The Faculty of Law of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Columbia Law School invite the submission of written proposals for an international conference on the international law legacies of the Palestine mandate, to be held in Jerusalem on 21-22 June 2015, and for subsequent publication. From their call for papers:

Recipients of this call for papers are invited to submit proposals to present a paper at the conference. Some authors of proposals selected for the conference will be offered partial or full coverage of flight and accommodation expenses.

IMPORTANT DATES

Deadline for Submitting 1-2 Page Proposal: 30 September 2014

Deadline for Submitting the Article (Selected Proposals): 15 April 2015

BACKGROUND

On 24 July 1922, the Council of the League of Nations confirmed the mandate for Palestine. On midnight, 14 May 1948, the mandate came to an end. Much that happened before, during and beyond these dates remain contested – and much remains uncharted.

This is particularly patent when it comes to the international legal aspects of the Palestine mandate. Conflict historians have long been captivated by that period; historians of Israeli law have focused on the law of mandatory Palestine for some time now. Yet, since the 1940s, little to none of that attention has been turned to the role international law has played in the Palestine mandate, or the role of the Palestine mandate in affecting the course of international law. International law practitioners, scholars, and historians, it seems, are occasionally willing to reengage with some of the old debates surrounding the Palestine mandate (such as the locus of sovereignty in mandate territories), as has the International Court of Justice in the Wall Advisory Opinion. Seldom do they engage in a broader reflection on the legal import of the Palestine mandate or on its legacies. The conference seeks to ponder on and rectify this glaring gap. By focusing on legalities and legacies of the Palestine mandate in international law, we intend to explore whether, today, there is more to the Palestine mandate than a crucial or futile contestation – legal or political (In 1925, the Supreme Court of Palestine, sitting as a High Court of Justice, entertained the view that the mandate was ‘a political and not a legal document … likely to contain expressions of good intention which are more easy to write than to read’)? – over historic rights, entitlements, and narratives. A convenient point of departure may be the League of Nations mandate system. Here, renewed interest by international legal and diplomatic historians could furnish fresh perspectives on how the mandate system, and the Palestine mandate, were conceived, enacted, theorized, practiced, and terminated. Equally, the Palestine and other mandates can provide new vantage points from which to gauge contemporary international law debates (e.g. the termination of belligerent occupation by fiat of an international organization resolution, or the legal framework(s) governing post-conflict governance and territorial administration.

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