Dr Matthew Nicholson's Outputs (8)

On the Origins of Human Rights (2020)
Journal Article
Nicholson, M. (2020). On the Origins of Human Rights. European Human Rights Law Review, 5, 512-525

This article reviews Pamela Slotte and Miia Halme-Tuomisaari’s edited volume Revisiting the Origins of Human Rights, treating it as an opportunity to reconsider theories about the history and origins of human rights thought and practice. It argues th... Read More about On the Origins of Human Rights.

Justice and the Slaughter Bench: Essays on Law’s Broken Dialectic by Alan Norrie. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, ISBN: 9781138955110 (2018)
Journal Article
Nicholson, M. (2019). Justice and the Slaughter Bench: Essays on Law’s Broken Dialectic by Alan Norrie. Abingdon: Routledge, 2017, ISBN: 9781138955110. Legal Studies, 39(1), 183-184. https://doi.org/10.1017/lst.2018.37

On 'The Horniman Walrus' (2017)
Journal Article
Nicholson, M. (2017). On 'The Horniman Walrus'. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 68(3), 370-390

London and international environmental law. Drawing on my experience of reproducing this walrus in clay, it uses the walrus as a microcosm of international environmental law’s engagement with nature in the context of cultural and philosophical trends... Read More about On 'The Horniman Walrus'.

Psychoanalyzing International Law(yers) (2017)
Journal Article
Nicholson, M. (2017). Psychoanalyzing International Law(yers). German law journal, 18(3), 441-510. https://doi.org/10.1017/s2071832200022033

This article reads the work of Martti Koskenniemi – arguably the most significant international legal thinker of the post-Cold War era – as an exercise in (Lacanian) psychoanalysis. Excavating the links between Koskenniemi and French psychoanalyst Ja... Read More about Psychoanalyzing International Law(yers).

Majority rule and human rights: identity and non-identity in SAS v France (2016)
Journal Article
Nicholson, M. (2016). Majority rule and human rights: identity and non-identity in SAS v France. Northern Ireland Legal Quarterly, 67(2), 115-136

This article considers the July 2014 decision of the European Court of Human Rights in S.A.S v France in which the court upheld the legality of a ban on the wearing of the burqa and niqab in public places. Exploring the connection between S.A.S and a... Read More about Majority rule and human rights: identity and non-identity in SAS v France.

Walter Benjamin and the re-imageination of international law (2015)
Journal Article
Nicholson, M. (2016). Walter Benjamin and the re-imageination of international law. Law and Critique, 27(1), 103-129. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-015-9170-z

Drawing on the work of Walter Benjamin, Harold Bloom, and Theodor Adorno this article proposes the re-imageination of international law as a ‘pure means’ of representation rather than a means of exercising control over the world.

The political unconscious of the English foreign act of state and non-justiciability doctrine(s) (2015)
Journal Article
Nicholson, M. (2015). The political unconscious of the English foreign act of state and non-justiciability doctrine(s). International and Comparative Law Quarterly, 64(4), 743-781. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0020589315000299

This article reviews the history and politics of the English foreign act of State and non-justiciability doctrines in light of recent judgments in Belhaj and Rahmatullah. It argues that the doctrines have a political unconscious—a term borrowed from... Read More about The political unconscious of the English foreign act of state and non-justiciability doctrine(s).

Fragmented method: Walter Benjamin, law, and representation in Joseph S. Jenkins’ Inheritance Law and Political Theology in Shakespeare and Milton (2014)
Journal Article
Nicholson, M. (2014). Fragmented method: Walter Benjamin, law, and representation in Joseph S. Jenkins’ Inheritance Law and Political Theology in Shakespeare and Milton. Law & Literature, 26(3), 389-398. https://doi.org/10.1080/1535685x.2014.928503

This review article considers the place of Walter Benjamin's thought in Joseph S. Jenkins' recent book and offers some broad reflections on the possibilities of Benjaminian legal scholarship.