Dr Henrietta Zeffert presents at Geneva Graduate Institute, Geneva

24 Mar 2026

This conference brought together an interdisciplinary group of experts to explore the intersections of sovereignty, land rights, and contemporary forms of territorial capture.

Dr Henrietta Zeffert was invited to present her research on the Chagos Islands, international law and the unhomely at the interdisciplinary conference, ‘Lands for the Taking: Neo-imperialism and the possibilities and limits of international law’, 12-13 March 2026, at the Geneva Graduate Institute, Geneva, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation, the Geneva Graduate Institute and the Heinrich Böll Stiftung Human Security Global Unit.

With the principles of sovereignty, self-determination, permanent sovereignty over natural resources, and communal property rights/public goods as well as the stability of private property rights of some under attack in innumerable conflicts worldwide - most recently, the unfolding conflicts in Iran, Israel, Lebanon and across the Gulf - serious questions arise about contemporary legal conceptions of land—as property, as territory, as a natural environment, and as a resource. Whereas the doctrinal separation of lawful and unlawful violence in international law along public/private, domestic/international, peace/armed conflict binaries has long been problematised, the political economy of violence has only recently galvanised increased attention in the discipline of international law, as have cronyism and the corporate capture of state authority.

This conference brought together an interdisciplinary group of experts to explore the intersections of sovereignty, land rights, and contemporary forms of territorial capture. Keynotes were given by Professor Vasuki Nesiah (NYU), Professor Priya Gupta (McGill) and Professor Nico Kirsch (Geneva Graduate Institute).

As part of the conference, the UN Working Group on Peasants and Rural Workers’ rights also led a participatory consultation ahead of its concept note on the right to land. Dr Zeffert expresses her gratitude to the conference organisers, Dr Lys Kulamadayil and Davidzo Dhumbura, for their leadership of these enriching discussions that come at a critical time in global legal history.