Juris North: Sovereign Selves, Sovereign Peoples, Sovereign States: Black Self-Determination Reconsidered

 

Juris North 2026/27 Event

Sovereign Selves, Sovereign Peoples, Sovereign States: Black Self-Determination Reconsidered

Following successful roundtable events including our global response to crises in 2020, the work of Hans Kelsen in 2021 and 2022, contemporary non/anti-positivist legal theory in 2023 and queer theory, leadership and inclusion in 2024/2025, we are pleased to invite expressions of interest in a forthcoming event, “Sovereign Selves, Sovereign Peoples, Sovereign States: Black Self-Determination Reconsidered.”

This event seeks to bring together scholars, practitioners, policymakers and organisers to rethink the meaning and scope of sovereignty in relation to Black self-determination—moving beyond the state to consider the sovereignty of individuals, communities and overlapping political formations. Spanning themes such as territorial rights, political legitimacy, diaspora, economic autonomy, and shared or layered sovereignty, the event aims to foster interdisciplinary and globally grounded conversations about Black political futures.

At this stage, we are gauging interest and warmly invite those who may wish to contribute, collaborate, or participate to get in touch. Based on the level of interest, we anticipate issuing a formal call for abstracts and developing the event further.

Aims:

• To critically rethink sovereignty across scales—from the individual to the community to the state—and assess how these frameworks illuminate or constrain Black self-determination in contemporary and historical contexts.
• To bring diverse perspectives into dialogue, including scholars, practitioners, policymakers and organisers, in order to explore how different experiences, disciplines, and geographies shape understandings of Black political agency and autonomy.
• To foster collaboration and future-oriented exchange by identifying shared questions, emerging frameworks (such as overlapping or layered sovereignty) and opportunities for joint research, practice and knowledge production.

Led by:

Dr Jorge E. Núñez, Manchester Law School

Participants: 

Open to all. Ideally, multi-disciplinary, transversal and inclusive (academics, policymakers, people at large from different states, religions, genders, ethnicities, etc.).

Themes: ​

1. Black Self-Determination and Territorial Rights

• Claims to land, autonomy, and political authority in Black communities
• Historical and contemporary cases (e.g. Liberia, Haiti, Maroon societies)
• Territorial sovereignty and its limits
• Non-territorial or shared sovereignty models

2. Black Lives Matter and Political Legitimacy

• BLM and struggles for recognition and justice
• State legitimacy and the use of force
• Protest, resistance, and political authority
• Comparative global movements

3. Colonialism, Neo-Colonialism and the Global Order

• Colonial legacies and borders
• Resource extraction and global inequality
• Reparations and historical justice
• International law and racial hierarchy

4. Identity, Nationhood and Diaspora

• Defining “a people” in self-determination
• Pan-Africanism and diasporic identity
• Cultural belonging and exclusion
• Transnational solidarity

5. Policing, Violence and the Right to Security

• State violence and racialised policing
• Surveillance and control
• Abolitionist and community-based alternatives
• Human rights frameworks

6. Economic Self-Determination and Structural Inequality

• Land, housing, and economic autonomy
• Racial capitalism
• Cooperative and alternative economic models
• Global political economy and development

7. Cultural, Epistemic and Educational Self-Determination

• Decolonising knowledge and institutions
• Black intellectual traditions
• Representation and narrative power
• Education and liberation

8. Law, Justice and Institutional Reform

• Law as a site of racial hierarchy
• Constitutional and institutional design
• Transitional justice
• Limits and possibilities of international law

9. Migration, Borders and Mobility

• Racialised border regimes
• Citizenship and statelessness
• Mobility and constraints on autonomy
• Diasporic political participation

10. Environmental Justice and Land Stewardship

• Environmental racism
• Climate displacement
• Indigenous African ecological perspectives
• Resource sovereignty and sustainability

11. Shared Sovereignty, Overlapping Claims and Black Political Futures

• Layered and shared sovereignty models
• Governance beyond the nation-state
• Resolving competing political claims
• Future-oriented frameworks for justice and stability

Participation:

If you are interested in contributing to or collaborating on this event, we warmly invite you to submit an expression of interest by email to j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk by Friday 31 July 2026. At this stage, please indicate the theme(s) you are most interested in and the capacity in which you would like to be involved (e.g. presenting, organising, or other forms of collaboration).

