News Type: Event

NLSIU will host an in-person interactive discussion with historian and author Dr. Ramachandra Guha on Wednesday, 24th April, at 4 pm. The focus of this conversion will be – “How is India doing? A Historian’s Reckoning”. This session will be moderated by NLS faculty Dr. Rinku Lamba.

This session is being organized by the Student Initiative for Promotion of Legal Awareness (SIPLA), a student committee at NLSIU. It will be an open-forum interactive session, allowing for an extended Q&A with students.

About the speaker

Dr. Ramachandra Guha is a historian, biographer, political commentator, environmental activist, and cricket aficionado, among many other things. Some of his bestselling works include – “India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy” (Picador, 2007), a popular tome on the history of India since independence, and “Gandhi Before India” (2013), which focuses on Gandhi’s years in South Africa.

Dr. Guha earned his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics from St. Stephen’s College, a master’s degree from the Delhi School of Economics, and his Ph.D. in Sociology from the Indian Institute of Management at Kolkata, where he wrote a doctoral thesis on the history and prehistory of the Chipko movement.

His other notable works include “Patriots and Partisans”, a collection of essays on the politics of our time; “The Unquiet Woods: Ecological Change and Peasant Resistance in the Himalaya” (Oxford University Press, 1989), a pioneering work in environmental history; “A Corner of a Foreign Field” (Picador 2003), an award-winning social history of cricket. His most recent book is a memoir titled “The Cooking of Books”, chronicling the four decades-long relationship between him and Rukun Advani, his first editor.

The registration form for all those who would like to attend this session is available here.

An online discussion on the book, Lives of Circumcised and Veiled Women: A Global-Indian Interplay of Discourses and Narratives by NLS faculty Dr Debangana Chaterjee, will be held on April 22, 2024, at 7:30 pm IST.

The discussion will feature commenters: Professor Shirin Rai (SOAS), Khushi Singh Rathore (Jawaharlal Nehru University), and Professor Laura Sjoberg (Royal Holloway, University of London), moderated by Dr Annika Bergman Rosamond (The University of Edinburgh).

About the book

The book unravels the politics of representation and the process of exoticising women’s bodies through the prism of external gaze and knowledge production. It brings out the intricacies of representational discourses around cultural practices of female circumcision (FC)/female genital cutting (FGC) and Islamic veiling. Focusing on crucial international legal texts and national legislation, the book gives an overview of the cultural nuances in FC/FGC and juxtaposes it with the Indian variation, khafz.

The author studies the international veiling narratives that conjure up a fractured discourse containing aspects of colonialism, Islamophobia, and Islamic fashion and maps them with the regional variations of Islamic purdah in India. The volume explores the cultural practice of khafz and purdah through narratives in India, portraying how representational factors from international discourses reflect on the Indian context and vice versa.

Amid the world of binaries and polarised opinions, the book offers a nuanced analysis of the space in-between, characterised by narratives from women. By situating women’s narratives in relation to family, community, state, and international politics, the book explores the global-Indian interplay of discourses on FC/FGC and Islamic veiling. This volume will be of interest to scholars, students, and readers of gender studies, feminism, cultural and religious studies, sociology, South Asian studies, and International Relations.

The South Asian Edition of the book is available here. You can also read our interview with Dr. Debangana Chatterjee, on her book.

Additional information and registration link for this online book discussion, is available here.

NLS faculty Radhika Chitkara will present a paper titled “An Institutional Ethnography of Counter-Terrorism”, and Dr. Atreyee Majumdar will be the discussant.

Abstract 

This draft is part of the doctoral thesis and identifies its method and scope of inquiry. The author proposes an institutional ethnography of counter-terror policing institutions in India from the standpoint of ‘suspect communities’ in Jharkhand, namely adivasis qua ethnic and ideological minorities. The current draft lays out the problematic, standpoint and texts for such an institutional ethnography, and offers background to the empirical work to follow. The draft specifically identifies the four prongs of policing constituting the problematic in this exercise in IE, namely, investigations, prosecution, intelligence-gathering and enforcement.

NLS faculty Dr. Akhila Basalalli will present a paper titled “From Colony to Sovereign: Understanding India’s Pre-Independence Legal Personality”. Prof. Kamala Sankaran will be the discussant.

