14 February 2018 - Post-Beveridge International Law
Channel: LSE Law School
Date: 2018-03-02

This event considers the relationship between Cold War International Law and the Beveridge moment. In particular, did the ideals of the Beveridge Report get translated into global legal idealism, or were they neutralised or depoliticized by international legal projects around human rights or co-existence? And did the Beveridge Moment in international law actually take place at the height of the Cold War in Bandung in 1955 with the establishment of the non-aligned movement (or still later with the New International Economic Order in the 1970s?).

The Cold War and the Beveridge Report occupy similar moments in time (Beveridge issues his report in 1942 a few month after the Anglo-Americans devise their report on the future of world organisation in the 1941 Atlantic Charter, the Attlee Government announces the implementation of the Report as the early Cold war divisions are beginning to appear at Nuremberg and San Francisco; and the NHS is created in 1948 while the Soviets are succeeding in getting their first production reactor operating).

This event brings together three world experts on international law during this post-war period to explore these topics.

Tatiana Borisova will bring her knowledge of Russia and Europe at the time of the Cold War to the table. She has co-edited the 2012 publication, The Legal Dimension in Cold War Interactions: Some Notes from the Field.

Matthew Craven is a leader of the Cold War and International Law Project. His work asks the question: is contemporary international law a product of the Cold War? He has also contributed to a wider debate about the future of the international legal and diplomatic order, as global divisions emerge that echo the ideological enmity and paranoia that pervaded the Cold War period.

If you want to learn how International Law has developed in the post-war period, and particularly through the time of Beveridge and the Cold War, you must attend this talk.

Tatiana Borisova is Associate Professor, Department of History, Higher School of Economics, St Petersburg.

Matthew Craven is Director of the Centre for the Study of Colonialism, Empire and International Law, SOAS.

Gerry Simpson is Professor of Public International Law, LSE Law. 

LSE Law (@lselaw) is an integral part of the School's mission, plays a major role in policy debates & in the education of lawyers and law teachers from around the world.

Twitter Hashtag for this event: #LSEBeveridge