Join us to launch this new book "Queering Governance and International Law: The Case of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia" published by Oxford University Press by our University of Technology Sydney (UTS) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS) academic Dr Caitlin Biddolph. Fellow FASS academic Dr Jess Gifkins will chair the launch. Professor Laura J. Shepherd (University of Sydney) and Associate Professor Penny Griffin (UNSW Sydney) will provide some remarks, and Dr Caitlin Biddolph will present a brief outline of the book, followed by Q&A.

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.

Receive a 30% discount by using the code AAFLYQ6 when you purchase the book here.

Speaker bios:

Caitlin Biddolph is a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. She is currently researching the global governance of transitional justice through queer decolonial perspectives. Caitlin’s doctoral research explored discourses and logics of gender, sexuality, civilisation, and violence at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. More broadly, she is interested in queer, feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial approaches to global politics, particularly global governance, international law, and transitional justice. Her monograph, Queering Governance and International Law, was published in March 2025 with Oxford University Press.

Jess Gifkins is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Technology Sydney. Her research is on diplomatic practices at the United Nations and the prevention of mass atrocity crimes. Her book, Inside the UN Security Council: Legitimation Practices and Darfur was published by Oxford University Press in 2023. She has previously won a research award for an article she coauthored with Professor Jason Ralph in the European Journal of International Relations. She holds an honorary position with Protection Approaches in London as Queering Atrocity Prevention Research Fellow.

Penny Griffin is Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations in the School of Social Sciences at UNSW Sydney. She works specifically in the areas of gender, sexuality and feminist studies, international political economy, the politics of development, global economic governance, international relations, and the (gendered) politics of visual and popular culture. Penny has published widely. Her book Gendering the World Bank was the winner of the 2010 BISA International Political Economy Group (IPEG) Book Prize. Her current research examines the global political economy of crisis from a gender perspective.

Laura J. Shepherd is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her primary research focuses on the United Nations Security Council’s Women, Peace and Security agenda, and attendant dynamics of gender, violence, and security governance. Laura has published many books, including, most recently Governing the Feminist Peace: Vitality and Failure in the Women, Peace and Security Agenda, co-authored with Paul Kirby (2024, Columbia UP) and The Self, and Other Stories: Being, Knowing, Writing (2023, Rowman & Littlefield). She has finally quit Twitter, and she now posts occasionally on BlueSky as @drljshepherd.bsky.social.