Wednesday 22nd April 2026

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

X (formerly, Twitter): https://x.com/DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Juris North Special Workshops at 2026 IVR World Congress (Istanbul, 28 June- 3 July 2026)

 

2026 IVR World Congress

International Association Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy

June 28 – July 3, 2026

Congress Venue: Kadir Has University, Istanbul/Türkiye

Juris North Special Workshops at 2026 IVR Istanbul

Juris North will run the following Special Workshops at 2026 IVR Istanbul. Details following the relevant links and below (scroll down).

Special Workshop 6 (IVR Link):

Multidimensionality, Intersectionality and Internormativity

Special Workshop 7 (IVR Link):

God’s Sovereignty, Territorial Disputes and Multidimensionality

IVR 2026 Special Workshop 6: Multidimensionality, Intersectionality and Internormativity (Complete Details)

Following a series of scholarly engagements on sovereignty, cosmopolitanism, and global justice, and the many successful Juris North roundtable events, we are pleased to announce the theme of our IVR 2026 Special Workshop: Multidimensionality, Intersectionality and Internormativity. This workshop is led by Dr Jorge E. Núñez (Manchester Law School) and Gabriel Encinas (UABC).

We invite participants to present works-in-progress that engage with the complex interplay of legal, political, and normative systems in a globalized world. Papers may approach the theme from doctrinal, theoretical, or interdisciplinary perspectives.

Aims

• To explore how multidimensionality can enrich legal and political theory and practice.
• To examine the intersections of identity, power, and legal pluralism through intersectionality and interlegality.
• To develop frameworks that incorporate internormativity—recognizing the influence of non-legal normative systems (e.g., religion, culture, ethics) in shaping law and justice.
• To foster collaboration across disciplines and geographies in addressing crises like sovereignty conflicts, territorial disputes, and those pertaining to global justice.

Led by:

Dr Jorge E. Núñez, Manchester Law School

Dr Gabriel Encinas, UABC

Theme:

In an increasingly interconnected world, traditional legal paradigms often fall short in addressing the complexity of global justice. This workshop builds on the theory of multidimensionality, which challenges unidimensional approaches by integrating multiple dimensions of identity, context, and normativity. It incorporates:

• Intersectionality, revealing how overlapping forms of discrimination and disadvantage require critical and context-sensitive legal analyses.
• Interlegality, emphasizing how overlapping norms of diverse legal systems interact and may give rise to conflicting legal obligations.
• Internormativity, extending beyond law to include religious, cultural, and ethical norms.

Multidimensionality Explained

Multidimensionality acknowledges phenomena as a pluralism of pluralisms, encompassing diverse agents—individuals, communities and states—who play different roles across domestic, regional and international contexts. These roles can be understood factually, normatively and axiologically, and through their different modes of existence, including the metaphysical.

This framework allows for both traditional scholarly exploration (e.g. vertical and horizontal relationships) and non-traditional, uncharted perspectives, such as self-referred or chaotic dynamics. It is particularly suited to analyzing sovereignty conflicts where internormative tensions—between law, faith, ethics, and identity—are deeply entangled.

Together, these concepts offer a transformative lens for understanding sovereignty, cosmopolitanism, and international law. The workshop will explore how these frameworks can be applied to real-world crises such as territorial disputes, sovereignty conflicts, and human rights violations.

Hypotheses:

1. Legal and political systems must evolve from siloed structures to multidimensional frameworks that reflect the complexity of global interdependence.
2. Sovereignty can be reconceptualized as an entangled, shared, and context-sensitive construct rather than an absolute claim.
3. Intersectionality and internormativity are essential to achieving legitimate, inclusive, and pertinent legal outcomes in both domestic and international contexts.

Participants: 

Open to all. We encourage participation from scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and students across disciplines, geographies, and identities. The workshop aims to be inclusive, transversal, and collaborative.

