Blavatnik Book Talk: The Rule of Law under Pressure
This is a hybrid event
Join Gregory Shaffer, Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of International Law at Georgetown University, in conversation with Philippa Webb, Professor of Public International Law, and Pilar Elizalde, Departmental Lecturer in Law and Public Policy, in discussing his co-authored book The Rule of Law under Pressure: A Transnational Challenge.
The book is an edited volume with a substantive introduction by Professor Gregory Shaffer. The book theorises and assesses the relation of international law to rule of law developments and challenges around the world.
The goal of the rule of law is to protect individuals from the arbitrary exercise of power. Democracy and human rights depend on the rule of law. But today the rule of law is under growing threat in the United States and around the world. Trends regarding rule-of-law protections are transnational in scope. They involve shifting norms, institutions, and practices at the local, national, and international levels. This talk will assess how challenges are taking place at the international and national levels, and how these challenges are linked. It examines the ways in which international law and institutions are important for rule-of-law ends, as well as their pathologies, since power also is exercised beyond the state in an interconnected world. Sustaining the rule of law is a never-ending struggle, one that current challenges make particularly daunting.
Speaker biographies:
Gregory Shaffer: Scott K. Ginsburg Professor of International Law at Georgetown University Law Centre and a former president of the American Society of International Law. The award-winning author of Emerging Powers and the World Trade System, Shaffer is the author of eleven books.
Philippa Webb: Professor of Public International Law at the Blavatnik School of Government and a Fellow of Exeter College. Her research spans international dispute settlement and human rights, including fair trials, free speech, and the prohibition of genocide and modern slavery. She is a member of the Board of the Clooney Foundation for Justice, the Public International Law Advisory Panel of the British Institute of International & Comparative Law, and an advisor to the American Law Institute’s Restatement of the Foreign Relations Law of the United States.
Pilar Elizalde: Departmental Lecturer in Law and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government and Associate Member at St Antony’s College. Pilar has fifteen years’ experience in the human rights field, both as an academic and a practitioner in Latin America, having worked at the Observatory of Human Rights of the Upper House of the Argentine National Congress, the Center for Justice and International Law (CEJIL), Amnesty International, and the Regional Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Buenos Aires.
Date:
18 March 2025, 17:30
Venue:
Blavatnik School of Government, Radcliffe Observatory Quarter OX2 6GG
Venue Details:
In person and online
Speaker: Various Speakers
Organising department:
Blavatnik School of Government
Organiser contact email address:
events@bsg.ox.ac.uk
Booking required?:
Required
Booking url:
https://www.bsg.ox.ac.uk/events/blavatnik-book-talk-rule-law-under-pressure
Cost:
This event is free - please register at the above link
Audience:
Public
Editor:
Anna Ulshofer
