Ep. 27 Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine

This episode features a conversation with Dr. Hedi Viterbo and Ekta Oza. They discuss Dr. Viterbo's new book, Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2021). Bridging disciplinary divides, and drawing on hundreds of previously unexamined sources (many of which are not publicly available), this book radically challenges our picture of childhood, human rights, and law, both in and beyond the Israel/Palestine context. In the book, Dr. Viterbo reveals how Israel, rather than disregarding children's rights and international law, has used them to hone and legitimize its violence against Palestinians. Further, he exposes the human rights community's complicity in this situation, due to its problematic assumptions about childhood, its uncritical embrace of international law, and its recurring emulation of Israel's security discourse.

Hedi Viterbo is Senior Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University of London. His research examines issues concerning childhood, state violence, and sexuality from an interdisciplinary and global perspective. He is the author of Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and co-author of The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

Ekta Oza is a PhD Scholar at the School of Geography, Queen Mary University of London. Her PhD focuses on geographies of childhood and political agency in India-occupied-Kashmir. She is the lead researcher and author of the book, Restless in the City: Conversations with Young People in Resettlement Colonies (SAGE-Yoda Press, 2021).

Music: Little Idea by Scott Holmes (scottholmesmusic.com) / CC BY-NC