Format:

The purpose of this special workshop is to showcase and develop works-in-progress rather than completed papers.

Participation:

If you are interested in sending an abstract (up to 500 words) for consideration or simply taking part in our roundtables, please send your email to j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk  by by Friday 27th March 2026.

The e-mail accompanying your abstract should also contain the following information:

• Subject line: “SW Multidimensionality, Intersectionality and Internormativity.”
• Name
• Institutional affiliation (if any).

IVR 2026 Special Workshop 7: God’s Sovereignty, Territorial Disputes and Multidimensionality (Complete Details)

Following a series of scholarly engagements on territorial disputes and sovereignty, and the many successful Juris North roundtable events, we are pleased to announce the theme of our IVR 2026 Special Workshop: God’s Sovereignty, Territorial Disputes and Multidimensionality. This workshop is led by Dr Jorge E. Núñez (Manchester Law School).

This workshop invites contributions that explore how religious conceptions of divine sovereignty shape both peacebuilding and conflict in the context of territorial disputes. We welcome works-in-progress that engage with the interplay between faith-based, legal, political and normative systems, especially in regions marked by sovereignty conflicts.

A central theme is internormativity—the interaction between legal and non-legal normative systems (such as religion, culture, and ethics)—as a lens to understand how divine authority is invoked in territorial claims and peacebuilding efforts.

We invite participants to present works-in-progress that engage with the complex interplay of legal, political, and normative systems in a globalized world. Papers may approach the theme from doctrinal, theoretical, or interdisciplinary perspectives.

Aims

• To examine how God’s sovereignty is interpreted across religious traditions and how these interpretations influence territorial claims and peace efforts.
• To explore the multidimensional and internormative nature of sovereignty conflicts, integrating rational (legal, political) and non-rational (faith-based, emotional) dimensions.
• To assess the role of religious actors, doctrines, and narratives in either escalating or mitigating territorial disputes.
• To foster cross-disciplinary dialogue on the normative, spiritual, and geopolitical dimensions of sovereignty.

Led by:

Dr Jorge E. Núñez, Manchester Law School

Theme:

The workshop builds on the premise that religion is neither inherently peaceful nor conflictual—its impact depends on context, interpretation, and leadership. By focusing on God’s sovereignty, we aim to uncover how divine authority is invoked to sanctify land, justify exclusion, or promote reconciliation.

We are particularly interested in how Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism conceptualize divine rule and how these conceptions influence real-world disputes such as:

• Israel–Palestine
• Kashmir
• Northern Ireland
• Cyprus
• South China Sea

These cases will be examined through an internormative and multidimensional lens, recognizing how religious, legal, and cultural norms intersect in shaping conflict and cooperation.

Multidimensionality Explained

Multidimensionality acknowledges phenomena as a pluralism of pluralisms, encompassing diverse agents—individuals, communities and states—who play different roles across domestic, regional and international contexts. These roles can be understood factually, normatively and axiologically, and through their different modes of existence, including the metaphysical.

This framework allows for both traditional scholarly exploration (e.g. vertical and horizontal relationships) and non-traditional, uncharted perspectives, such as self-referred or chaotic dynamics. It is particularly suited to analyzing sovereignty conflicts where internormative tensions—between law, faith, ethics, and identity—are deeply entangled.

Guiding Questions

• How do different religious traditions interpret God’s sovereignty, and how do these interpretations influence territorial claims?
• In what ways do religious teachings and leaders contribute to peacebuilding or conflict escalation?
• How can faith-based virtues like forgiveness, justice, and compassion be mobilized to resolve sovereignty conflicts?
• How does internormativity help us understand the coexistence and contestation of legal and non-legal norms in territorial disputes?
• What insights does multidimensionality offer for rethinking sovereignty beyond state-centric paradigms?

Participants: 

Open to all. We encourage participation from scholars, practitioners, policymakers, and students across disciplines, geographies, and identities. The workshop aims to be inclusive, collaborative, and exploratory.

Format:

This special workshop is designed to showcase and develop works-in-progress rather than completed papers. We welcome exploratory ideas, theoretical models, and case-based reflections.

