Rosa Luxemburg and International Law

2021 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Rosa Luxemburg: a revolutionary theorist and political activist, whose work has provided important political economy critiques of imperialism, capitalism, nationalism, and advocated for the collective commitment to social justice. Rosa Luxemburg’s work and influence spans many topics relevant to the critique of international law: political economy, militarism, capitalism, democracy, imperialism, self-determination, revolution, and feminism. While recent events and books have celebrated her life and intellectual and political legacy, engagement with her work in international law, with some notable exceptions, has been largely marginal. In this workshop, we bring together an international group of scholars, who engage with Rosa Luxemburg’s work in relation to a broad variety of international legal topics. Four broad themes will be discussed, anti-militarism, imperialism and primitive accumulation, self-determination, and reparations, ruptures and revolution.

Workshop Programme (provisional)

15 December 2022 | Humboldt University
Juristische Fakultät, Bebelplatz, Room E47

Zoom Link
 

• 9.30-9.45 Welcome
  Christine Schwöbel-Patel and Serena Natile
• 10.00-11.00 Keynote
  Miriam Pieschke (Rosa Luxemburg Foundation) (online): From the Periphery to the Centre: An Approach to Rosa Luxemburg from a Feminist Perspective      
• 11.00-11.15 Break
• 11.15-13.00 Anti-Militarism
  Chair: Christine Schwöbel-Patel, University of Warwick
  Discussant: Tor Krever, University of Warwick
  
  Marnie Lloydd (Victoria University of Wellington, Te Herenga Waka): “A few not too troublesome restrictions”, Restraints on Violence, Solidarity, Anti-militarism, Peace (online)
  Chloe Truong-Jones (New York University): Accumulation and Jurisdiction (online)
  • Attila Antal (Eötvös Loránd University): The New Form of Capitalist Militarism: The Permanent State of Exception
• 13.00-14.00 Lunch
• 14.00-16.00 Imperialism and Primitive Accumulation
  Chair: Lys Kulamadayil
  Discussant: Latha Varadarajan, San Diego State University
  
  Kanad Bagchi (Max Plank Institute for International and Comparative Law, Heidelberg): Rosa Luxemburg and the Imperialism of Money
  Santosh Anand (City University London): Foreclosed Temporalities: Imperialism and International Criminal Law
  Michele Tedeschini (Freie Universität, Berlin): Emptying the Bottom of the Sea: Capital Accumulation in the Cavities of International Law
• 16.00-18.30 Break/Xmas Market
• 19.00 Dinner at the Weltwirtschaft, Haus der Kulturen der Welt

16 December 2022 | Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
Straße der Pariser Kommune 8A

Zoom Link

• 9.30-11.30 Rosa walking tour
• 12.30-13.30 Welcome to the Stiftung
  Daniela Trochowski, Director Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung
• Lunch
• 13.30-16.00 Self-determination
  Chair: Serena Natile, University of Warwick
  Discussant: Reut Yael Paz, Universität Gießen
  
  Marcel Garbos (Columbia University): ‘National Nihilism’ Reconsidered: Rosa Luxemburg, Polish Industrialisation, and the Possibilities of Post-Imperial Polity
  Paola Zichi (Queen Mary University London): Rosa Luxemburg’s Self-Determination and Feminist Legal Thought: On Imperialism, Capitalist Expansion, and International Law
  Eric Loefflad (Kent Law School): Domination is more than Conquest: Rosa Luxemburg’s View from Partitioned Poland
• 16.00-16.15 Break
• 16:15-18.00 Reparations, Ruptures and Revolutions
  Chair: Mathias Foit, FU
  Discussant: Susan Marks, LSE
  
  Mia Swart (Edge Hill University): ‘Pushed into the burning desert’: German ‘Reparations’ to the Herero through a Luxemburgian Lens (online)
  Serena Natile (University of Warwick): The Revolutionary Potential of Transnational Social Security Law: Lessons from Rosa Luxemburg
  Christine Schwöbel-Patel (University of Warwick): The Luxemburgian Trial of Rupture
• 18:00-18.30 Closing and Future Plans
  

Organiser

Christine Schwöbel-Patel, University of Warwick
Serena Natile, University of Warwick

Due to limited space, we can now only accommodate for online participation.