Sofia Stolk – författare

This book explores the ‘backstage’ of transnational legal practice by illuminating the routines and habits that are crucial to the field, yet rarely studied. Through innovative discussion of practices often considered trivial, the book encourages readers to conceptualise the ‘backstage’ as emblematic of transnational legal practice. Expanding the focus of transnational legal scholarship, the book explores the seemingly mundane procedures which are often taken for granted, despite being widely recognized as part of what it means to ‘do transnational law’. Adopting various methodologies and approaches, each chapter focuses on one specific practice: for example, mooting exercises for law students, international travel, transnational time, the social media activities of lawyers and legal scholars, and the networking at the ICC’s annual Assembly of States Parties. In and of themselves, these chapters each provide unique insights into what happens before the curtain rises and after it falls on the familiar ‘outputs’ of transnational law. It does more, however, than provide a range of different practices: it takes the next step in theorizing on the importance of the marginal and the everyday for what we ‘know’ to be ‘the law’ and what the international legal field looks like. Furthermore, by interrogating undiscussed academic practices, it provides students with a candid view on the perils and promises of transnational legal scholarship, inviting them to join the discussion and to practice their discipline in a more reflexive way.

Written in an accessible format, containing a readable collection of personal and recognizable accounts of transnational legal practice, the book provides an everyday insight into transnational law. It will therefore appeal to international legal scholars, alongside any reader with an interest in transnational law.

This book explores the ‘backstage’ of transnational legal practice by illuminating the routines and habits that are crucial to the field, yet rarely studied. Through innovative discussion of practices often considered trivial, the book encourages readers to conceptualise the ‘backstage’ as emblematic of transnational legal practice. Expanding the focus of transnational legal scholarship, the book explores the seemingly mundane procedures which are often taken for granted, despite being widely recognized as part of what it means to ‘do transnational law’. Adopting various methodologies and approaches, each chapter focuses on one specific practice: for example, mooting exercises for law students, international travel, transnational time, the social media activities of lawyers and legal scholars, and the networking at the ICC’s annual Assembly of States Parties. In and of themselves, these chapters each provide unique insights into what happens before the curtain rises and after it falls on the familiar ‘outputs’ of transnational law. It does more, however, than provide a range of different practices: it takes the next step in theorizing on the importance of the marginal and the everyday for what we ‘know’ to be ‘the law’ and what the international legal field looks like. Furthermore, by interrogating undiscussed academic practices, it provides students with a candid view on the perils and promises of transnational legal scholarship, inviting them to join the discussion and to practice their discipline in a more reflexive way.

Written in an accessible format, containing a readable collection of personal and recognizable accounts of transnational legal practice, the book provides an everyday insight into transnational law. It will therefore appeal to international legal scholars, alongside any reader with an interest in transnational law.

This book addresses the discursive importance of the prosecution’s opening statement before an international criminal tribunal. Opening statements are considered to be largely irrelevant to the official legal proceedings but are simultaneously deployed to frame important historical events. They are widely cited in international media as well as academic texts; yet have been ignored by legal scholars as objects of study in their own right. This book aims to remedy this neglect, by analysing the narrative that is articulated in the opening statements of different prosecutors at different tribunals in different times.

It takes an interdisciplinary approach and looks at the meaning of the opening narrative beyond its function in the legal process in a strict sense, discussing the ways in which the trial is situated in time and space and how it portrays the main characters. It shows how perpetrators and victims, places and histories, are juridified in a narrative that, whilst purporting to legitimise the trial, the tribunal and international criminal law itself, is beset with tensions and contradictions.

Providing an original perspective on the operation of international criminal law, this book will be of considerable interest to those working in this area, as well as those with relevant interests in International/Transnational Law more generally, Critical Legal Studies, Law and Literature, Socio-Legal Studies, Law and Geography and International Relations.

This book addresses the discursive importance of the prosecution’s opening statement before an international criminal tribunal. Opening statements are considered to be largely irrelevant to the official legal proceedings but are simultaneously deployed to frame important historical events. They are widely cited in international media as well as academic texts; yet have been ignored by legal scholars as objects of study in their own right. This book aims to remedy this neglect, by analysing the narrative that is articulated in the opening statements of different prosecutors at different tribunals in different times.

It takes an interdisciplinary approach and looks at the meaning of the opening narrative beyond its function in the legal process in a strict sense, discussing the ways in which the trial is situated in time and space and how it portrays the main characters. It shows how perpetrators and victims, places and histories, are juridified in a narrative that, whilst purporting to legitimise the trial, the tribunal and international criminal law itself, is beset with tensions and contradictions.

Providing an original perspective on the operation of international criminal law, this book will be of considerable interest to those working in this area, as well as those with relevant interests in International/Transnational Law more generally, Critical Legal Studies, Law and Literature, Socio-Legal Studies, Law and Geography and International Relations.

This interdisciplinary book brings together experts in the fields of art, cultural heritage, social justice, human rights, international law, and transitional justice, and presents the idea that a complex interplay between morality, politics, law, and aesthetics remains present in concrete settings such as the rights of cultural creators, the right to artistic expression, art as a catalyst of change in times of conflict, and post-conflict restitutions. The book offers vignettes of current debates in art and human rights, tackling issues at the confluence of these fields by providing a general framework upon which the conversation can be built, and by bringing to the discussion a diverse range of contemporary themes and concrete case analyses.

This book will be an ideal read for academics interested in international law, transitional justice and human rights. Historians, lawyers, artists, and activists looking to explore the relationship between art and human rights in times of war, peace, and transition through their assessment of contemporary issues will also benefit from this comprehensive book.