theorists including Terry Teachout and Raymond has revisited the importance of Kotek on the basis of an alleged risqué relationship between Tchaikovsky and Kotek, which may have been the reason why Tchaikovsky distanced himself from dedicating the work to Kotek. My research revisits accusations of gender nonconformity, which were thrown at Tchaikovsky during his lifetime, including an alleged “neurosis”, “morbidity”, and “hysteria”, as well as a lack of “manliness” (Terry Teachout). On the musical side, my research investigates how hearing Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in terms of the “changing background technique” (James Hepokoski) allows for a deeper understanding of this concerto and avoids falling into some of the discriminatory traps of his contemporaries, who viewed Tchaikovsky’s music as lacking Russian character and Austro-German “large form”

Clearing a Misunderstanding: Rehearing Tchaikovsky’s Violin Concerto (1878) with the “Changing Background” Technique

Composed in 1878, Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto shows evidence of an important collaboration that took place during the genesis of the work. As is widely acknowledged, Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto was composed with the assistance of virtuoso violinist Yosif Kotek whose violin-technical advice Tchaikovsky gratefully accepted. Tchaikovsky himself acknowledged: “there is no denying that without him [Kotek] I could not have done anything” (Roland John Wiley, Tchaikovsky [New York: Oxford University Press, 2009], 193). The planned dedication to another violinist — Leopold Auer — who eventually did not want to perform the piece; and the official dedication to yet another violinist — Adolph Brodsky — who did perform the piece, have contributed to a story of the genesis, which largely excludes Kotek’s important input. Only recent research by queer theorists including Terry Teachout and Raymond has revisited the importance of Kotek on the basis of an alleged risqué relationship between Tchaikovsky and Kotek, which may have been the reason why Tchaikovsky distanced himself from dedicating the work to Kotek. My research revisits accusations of gender nonconformity, which were thrown at Tchaikovsky during his lifetime, including an alleged “neurosis”, “morbidity”, and “hysteria”, as well as a lack of “manliness” (Terry Teachout). On the musical side, my research investigates how hearing Tchaikovsky’s violin concerto in terms of the “changing background technique” (James Hepokoski) allows for a deeper understanding of this concerto and avoids falling into some of the discriminatory traps of his contemporaries, who viewed Tchaikovsky’s music as lacking Russian character and Austro-German “large form”