Please join us for an online book panel discussion of Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini’s new book Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire (University of California Press, 2020).

Speaker: Neve Gordon (Queen Mary University of London, UK); Commentators: Jessica Whyte (University of New South Wales, Sydney), Noura Erakat (Rutgers – New Brunswick), Pablo Kalmanovitz (CIDE – Center for Research and Teaching in Economics, Mexico City); Introduction: Vasuki Nesiah (NYU Gallatin); Moderator: Karin Loevy (NYU Law)

Describing the use of human shields in key historical and contemporary moments across the globe, Gordon and Perugini demonstrate how the increasing weaponization of human beings has made the position of civilians trapped in theaters of violence more precarious and their lives more expendable. From Syrian civilians locked in iron cages to veterans joining peaceful indigenous water protectors at the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation, from Sri Lanka to Iraq and from Yemen to the United States, human beings have been used as shields for protection, coercion, or deterrence. The authors show how the law facilitates the use of lethal violence against vulnerable people while portraying it as humane, but they also reveal how people can and do use their own vulnerability to resist violence and denounce forms of dehumanization. Ultimately, Human Shields unsettles our common ethical assumptions about violence and the law and urges us to imagine entirely new forms of humane politics.

This event is cosponsored by the Institute for International Law and Justice (IILJ) NYU Law School and the Gallatin Human Rights Initiative. To receive the zoom link please register here: https://gallatin.nyu.edu/utilities/events/2020/12/HumanShields.html