Participation:

If you are interested in sending an abstract (up to 500 words) for consideration or simply taking part in our roundtables, please send your email to j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk  by Friday 27th March 2026.

The e-mail accompanying your abstract should also contain the following information:

• Subject line: “SW God’s Sovereignty, Territorial Disputes and Multidimensionality.”
• Name
• Institutional affiliation (if any).

Thursday 4th December 2025

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

X (formerly, Twitter): https://x.com/DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

 

2025 Juris North Roundtables and Annual Lecture

Who Knows the Law?

How can you know how you ought legally to behave? The answer may seem simple: just look at the laws of your country. If a law requires some action, you legally ought to perform it. If a law forbids it, you legally ought not to perform it. And if no law either requires or forbids it, you neither ought nor ought not to do so. This answer may well reflect most people’s views about the law. Yet it is not how lawyers think or courts decide. When lawyers argue before courts, and courts argue for their verdicts, their arguments are varied and complex, and their conclusions can surprise lay people. Can it be that most of us do not really know the law?

This divide between how lawyers and lay people think about what law and how it works carries jurisprudential implications. Some are well explored. When it comes to discussing what counts as valid law in a jurisdiction, for example, many theorists think that it is the attitudes of legal officials, not those of legal subjects in general, that matter. (The view that ‘if you want to know the law’, you must look at it as a ‘bad’ person, however, has also, famously, been voiced.) But does it mean that legal subjects have a different concept of law than do officials?

As to the epistemic gap, is it simply unavoidable? After all, a proper understanding of how a law can be relied upon to justify conclusions about the legal duties, rights, and liberties we actually do have relies on a range of interpretative techniques, theories, normative commitments, and skills—and maybe even virtues­—that those without legal training cannot be expected to acquire or develop. But then what are the normative implications? If citizens are pervasively mistaken about—or ignorant of—what the law is, how does that fit with our standard views on what the rule of law requires? Is the rule of law consistent with legal subjects not being able to know what duties, rights and liberties they have under the law? And what should we make of the age-old “principle”—itself sometimes enshrined in legislation—that ignorance of the law is no excuse?

Laws themselves are often written in a way that makes it them far from accessible to citizens, and there have long been calls for laws to be more ‘plainly’ written. But these demands, too, seem predicated on the false assumption that plainly written laws would enable us, by reading them, to know the duties, rights and liberties they give us. At any rate, whatever sort of ‘knowledge’ citizens may be said to have about the law, it is typically not acquired by actually reading statutes or case law—not to mention that it might well be humanly impossible for any one person, even a trained lawyer, to track and read all laws that already do apply to them. What would further clarity achieve?

Or should we say that the law simply works very differently in its general action-guiding function and when relied upon by courts justifying judicial decisions? Is the epistemic gap a feature, rather than a flaw, of legal systems? Is law opaque by design? And if so—is it normatively a good feature? Or one we should denounce (perhaps as a strategy for promoting compliance, acceptance, and deference towards those in positions of power)?

At the same time, it is also an open question whether lawyers themselves can be said to have knowledge of the law. There are many things they can know about the law: social facts about statutes, about what courts have decided and the reasons they have given, about different possible methods of interpreting them, about the history of their legal systems, and so on. They may also be able to predict what a court will decide on any given question with a high success rate. But knowledge of such facts does not by itself amount to knowledge of what the law—normatively considered, and correctly interpreted—is; of its normative effects for us all. If there can be knowledge proper of the law, what does it turn on?

We welcome submissions of abstracts of papers-in-progress for discussion at a series of two roundtables to be held online on Friday 17th October and Friday 14th November on any aspect of the epistemic divide between lay subjects and lawyers and its normative implications, and more generally on what knowledge of the law may amount to.

In each roundtable we will discuss three papers. Speakers will each have 15 minutes to summarise the key positions of their papers before the floor is open to general discussion among all attendees to discuss themes and links emerging from the presentations.

