SCGA Team: Michelle Burgis-Kasthala

Michelle Burgis-Kasthala

Senior Lecturer in Public International Law, University of Edinburgh

Michelle Burgis-Kasthala conducts interdisciplinary research into the political stakes of various international legal interventions in and on the Middle East. In particular, she has expertise in territorial disputes, international criminal justice and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Her work builds on extensive fieldwork in the region and has appeared in various, prominent international law journals. She is a member of the editorial board of the Chinese Journal of International Law as well as a co-convenor of the European Society of International Law’s Working Group on International Criminal Justice.

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Research Publications

  • Boundaries of Discourse in the International Court of Justice: Mapping Arguments in Arab Territorial  Disputes (Leiden, Brill, 2009): http://www.brill.nl/default.aspx?partid=210&pid=33476
  • ‘Time for Justice? Reflections on Narrative Absences and Presences in the STL’s Ayyash Decision’ European Journal of International Law (forthcoming)
  • Co-authored with C Schwoebel-Patel, ‘Against Coloniality in the International Law Curriculum: Examining Decoloniality’ Law Teacher (2022): https://doi.org/10.1080/03069400.2022.2057755
  • ‘Assembling Atrocity Archives for Syria: Assessing the Work of the CIJA and the IIIM’ (2021) 19(5) Journal of International Criminal Justice 1193-1120: https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqab065
  • Co-authored with Adham Saouli, ‘The Politics of Normative Intervention and the Special Tribunal of Lebanon’ Journal of Intervention and Statebuildinghttps://doi.org/10.1080/17502977.2021.1961509
  • States of Failure? Ungovernance and the project of state-building in Palestine under the Oslo regime’ 11(3) (2020) Transnational Legal Theory 382-407 https://doi.org/10.1080/20414005.2020.1824482
  • ‘Researching Secret Spaces: A Reflexive Account on Negotiating Risk and Academic Integrity’ (2020) 33(2) Leiden Journal of International Law 269-287
  • ‘Entrepreneurial Justice: Syria, the Commission for International Justice and Accountability and the Renewal of International Criminal Justice’ (2019) 30(4) European Journal of International Law 1165-1185 https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chz065  (as discussed in this EJIL:Live interview http://ejil.org/episode.php?episode=40)
  • ‘(In)Dependent Lives? International lawyers and the politics of state-building within the Palestinian advocacy field’ (2016) 4(3) London Review of International Law 393-419 https://doi.org/10.1093/lril/lrw020
  • ‘Scholarship as Dialogue? ICL, TWAIL and the Politics of Methodology’ (2016) 14(3) Journal of International Criminal Justice 921-937 https://doi.org/10.1093/jicj/mqw044
  • 2014, ‘Over-Stating Palestine’s UN Membership Moment? An Ethnographic Study on the Narratives of Statehood’ European Journal of International Law 677-701 https://doi.org/10.1093/ejil/chu049
  • 2013, ‘Defining Justice during Transition? International and Domestic Contestations over the Special Tribunal for Lebanon’ (2013) 7 International Journal of Transitional Justice 497-517  https://doi.org/10.1093/ijtj/ijt014
  •  ‘Faith in the State? Traditions of Territoriality and the Emergence of Modern Arab Statehood’ (2009) 11 Journal of the History of International Law 37-79
  • ‘Discourses of Division: Law, Politics, and the ICJ Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory’ (2008) 7 Chinese Journal of International Law 33-63 https://doi.org/10.1093/chinesejil/jmm046
  • ‘(De)limiting the Past for Future Gain: The Relationship between Sovereignty, Colonialism and Oil in the Qatar v Bahrain Territorial Dispute’ 12 (2005-2006) Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law 557-586
  • ‘Transforming (Private) Rights through (Public) International Law: Readings on a ‘strange and painful Odyssey’ in the PCIJ Mavrommatis Case’ (2011) 24 Leiden Journal of International Law 873-897
  • ‘A Discourse of Distinction? Palestinians, International Law and the Promise of Humanitarianism’ 15 (2009) Palestine Yearbook of International Law (2009)
  • ‘Judicial Reform and the Possibility of Democratic Rule in Jordan? A Policy Perspective on Judicial Independence’ (2007) 21(2) Arab Law Quarterly 135
  •  ‘The Promise of Solid Ground: Arab States, Territorial Disputes and the Discourse of International Law’ (2008) 10(1) The International Community Law Review 73-99