What do we talk about when we talk about…Nakba and International Law…with Nahed Samour

 Nahed Samour (Faculty of Law, Humboldt University Berlin)

International law is becoming increasingly important for categorising the violence in Palestine and Israel. In particular, the proceedings before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) deal with issues such as genocide, war crimes or the illegality of the occupation as well as the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people. However, international law appears to treat Palestine in a fragmented manner in terms of territory, population and time. In response to these limitations, Palestinian legal scholar Rabea Eghbariah, in a recent Law Review article ‘Toward Nakba as a Legal Concept’, proposes the term Nakba as a new legal concept to more accurately capture the injustice inflicted on the Palestinian people. In her lecture, the lawyer and international law expert Nahed Samour will explore what it would mean to introduce the Nakba as an independent legal concept.

Nahed Samour has studied law and Islamic studies at the universities of Bonn, Birzeit/Ramallah, London (SOAS), Berlin (HU), Harvard and Damascus. She was a doctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for European Legal History in Frankfurt/Main. She clerked at the Court of Appeals in Berlin, and held a Post Doc position at the Eric Castrén Institute of International Law and Human Rights, Helsinki University, Finland and was Early Career Fellow at the Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Göttingen Institute for Advance Study. She has taught as Junior Faculty at Harvard Law School Institute for Global Law and Policy from 2014-2018. From 2019-2022, she was Core Emerging Investigator at the Integrative Research Institute Law & Society

What do we talk about when we talk about … is an irregular series of reading sessions that respond to the acceleration and polarization of public discourse in light of the escalation of violence in Palestine, Israel and the Middle East. The format aims to return to a core skill of critical study, namely reading and discussing texts, sharpening terms and developing concepts. The sessions will be moderated by guests who have already published texts on aspects of this broad field and long conflict. The sessions are open to all students and members of the university. Please register for each session at kunstraum@leuphana.de. Texts will be sent out after registration. All sessions will take place in the Kunstraum with the exception of the session on Jan 28, 2025 that will take place at the Heinrich-Heine-Haus, Lüneburg.

Disclaimer: We ask that everyone follows these guidelines for nonviolent communication. The guidelines can be viewed here.

Upcoming Sessions

Dec. 12, 2024, 16 Uhr / what do we talk about when we talk about with Dani Gal (Filmmaker and Artist, Berlin)

Jan. 22, 2025 16 Uhr / what do we talk about when we talk about with Esra Özyürek (Sultan Qaboos Professor of Abrahamic Faiths and Shared Values, University of Cambridge)

Jan. 28, 2025, 19:30 Uhr / what do we talk about when we talk about with Charlotte Wiedemann (Journalist, Author/LIAS Public Fellow), Heinrich-Heine-Haus, Literaturbüro