Grietje Baars

Lecturer in Law
Tel: +44 (0)20 7040 8399
Email: grietje.baars.1@city.ac.uk

Dr Grietje Baars joined The City Law School in September 2011 and teaches International Commercial Arbitration and Criminal Law. She previously taught international law at University of East London and University College London.

Her first degree is in English Literature (University of Utrecht, The Netherlands and Harting Scholarship at UCL). After converting to law at The College of Law in London she qualified as a solicitor into the commercial department of City firm Bird & Bird in 2002. She gained an LL.M in Public International Law from UCL in 2004 and is currently completing her PhD - entitled "Law Congealing Capitalism: On the (im)possibility of using international criminal law to restrain business in conflict" at UCL.

Grietje has held visiting scholarships at Das Franz-von-Liszt-Institute for International Criminal Law, Humboldt University, Berlin, the Minerva Center for Human Rights, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, the Cegla Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Law at the Buchmann Faculty of Law, Tel Aviv University and the Institute of Law, Birzeit University.

As a part-time PhD student, Grietje combined her academic work with several years of legal practice in the human rights and international humanitarian law fields, most recently as a member of the secretariat for the Fact-finding Mission on Gaza led by Justice Goldstone. She also co-founded a human rights and IHL Clinic at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem, served as the legal advisor to Swedish NGO Diakona (Middle East Office) and has lectured widely on IHL, Israel/Palestine, international criminal law, and the human and economic aspects of conflict.

Grietje's main research interests lie in international law and theory of international law. Grietje researches and analyses discreet areas of international law through the prism of 'the political economy of international law' so as to discover both the materialist bases and ideological functions of international law, their workings and effects. Grietje is also interested in the other 'materiality' of international law, namely in how the physical environment, for example the architecture of a military checkpoint, and the physical as well as the emotional journey of crossing such a checkpoint, inscribes, influences, or subverts meaning in international law.

Publications :

• "Capitalism's Victor's Justice? The hidden story of the prosecution of industrialists post-WWII and subsequently" in: Simpson, G. and K. Heller (eds.): Untold Stories: Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials, Oxford University Press, forthcoming, 2012.

• "The Erez Terminal /Beit Hanoun Crossing: Reading Materiality into International law in Gaza" forthcoming, 2012.

• "Law: Congealed capitalism or a site for class struggle? Law's emancipatory potential examined" in, ed. Estermann, J. Der Kampf ums Recht: Akteure und Interessen im Blick der insterdisziplinären Rechtsforschung, forthcoming, 2012.

• "'Reform or Revolt?' Polanyian v Marxian perspectives on the regulation of 'the economic'" Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, forthcoming, 2011.

• "Corrie et al v Caterpillar: Litigating Corporate Complicity in Israeli Violations of International Law in the U.S. Courts" Yearbook of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law 2005/6.

Book Reviews

• Review of Pahuja, S.: Decolonising International Law: Development, Economic Growth and the Politics of Universality, Juridicum, forthcoming 2012.

• Review of McNally, D.: Monsters of the Market: Zombies, Vampires and Global Capitalism, Historical Materialism, forthcoming 2012.

• Review of Wilson, E: Savage Republic: De Indis of Hugo Grotius, Republicanism and Dutch Hegemony within the Early Modern World-System (c. 1600-1619), EJIL, forthcoming 2011

• Review of Dine, J.: Corporations, International Trade and Human Rights, Cambridge University Press, 2005, Int. T.L.R. 2006, 12(1)

• Review of Cho, S.: Free Markets and Social Regulation: A Reform Agenda of the Global Trading System, Toward a New International Economic Law, Kluwer, 2002, Int. T.L.R. 2005, 11(2), 68-69.

• Review of Sherwyn, D. and M. Yelnosky (eds.): NYU Selected Essays On Labor And Employment Issues, Volume 2, Kluwer Law International, I.C.C.L.R. 2004, 15(4), 123-124.

• Review of Matsushita, M, T. Schoenbaum. P. Mavroidis: The World Trade Organization: Law, Practice And Policy, CUP, 2004, I.C.C.L.R. 2003, 14(10), 333.

Conference Papers

• "Law: Congealed capitalism or a site for class struggle? Law's emancipatory potential examined" Conference "Der Kampf ums Recht", Zweiter Kongress der deutschsprachigen Rechtssoziologie-Vereinigungen, University of Vienna, 1-3 September 2011.

• "The Erez Terminal/The Beit Hanoun Crossing" Workshop: The Phenomenology of Global Order: Inquiries into the Materiality of International Law, SOAS Centre for the Study of Colonialism, Empire and International Law, University of London, 7 September 2011

• "Capitalism's Victor's Justice? The hidden story of the prosecution of industrialists post-WWII and subsequently Symposium: Untold Stories: Hidden Histories of War Crimes Trials, University of Melbourne, 14-16 October 2010.

• "Rage Against the Business Machine: Civil Society vs the Individual Corporate Actor" Conference "Socializing Economic Relationships - New Perspectives and Methods for Analysing Transnational Risk Regulation" Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, Oxford University, 15-16 April 2010.

• "Business and Human Rights: Marketized Compliance or Compliance with the Market?" International Law Association British Branch Annual Conference, Oxford Brookes University, 15-16 April 2010.

• "International Law and the Encoding of Empire's Privatisation" Critical Approaches to International Law Conference "The Force of International Law" - Birkbeck College, London, 15-17 May 2006.

• "The Liability of Corporations in International Criminal Law: Applying concepts of international law and corporate theory." International Law Association British Branch Annual Conference, UCL/SOAS, London, 3-4 March 2006

• "The Enforcement of International Law on Corporations Operating in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories" Conference: The Question of Palestine in International Law, SOAS, London, 26-27 November 2005.