UCL Laws Inaugural Lecture: Professor Kimberley Trapp - Violence in and of International Law

Inaugural Lecture, Friday 18 November 2022
‘Violence in and of International Law’
delivered by Professor Kimberley Trapp (Faculty of Laws, UCL)

Chair: Judge Bruno Simma (Iran-US Claims Tribunal)

About this Inaugural Lecture
International lawyers think (worry?) a fair bit about whether international law is a ‘system’, particularly in the context of a body of law which is ever expanding to cover more and more aspects of our individual and collective human endeavours. At its most fundamental, and as a basic prerequisite for the governance and facilitation of all this human activity, international law ought to regulate and restrain violence with a view to protecting the lives and security of all the inhabitants of our beautiful (if ailing) planet. In this lecture, Professor Trapp will explore how the costs and benefits of protecting life and security in the particular context of wars of self-defence are distributed; whether the overlapping and layered regimes of international law which apply to such wars can or do give effect to equal respect for human life. Professor Trapp will focus in particular on the jus ad bellum, international humanitarian law and international human rights law and consider whether the layering of these regimes within the international legal ‘system’ does (could? should?) capture a broader sense of proportionality which recognises and respects the lives of individuals on all sides of the self-defence calculus.

About the Speaker
Kimberley Trapp is Professor of Public International Law at the UCL Faculty of Laws. She is co-director of the PIL Pro Bono Project and served as the Faculty's Vice-Dean (International) from 2018-2022. Kimberley’s research addresses the way in which the international rules-based order responds to, regulates and constrains violence – including in respect of the law on the use of force, international humanitarian law, terrorism suppression, and international human rights law in the security context, as well as the State responsibility and treaty law frameworks which underpin and shape these specialist bodies of law.

About Current Legal Problems
The Current Legal Problems (CLP) lecture series and annual volume was established over fifty five years ago at the Faculty of Laws, University College London and is recognised as a major reference point for legal scholarship.