Human Rights Lawyer Francesca Alabanese to Address Israel’s Settler Colonial Rule in the Context of International Law and the Empire
Edward W. Said London Lecture 2023
2023 Edward Said Lecture marks 20 years after the death of the influential Palestian critic, academic and public intellectual Edward Said
The Italian international human rights lawyer and academic Francesca Albanese, serves as the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Palestine, will confront Israel’s colonial injustice in the occupied Palestinian territory for this year’s Edward W. Said London Lecture, commemorating 20 years after Edward Said’s death.
From left to right: Francesca Albanese, Nadia Abu El-Haj
Through a rigorous examination of international law within the context of global empire, Albanese will chart a course of action for legal and humanist resistance. The Affiliate Schola at Georgetown University, who has argued that Israel has turned Palestine into an “open air prison” and Palestinian life under occupation into a “carceral continuum”, will be joined by Nadia Abu El-Haj, Anthropology Professor at Barnard College and Columbia University, for a response and Q&A session.
Albanese follows the Nobel laureate Abdulrazak Gurnah in delivering the prestigious lecture, which has become an intellectual cornerstone for debates on justice and peacesince it was initiated in 2010 – using the profound legacy of Edward Said as a framework to deliver some of our times’ most thought-provoking and influential talks into the UK and international cultural and political orbit.
Albanese has published widely on the legal situation inIsrael/Palestine; her latest book, Palestinian Refugees in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), offers a comprehensive legal analysis of the situation of Palestinian refugees from its origins to modern day reality. She was appointed as the UN Human Rights Council’s Special Rapporteur on Palestine in 2022, the first woman to hold the role, with a mandate to assess the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, report publicly about it, and work with governments, civil society and others to foster international cooperation.
Since it began in 2010, the Edward W. Said London Lecture has become an annual highlight in London’s cultural calendar, taking a brief hiatus during the Coronavirus pandemic. The series gives Said’s legacy a public platform in the very heart of intellectual life in the UK.
Previous lectures were given by:
• 2022 Abdulrazak Gurnah: The Significance of Place and Effects of Displacement
• 2019 Susan M. Akram, Hassan Jabareen, Wadie Said and Philippe Sands: Is Justice Still Possible?
• 2018 Amira Hass: The Preventable: Israeli Fantasies and Techniques of Population Expulsion
• 2017 Mahmood Mamdani: Justice Not Revenge – Examining the Concept of Revolutionary Justice
• 2016 Naomi Klein: Let Them Drown – The Violence of Othering in a Warming World
• 2015 Daniel Barenboim: The Role of Music in Life
• 2014 Raja Shehadeh: Is There a Language of Peace?
• 2013 Noam Chomsky: Violence and Dignity: Reflections on the Middle East
• 2012 Ahdaf Soueif: Edward Said and the Egyptian Revolution
• 2011 Rashid Khalidi: Human Dignity in Jerusalem
• 2010 Marina Warner: Oriental Masquerade – Fiction and Fantasy in the Wake of the Arabian Nights
Tickets are available from: www.mosaicrooms.org/event/edward-w-said-london-lecture-2023-francesca-albanese/
Notes to Editors:
Francesca Albanese is an Affiliate Scholar at the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University, and a Senior Advisor on Migration and Forced Displacement for the think tank Arab Renaissance for Democracy and Development (ARDD), where she co-founded the Global Network on the Question of Palestine (GNQP), a coalition of renowned professional and scholars engaged in/on Israel/Palestine. She has 20 years experience as a human rights practitioner, including 10 years as a legal expert in the UN and has published widely on the legal situation in Israel/Palestine; her latest book, Palestinian Refugees in International Law (Oxford University Press, 2020), offers a comprehensive legal analysis of the situation of Palestinian refugees from its origins to modern-day reality. She regularly teaches and lectures on International Law and Forced Displacement in European and Arab universities, and speaks frequently at conferences and public events on the legal situation of Palestine. She worked for a decade as a human rights expert for the United Nations, including the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Relief and Work Agency for Palestine Refugees. In these capacities, she advised the UN, governments, and civil society across the Middle East, North Africa, and the Asia Pacific, on the enforcement of human rights norms, especially for vulnerable groups including refugees and migrants. She holds a Law Degree (with honors) from the University of Pisa and an LLM in Human Rights from the University of London, SOAS. She is currently completing her PhD in International Refugee Law at Amsterdam University Law Faculty.
Nadia Abu El-Haj is Ann Whitney Olin Professor in the Departments of Anthropology at Barnard College and Columbia University, Co-Director of the Center for Palestine Studies at Columbia. Among other publications, she is the author of Facts on the Ground: Archaeological Practice and Territorial Self-Fashioning in Israeli Society (University of Chicago Press, 2001), which won the Albert Hourani Annual Book Award from the Middle East Studies Association in 2002; The Genealogic al Science: The Search for Jewish Origins and the Politics of Epistemology (University of Chicago Press, 2012); and, most recently, Combat Trauma: Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in Post-9/11 America (Verso, 2022).
About Edward W. Said London Lecture Series
Literary critic, writer, activist, and spokesperson for the Palestinian cause, Edward Said (1935-2003) was one of the most influential intellectuals of his time. Supported by the A. M. Qattan Foundation and London Review of Books, the lecture series aims to promote his spirit through the continued examination of the links between culture and politics in the Middle East and across the world. With previous lectures by Abuldrazak Gurnah, Susan M. Akram, Hassan Jabareen, Wadie Said, Philippe Sands, Amira Hass, Mahmood Mamdani, Naomi Klein, Marina Warner, Rashid Khalidi, Ahdaf Soueif, Raja Shehadeh, Noam Chomsky and Daniel Barenboim, the series gives his legacy a public platform in the very heart of cultural and intellectual life in the UK.
www.mosaicrooms.org/edward-w-said-london-lecture
About A.M. Qattan Foundation / The Mosaic Rooms
The A.M. Qattan Foundation was founded in 1994 and registered as a charity in the UK. Since 1998, it has worked towards the development of culture and education in Palestine and the Arab world, with a particular focus on children, teachers and artists. The Mosaic Rooms is London’s free space for contemporary culture from the Arab world and beyond. It is a non-profit gallery and cultural space.