Dr Gavin Sullivan to discuss ‘The Law of the List’ at LCIL Friday Lecture
Sat 23 January 2021

Dr Gavin Sullivan, a Reader in International Human Rights Law at Edinburgh Law School, will give insight into his recently published book - ‘The Law of the List: UN Counterterrorism Sanctions and the Politics of Global Security Law’ at a webinar hosted by the University of Cambridge as part of the Lauterpacht Centre Friday lecture series.
The Law of the List
In his book, Dr Sullivan explores how the technology of the list, the spread of violent extremism, 9/11, the rise of ISIL and movement of 'foreign terrorist fighters' are dramatically expanding the powers of the UN Security Council to govern risky cross-border flows and threats by non-state actors.
The Law of the List is an interdisciplinary study of global security law in motion and the first detailed socio-legal analysis of the UN Security Council’s counterterrorism listing regime. It shows how governing though the technology of the list is transforming the Security Council and the international legal order in far-reaching ways, engaging with current debates in international law, critical security studies, global governance, Science and Technology Studies, governmentality scholarship and socio-legal studies.
The Law of the List was awarded the 2021 International Studies Association STAIR Book Award for research bringing STS into dialogue with global politics and the 2020 International Studies Association International Law Book Award. It is available to read via the Cambridge University Press website.
Webinar details
The event will take place on Friday 5 February 2021, from 13:00 GMT.
During this upcoming webinar, the findings of Sullivan’s publication will be discussed and explored - empirically following the UN Al Qaeda and ISIL terrorism list and proposing a ‘praxiographic’ approach to global security law that ethnographically studies practices in ‘structure-making sites’ (Latour 2005). Dr Sullivan will show how Science and Technology Studies (STS) and socio-legal studies can offer valuable insights into how international law, international organisations and global governance are transforming in response to transboundary threats and new opportunities for global data harvesting.