Faculty of Science, Technology and Medicine
Faculty of Law, Economics and Finance
Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
Interdisciplinary Centre for Security, Reliability and Trust
Luxembourg Centre for Systems Biomedicine
Luxembourg Centre for Contemporary and Digital History
Luxembourg Centre for European Law
Luxembourg Centre for Socio-Environmental Systems
This talk examines how liberal democracies legitimise violence through law. From “humanitarian” interventions to migrant deaths at sea, it shows how appeals to the universal, logical, and objective form of law make violence appear just, rational, and inevitable. Focusing on two cases, NATO’s so-called humanitarian intervention in Libya in 2011 and the deadliest Channel shipwreck in 2021, it explores how French political actors legitimised violence in both contexts through their appeal to law.
Shoshana Fine is Associate Professor of Political Science at ESPOL, the Catholic University of Lille, and a fellow of the Institut Convergences Migrations. Her research explores migration, political violence, and the politics of international law. Her forthcoming book, La violence au nom de la loi (co-authored with Thomas Lindemann), will be published by Presses de Sciences Po.
Lecture within the UniGR-CBS lecture series “Border Realities 2025/2026: Humanitarian Challenges at Borders “.