Abstract 

India’s engagements with international law and organizations predates its independence. Rewarding the participation in the First World War, the Imperial War Conference of 1917 declared that the Dominions (Australia, Canada, South Africa, New Zealand) including India, should have autonomous status and representation in foreign affairs. However, India was not granted dominion status and was only acknowledged with a foreign voice. Treaties were concluded on behalf of India by British representatives and Indian representatives, mostly Maharajas of native states during the period 1919-1947. The paper argues that India without dominion status was not a self-governing territory and its capacity to enter into international obligations and membership in international organisations is an irregularity. India continued the international legal personality of British India becoming a party to 627 treaties and member of 51 international organizations by the time of independence. The paper emphasizes the importance tabula rasa for newly formed states and draws attention to the Nyerere Doctrine adopted by Eastern African States, where colonial treaties were only binding upon the new state if they were formally accepted within a specific timeframe. The India Independence Act of 1947 bound India to its past treaties, as the succession of dominions from British India was seen as secession rather than dismemberment. This continuity of legal personality was further validated by the United Nations.

NLSIU will host a public lecture by Prof. Matthias Mahlmann on the topic ‘Human dignity as a legal concept – vacuous, redundant, and stupid?’. The lecture will take place on Friday, April 12th, 2024, at 5 PM. The discussant for this lecture will be Prof. Arun Thiruvengadam, Professor of Law, NLSIU.

About the Speaker

Matthias Mahlmann is University Professor, and Chair of Philosophy and Theory of Law, Legal Sociology and International Public Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Zurich, Switzerland.  He completed his studies at Freiburg, Berlin and the London School of Economics.  He has held a number of Visiting Professorship positions including at the Central European University, Budapest, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Georgetown University Law Centre, Washington DC, University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Philadelphia; German-Turkish University, Istanbul, and was a Visiting Researcher, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, Oxford University and Fellow of Mansfield College. He is currently a Visiting Professor at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bangalore.

 

Abstract 

Human Dignity has become a central element of the architecture of contemporary constitutionalism, democracy and national and international human rights law. It is a cornerstone of the edifice of a legal culture that takes humans as seriously as they deserve. It is at the same time an emancipatory political and ethical aspiration that is the well spring of critique from below of unjustified – not least colonial and post-colonial – power and privilege. At the same time, it is the object of withering critique that argues that the concept of dignity is devoid of normative content, that it is serving no legal end which are better served by other concepts like freedom or equality, and that it is ultimately a piece of mindless dogmatism. The talk will investigate this critique and the content and justification of dignity in philosophy and law to critically assess whether the promise of dignity is doing more than fostering hollow illusions.

The National Law School of India University, Bengaluru is organising a special lecture on campus on the topic “Smart and/or Just City? Evidence from a Southern Periphery” by  Prof. Oren Yiftachel, Professor of political and legal geography, urban planning, and public policy at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, in Beersheba, Israel.

The lecture will take place at 12.30 pm on April 8, 2024 in Room 106, Old Academic Block (OAB).

About the Speaker 

Yiftachel is one of the main critical geographers and social scientists working in Israel. He studied in Australian and Israeli universities, and has previously taught in the urban planning, geography, political science and Middle East departments at a range of institutions including: Curtin University, Australia; the Technion, Israel; the University of Pennsylvania, Columbia, and UC Berkeley, in the US; University of Cape Town, South Africa; and the University of Venice, Italy. He was a research fellow at RMIT, Melbourne; the US Institute of Peace, Washington DC; and the Van Leer Institute, Jerusalem.

Yiftachel is the founding editor of the journal Hagar: Studies in Culture, Politics and Place, and serves on the editorial board of Planning Theory (essay editor), Society and Space, IJMES, MERIP, Urban Studies , Journal of Planning Literature, and Social and Cultural Geography.

View his full profile here.

The National Law School of India University, and Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) are organising the inaugural edition of the Annual Arbitration Lecture on April 19, 2024 from 10 to 11 am at the NLS campus.

The lecture titled “Sunset Clauses in Bilateral Investment Treaties”, will be delivered by Dr. Claudia Annacker, Member, SIAC Court of Arbitration; Independent Arbitrator and Counsel.

Dr. Claudia Annacker is an independent arbitrator and counsel based in Paris. She specializes in international arbitration and public international law, in particular Investor-State disputes, inter-State disputes, disputes involving international organizations and human rights disputes.

Dr. Annacker has represented sovereign and private parties in more than 35 investment arbitrations, as well as in commercial and inter-State arbitrations.  Dr. Annacker has also served as arbitrator in investment treaty and commercial arbitrations.  She is a member of several arbitrator panels, including the ICSID Panel of Arbitrators and the SIAC Panel of Arbitrators.  She is a member of the SIAC Court of Arbitration and the VIAC Board (President of the Investment Arbitration Committee).