We welcome submissions not just from philosophers (from all relevant areas) and legal theorists but from other disciplines. Ideally, the roundtables will be multi-disciplinary, transversal, and inclusive of a wide range of perspectives.

Participation: Please send an anonymised abstract of up to 500 words for consideration to j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk by Friday 5th September. The e-mail accompanying your abstract should also contain the following information: Name, institutional affiliation (if any), and your preference regarding the month of your participation.

Led by: Luís Duarte d’Almeida (NOVA School of Law, Lisbon; University of Edinburgh)

Final event: The final event will be our first Juris North Annual Lecture in early December at Aberdeen Law School (online participation will be available for those who may not be able to join us in person).

• Keynote Speaker: Luís Duarte d’Almeida (NOVA School of Law, Lisbon; University of Edinburgh).
• Chair: Peter Cserne (Aberdeen Law School)

Wednesday 4th June 2025

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

X (formerly, Twitter): https://x.com/DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

 

Juris North monthly discussions [Term 2 2023/24]

Session 1. Week commencing Monday 29th January 2024, 3pm, “How to Resolve Peer Disagreement about the Law,” Mr Alexander Houghton, PhD. Candidate, The University of Surrey, hosted by Manchester Law School 

Session 2. Wednesday 7th February 2024, 3pm, “The Asymmetries of Associative Obligation,” Mr Xi Zhang, JSD Candidate, New York University School of Law, hosted by Manchester Law School. 

NOTE: booking will be open in January 2024. 

Thursday 21st December 2023

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Juris North+ 2024 Special Workshop “Queer Theory, Leadership and Inclusion” at IVR Seoul [7-12 July 2024]

 

SW Queer Theory, Leadership and Inclusion

IVR 2024 Seoul, South Korea

[7-12 July 2024]

Convenors

Jorge Nunez (Manchester Law School, Reader in Legal Philosophy (Jurisprudence), Political Philosophy and International Relations)j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk

Anna Chronopoulou (Westminster Law School)

Following successful roundtable events exploring the work of Hans Kelsen in 2021 and 2022, and contemporary non/anti-positivist legal theory in 2023, and the several special workshops organised by us at previous IVR events, Juris North is pleased to announce this special workshop on Queer Theory, Leadership and Inclusion.

We invite participants to present work-in-progress that engages with an aspect of queer theory. Papers may approach this theme from either a doctrinal or theoretical perspective.

Aims

• To critically assess domestic, regional and/or global crossovers with a specific thematic area.
• To explore different stakeholder journeys and views
• To seek different perspectives and exchanges about the same theme and explore possibilities for collaboration in terms of research, practice and education.

Led by

Dr Jorge E. Núñez, Manchester Law School
Dr Anna Chronopoulou, Westminster Law School

Aims

• To critically assess domestic, regional and/or global crossovers with a specific thematic area.
• To explore different stakeholder journeys and views
• To seek different perspectives and exchanges about the same theme and explore possibilities for collaboration in terms of research, practice and education.

Participants

Open to all. Ideally, multi-disciplinary, transversal and inclusive (academics, policy-makers,
people at large from different states, religions, genders, ethnicities, etc.).

Format

The purpose of this special workshop is to showcase and develop works-in-progress rather than completed papers.

Final event

We intend to follow up the special workshop with a one-day event in September/October 2024 where attendees can present their final papers. Though in-person attendance is encouraged, the final event will be hosted in a hybrid-format at Manchester Law School and/or Westminster Law School.
We are currently in discussions with Hart as to the possibility of publishing presented papers as an edited collection.

Participation

If you are interested in sending an abstract (up to 500 words) for consideration or simply taking part in our roundtables, please send your email to j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk by Friday 29th March 2024.

The e-mail accompanying your abstract should also contain the following information

• Name;
• Institutional affiliation (if any);
• Subject line: Please indicate “SW Queer Theory.”

