On 21 March 2024, Kalika Mehta, Lecturer and Postdoctoral Researcher at Humboldt University of Berlin, presented her book “Strategic Litigation and Corporate Complicity in Crimes under International Law: A TWAIL Analysis" (Routledge, 2024).
The argument that international criminal law and its institutions serve as an instrument in the hands of a few powerful states, and that its practice is characterized by double standards and selectivity, has received considerable attention. In her monograph, however, Kalika Mehta focuses on a practice that is informed by this argument. Her focus is on an alternative practice within international criminal law, where non-state actors navigate what critical scholars call a structurally biased legal system, in order to achieve long-term political objectives. Innovatively, the book combines the concerns expressed by Third World Approaches to International Law with strategic litigation that focuses on the accountability of corporations for their complicity in crimes under international law. Analysing this litigation, the book demonstrates that, while it is crucial to highlight the blind spots of the international criminal legal framework, it is also important to take into account the practice of non-state actors engaged in leveraging its emancipatory potential.
The event was organised by the Global Governance Centre and the Department of International Law of the Geneva Graduate Institute. Commentators were Shahd Hammouri, Lecturer in Law, University of Kent;
Grietje Baars, Reader in Law & Social Change, University of London; and Tor Krever, Assistant Professor in International Law, University of Cambridge.
Lys Kulamadayil, Swiss National Sciences Foundation Ambizione Fellow at the Geneva Graduate Institute, was the moderator.
VISIT THE PUBLISHER'S PAGE dedicated to the book: https://www.routledge.com/Strategic-L...