The SOAS Centre for Gender Studies is thrilled to be hosting a symposium to celebrate the contribution of Professor Dianne Otto – Francine V McNiff Chair in Human Rights Law, Director of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities (IILAH) and Co-Director of its International Human Rights Law Program at Melbourne Law School – to international law, collective security, queer approaches and feminist thinking.

The one day symposium will see key scholars engage with Professor Otto’s work under the themes of security, rights, methods and queer before closing with an address from Di.

Professor Otto was an original international law grrl – in the sense of publishing from the mid-1990s on feminist approaches to international law and, by the mid-2000s, contributing key scholarship on the emerging collective security structure on women, peace and security, including the seminal piece A Sign of “Weakness”? Disrupting Gender certainties in the Implementation of Security Council Resolution 1325  in Michigan Journal of Gender and Law.  The article was arguably the first critical feminist engagement with the emergent women, peace and security framework as it developed in the work of the UN Security Council. Professor Otto’s tremendous contribution also places her at the forefront of approaches to queering international law and a long time contributor to the development and critique of international human rights law, having edited the three volume set on Gender Issues and Human Rights published in 2013. Her recent publications on Queering Gender Identity in International Law and Decoding Crisis in International Law are must reads for anyone with an eye on cutting edge developments in critical engagements with international law.

Professor Otto was was a member of the Expert Panel at the Asia-Pacific Regional Women’s Hearing on Gender-Based Violence in Conflict held in Phnom Penh in 2012 and has a long history of NGO collaboration and activism: too long to list here! Do come along on September 2nd in the Khalili Lecture Theatre at SOAS, University of London to help us celebrate a wonderful international law grrl Prof. Further event details here or contact cgs@soas.ac.uk