Thursday 21st December 2023

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world

Juris North 2024 Special Workshop “Global Justice and Global Order” at IVR Seoul [7-12 July 2024]

 

SW Global Justice and Global Order

IVR 2024 Seoul, South Korea

[7-12 July 2024]

Convenors

Prof. Dr. Thomas Pogge (Yale University)

Dr. Jorge E. Núñez (Manchester Law School)

Following successful Juris North roundtable events exploring the work of Hans Kelsen in 2021 and 2022, contemporary non/anti-positivist legal theory in 2023, queer theory, leadership and inclusion in 2024, Juris North and ASAP (Academics Stand Against Poverty) are pleased to announce the theme of our 2024/2025 Roundtable Series: Global Justice. We invite participants to present work-in-progress that engages with an aspect of queer theory. Papers may approach this theme from either a doctrinal or theoretical perspective.

Aims

• To deepen and broaden the understanding of how to address partiality and unfairness in the world order
• To explore different stakeholder journeys and view
• To seek different perspectives and exchanges and explore possibilities for collaboration in terms of research, practice and education.

Led by

Prof. Dr Thomas Pogge, Yale University
Dr Jorge E. Núñez, Manchester Law School

Theme

Any community or population consists of people who are different in many senses. Pluralism is a permanent feature. Similar to the civil society, the international community includes several agents of very different natures (sovereign states, cultures, subcultures, religions, individuals). People in civil societies may be weak or strong, wealthy or poor, classed as abled or disabled, and so on, while the international arena includes developed and non-developed nations, democratic and non-democratic legal systems, populated and not populated territories, sovereign states, pseudo-states, quasi-states, and other. Both in the case of civil societies and the international community, national and international agents, respectively recognize some inter-subject rules of conduct.
In any circumstances in which there are agents of different kinds their interrelations will introduce identity and conflict of interests. As a result, some criteria are needed for choosing the principles that can guarantee decision-making impartiality and the fairness of the outcome. Arguably, in the case of civil societies, many national legal orders already offer rules and mechanisms to secure normatively and effectively impartiality in the way in which different persons are considered and a certain degree of fairness (or at least, the ability to challenge unfair situations).
The global order is very different. Although there are international rules and mechanisms that in principle acknowledge equality of states and give central roles to non-governmental organizations and, to an extent, people (for example, European Union law), realpolitik shows clearly that impartiality in the way different international agents are considered is scattered (for example, there are some states that are “more equal” than others) and therefore, the fairness of the current world order is highly questionable.

Hypotheses

1. The global order can progress from a pluralism of pluralisms to one version of pluralism that is widely sharable when no world order can be equally hospitable to all states, cultures, religions and persons it makes room for, or when no world order can please everyone in regard to how much inequality it engenders.
2. Sovereign states can cooperate together and accept limitations without sacrificing their sovereignty. Similarly, other international agents can cooperate together and accept limitations without compromising their freedom.
3. Individuals can be (i) partial for their state under rules of a fair competition and also be (ii) impartial in their defense and promotion of those fair rules themselves.

Participants

Open to all. Ideally, multi-disciplinary, transversal and inclusive (academics, policy-makers, people at large from different states, religions, genders, ethnicities, etc.).

Format

The purpose of this special workshop is to showcase and develop works-in-progress rather than completed papers

Follow-up events

We intend to follow up the special workshop with a set of roundtables and a conference. Inperson attendance will be encouraged. Each event will be hosted in a hybrid-format at Manchester Law School (United Kingdom) and/or Yale University (United States).

Roundtables Dates/Times: monthly meeting
October 2024: Date/Time TBC
November 2024: Date/Time TBC
December 2024: Date/Time TBC

Final event

The series will culminate in a one-day event in April/May 2025 where attendees can present papers that have been updated as a result of the series.
We are currently in discussions with Hart as to the possibility of publishing presented papers as an edited collection.

Participation

If you are interested in sending an abstract (up to 500 words) for consideration or simply taking part in our roundtables, please send your email to j.nunez@mmu.ac.uk by Friday 29th March 2024.

The e-mail accompanying your abstract should also contain the following information

• Name;
• Institutional affiliation (if any);
• Subject line: Please indicate “SW Global Justice and Global Order.

 

Thursday 21st December 2023

Dr Jorge Emilio Núñez

Twitter: @DrJorge_World

https://drjorge.world