Dr. Annacker received a Ph.D. with high honors and a venia legendi et docendi (habilitation) for public international law from the University of Vienna.  Dr. Annacker is an adjunct professor at the University of Vienna and has been a visiting professor at the Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense University.  She has published widely in the fields of international arbitration and public international law.

Mr. Promod Nair (NLS BA LLB 2001), Senior Advocate at the High Court of Karnataka, will be the moderator of the event.

This event is open to the public. Please note if you are outside of the NLS community, it is mandatory to register here for the event.

All press/media invitees who are interested to cover the talk are requested to please carry their ID cards.

NLS faculty Kunal Ambasta is delivering a keynote address on ‘The fight for LGBTI-Rights in India’ at the LGBTI-Rechte International (LGBTI Rights International) Conference on April 6, 2024, at 9 am (CET)/ 12.30 pm (IST). The conference is being organized from April 5-7, 2024 at the Theodor Heuss Academy, Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, Germany.

About the Foundation

Based on the principles of liberalism, the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom offers political education in Germany and abroad. With its events and publications, it helps people become actively involved in political affairs. The Foundation also supports talented young students with scholarships. It is headquartered in Potsdam, Germany and maintains offices throughout Germany and in over 60 countries around the world.

To know more about the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom, click here.

The schedule of the conference is available here.

 

 

NLS faculty Mrinal Satish will present a paper titled “Sentencing as a Fair Trial Right”. Kunal Ambasta will be the discussant.

Abstract

The Supreme Court of India has in multiple cases attempted to define the elements of a fair criminal trial. It has articulated fair trial as development of norms to prevent miscarriage of justice, the opportunity to prove innocence, and importantly, as the main object of criminal procedure. However, scant attention has been paid to articulation of fair trial norms in the process of sentencing – where a court determines the appropriate punishment to be imposed on a person convicted of an offence after a criminal trial. In this paper, I explore and analyse the embodiment of fair trial rights in sentencing, focusing on the pre-sentence hearing process under the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (Cr.P.C). In doing so, I trace the jurisprudence of the Supreme Court on pre-sentence hearing, including the role of the court in such a hearing. I examine, and critique a recent trend where courts have sought “pre-sentence reports” from probation officers to assist the court in its sentencing function. I also deal with the role of defence lawyers, and what impact ineffective legal assistance should have on sentencing decisions. Through an analysis of these, and other allied issues, I attempt to identify fair trial norms in the sentencing process, and the manner in which they should be applied, in order to ensure due process in sentencing.

Prof. Matthias Mahlmann from the University of Zurich will be delivering a talk titled ‘The Arduous Pursuit of Dignity for All – Preserving Democracy and Human Rights in a World in Crisis’. Prof. Mahlmann is University Professor, and Chair of Philosophy and Theory of Law, Legal Sociology and International Public Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Zurich, Switzerland. He is also a Visiting Professor with the V R Krishna Iyer Chair on Public Law and Policy Choice at NLSIU.  The talk will take place at the BIC, Domlur on April 10, 2024 from 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm.

This talk draws from Prof. Mahlmann’s recent critically acclaimed book, Mind and Rights: The history, law and psychology of Human Rights published in open access mode by Cambridge University Press in February 2023.  The talk critically examines the growth of the concept of human rights, its roots in history and current human rights theories. It scrutinizes in particular the myth of the Western origin of the idea of human rights by highlighting the many roots of human rights in different cultures, including within the Global South and indigenous cultures.

A particular goal of the talk is to engage with the so-called cognitive revolution and to investigate the relationship between human cognition and human rights.  The talk will argue that insights gained from modern theories of the mind can deepen our understanding of the foundation of human rights. The talk also seeks to answer the question whether the current attacks on democracy can be countered through the use of human rights and its underlying political ethics of egalitarian dignity. Finally, the talk will contend that the pursuit of the human rights idea, with its achievements and tragic failures, is key to understanding what kind of beings humans are. Such self-knowledge is crucial in times in which the human species has put its own survival at risk.

The talk will be followed by a conversation between the author, Matthias Mahlmann, and NLSIU faculty Dr. Rinku Lamba. This will be followed by a moderated Q&A session with the audience.

Registration for the event is on a first-come first-serve basis. To register, click here.

Information source: Bangalore International Centre

Watch the BIC Talk here: