Queering Governance and International Law The Case of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia

by Biddolph, Caitlin

• ISBN13: 9780197803141
• ISBN10: 0197803148
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2025-03-31
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

International law is brought into existence by actors from a variety of perspectives--international lawyers, state representatives, bureaucrats, and organizations--and as such, international law is riddled with contradictions. It is violent and violating, reducing complex lives and histories to "good" (lawful) and "bad" (criminal) bodies subject to protection, praise, or punishment. And yet it has potential to be a means of hope, resistance, and justice for victims, survivors, and oppressed communities.

In Queering Governance and International Law, Caitlin Biddolph examines the international legal space through queer, feminist, and postcolonial lenses. In doing so, she queers governance and international law, exposing the gendered and sexualized meanings behind legal concepts like violence, and critiquing legal status quos so that more transformative, liberatory, and queerer paths to justice might be dreamt and manifested within and beyond international law. Using as a case study the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Biddolph traces the cis-heteronormative underpinnings of legal violence, and identifies ways that violence can be resisted and international law subverted to dismantle the very gendered and racial hierarchies it has reinforced.

Author Biography

Caitlin Biddolph is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), Australia. Her research focuses on queer international relations, with an emphasis on international law and transitional justice. More broadly, she is passionate about researching and teaching through queer, feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial approaches to global politics.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations

1. International Law as a (Queer) Governance Mechanism
2. Queer Concepts and Method
3. Logics of Governance and International Law at/of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
4. Governing through Adjudication: Legal Violence at/of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
5. Subverting International Law and Violence at/of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia
6. Queer Reckonings with International Law: Hope, Violence, and Critique

Appendix 1: ICTY Case Information
Appendix 2: List of ICTY Documents
Notes
References
Index