Law and Race Speaker series: 'Applying past laws to ongoing wrongs? The limits of inter-temporality when envisioning reparations for historic enslavement'

Speakers: Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan & Ashrutha Rai

Henning Grosse Ruse-Khan is a Professor of Law at the University of Cambridge and a Fellow of King’s College. He is co-Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge and a Fellow of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. Henning’s research and teaching focuses on law and technology, international economic law (in particular intellectual property protection) and development issues. Henning has also worked on aspects of reparatory justice in international law, in particular related to transatlantic chattel slavery.

Ashrutha Rai is a PhD candidate at the Faculty of Law, University of Cambridge. Her research focuses on public international law with an emphasis on international human rights and humanitarian law. Her doctoral thesis is on the protection of intangible cultural heritage in armed conflict.

The presentation will consider the extent to which the principle of inter-temporality limits claims for reparation under international law for historic acts of enslavement. In doing so, it will address three aspects: first, the rationale for and exceptions to the principle of inter-temporality in international law i.e., the idea that an act must be considered in light of international law contemporary with it. We will consider examples departing from this principle in the practice of international courts and tribunals, where a range of moral, legal and procedural justifications have been mobilised to enable retroactive application of more contemporary doctrines and rules. We then discuss the role of morality in determining the legality of an act, as well as its continuing consequences. Against this background, we propose an alternative, more nuanced methodology for viewing questions of competing temporal laws, based on conflict-of-laws methods. Finally, the presentation considers the application of this alternative approach to inter-temporality to the case of reparations for transatlantic chattel slavery. This is then not only about the question of its legality at the time, but touches upon the historic economic and political disparities between States on either side of the transatlantic slave trade, and needs to take account of ongoing disadvantages that affect the descendants of the enslaved in contemporary societies.

Anyone interested in this event can also download the accompanying slides:

(The talk will be followed by a drinks reception)

For further information, please contact the convenors, Dr Kirsty Hughes (kh391@cam.ac.uk) and Vandita Khanna (vk347@cam.ac.uk)