Iain Scobbie
About/Bio
Iain Scobbie is Professor of Public International Law at the University of Manchester, Co-Director of the Manchester International Law Centre, and Visiting Professor of International Law at SOAS, University of London, where he was previously the Sir Joseph Hotung Research Professor in Law, Human Rights, and Peace Building in the Middle East. He studied at the Universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge, and at the Australian National University.
Recently Published
Sir Elihu Lauterpacht: A Celebration of His Life and Work
October 25, 2017
Iain Scobbie
A memorial symposium celebrating the life and work of Sir Eli Lauterpacht was held at the Faculty of Law in Cambridge on Friday, October 13, 2017, followed the next day by a memorial service in the chapel of Trinity College, Cambridge. Both were extremely well attended, with about 200 people at the symposium and more at the memorial…
Celebrating Professor Sir Elihu Lauterpacht CBE QC LLD, 13 July1928–8 February 2017: When Death Becomes Really Personal
February 14, 2017
Iain Scobbie
I had just returned from work on 9 February when I received a text message from my good friend and colleague Jean d’Aspremont. He asked if I had heard the “sad news about Eli Lauterpacht”. Jean did not need to be explicit. I knew that Eli had been ill for some time. I knew that Jean was telling…
Strange Angel: Some Reflections on War
December 14, 2015
Iain Scobbie
The philosopher and cultural critic Walter Benjamin owned a print, Angelus novus, by Paul Klee. In his essay, Theses on the philosophy of history, Benjamin’s Ninth Thesis recalled that it depicted: An angel…who looks as though he were about to distance himself from something which he is staring at. His eyes…
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Popular articles by Iain Scobbie
Justice Levy’s Legal Tinsel: The Recent Israeli Report on the Status of the West Bank and Legality of the Settlements
September 6, 2012
Iain Scobbie
In February 2012, the Israeli government appointed a commission, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Levy, to “examine the status of building in Judea and Samaria”—in other words, to examine the legality of settlements, whether authorised by the Israeli government or not, in the West Bank. On 9 July 2012, the Commission’s report was released. The report is…
Prolonged Occupation and Article 6(3) of the Fourth Geneva Convention: Why the International Court Got It Wrong Substantively and Procedurally
June 16, 2015
Iain Scobbie
I recently gave a paper on prolonged occupation at a UN Roundtable on Legal Aspects of the Question of Palestine. In the law of armed conflict, the notion of “prolonged occupation” is absent from the governing international instruments. It has been little discussed in commentaries, and Adam Roberts cautions that attempting to define…
In Bed with Alcibiades: Theory and Doctoral research
January 4, 2013
Iain Scobbie
Douglas Guilfoyle has published a couple of very useful practical pieces here on the process of doing a PhD in international law (here and here). Professor Andrea Bianchi recently asked me to speak to the new law research students at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva on the importance of theory in…