Lecture | Keynote Lectures
Rules for a lawless world? The international legal order in an age of great-power struggle for normative primacy
- Agnès Callamard and Francesca Albanese
- Date
- Thursday 8 May 2025
- Time
- Location
-
Kamerlingh Onnes Building
Steenschuur 25
2311 ES Leiden - Room
- A.0-51
This lecture is part of the symposium 'Rules for a Lawless World?', which explores the state and future of the international legal order in an age of great-power rivalry.
The symposium explores the consequences of the struggle for global normative primacy between China and the USA and their respective allies, for the prospect of a law-governed world, or its potential collapse. Focusing on the ordering, protective and emancipatory functions of international law, it seeks to grasp the state and direction of the international legal order—whether we are witnessing the breakdown of existing legal norms, their pervasive violation, or their replacement with alternative standards. Ultimately, the symposium probes how great-power rivalry affects humanity’s aspiration for a world ruled by the force of law, and not the law of force.
Keynote Speakers
Agnès Callamard, Secretary General at Amnesty International
Dr Agnès Callamard is Secretary General at Amnesty International. She leads the organization’s human rights work and is its chief spokesperson. She is responsible for providing overall leadership of the International Secretariat, including setting the strategic direction for the organisation and managing relations with Amnesty International’s national entities. Dr. Callamard has been a prominent figure in the human rights world for decades. In 2016, she was appointed as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extra-judicial, summary or arbitrary killings. Along with her UN work, she was also the Director of Global Freedom of Expression at Columbia University in New York.
Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Online)
Ms. Francesca Albanese is an international lawyer, specialised in human rights and the Middle East. Since May 2022, she has served as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967. An affiliate scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, Albanese is the author of, among other publications, Palestinian Refugees in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2020) and more recently J’Accuse (Fuoriscena, 2024). Her academic works cover various aspects of the Question of Palestine, the legal situation in Israel/Palestine and Palestinian forced displacement, including the mandate and work of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).
Chair
Gjovalin Macaj
Registration
Please register via this link.