Cambridge University Press Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine

In this book, Hedi Viterbo radically challenges our picture of law, human rights, and childhood, both in and beyond the Israel/Palestine context. He reveals how Israel, rather than disregarding international law and children's rights, has used them to hone and legitimize its violence against Palestinians. He exposes the human rights community's complicity in this situation, due to its problematic assumptions about childhood, its uncritical embrace of international law, and its recurring emulation of Israel's security discourse. He examines how, and to what effect, both the state and its critics manufacture, shape, and weaponize the categories 'child' and 'adult.' Bridging disciplinary divides, Viterbo analyzes hundreds of previously unexamined sources, many of which are not publicly available. Bold, sophisticated, and informative, Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine provides unique insights into the ever-tightening relationship between law, children's rights, and state violence, at both the local and global levels. Review 'Outstandingly original in its conceptual and methodological claims, this book exposes how international and national law collude with norms, myths, and narratives of globalized childhood to pathologize protest and promote the regulation, disciplining, and incarceration of Palestinians. Hedi Viterbo provides a key lesson for theorists and practitioners on how and why claims to and about childhood do particular legal and institutional work in the perpetuation of disempowerment.' Erica Burman, Professor of Education, University of Manchester'Hedi Viterbo presents a startlingly novel and deeply researched challenge to taken-for-granted distinctions between 'children' and 'adults.' By laying bare how each category can have deleterious consequences for Palestinians on both sides of this fetishized age divide or even be weaponized to further Israeli state violence, this book demands and directs a rethinking of juridical and human rights conceptions of child law as a protective shield for the young.' Lisa Hajjar, Professor of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara'In this groundbreaking book, Hedi Viterbo offers a powerful account of the legal construction of childhood in Israel/Palestine. Drawing on a rich array of previously unexamined sources, and subjecting them to an imaginative interdisciplinary analysis, he sheds new and piercing light on the broader political significance of childhood policy and practice, calling into question many of the dominant assumptions underpinning academic debates both in and beyond Israel/Palestine.' Nicola Lacey, School Professor of Law, Gender, and Social Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science Book Description Radically challenges dominant assumptions about law, human rights, and childhood, in and beyond Israel/Palestine. About the Author Hedi Viterbo is Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University of London. Previously, he was Lecturer in Law at the University of Essex, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at SOAS, University of London, a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, and a visiting researcher at Columbia University. Dr Viterbo's previous publications include The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Palestinian Territory (2018) (co-authored with Orna Ben-Naftali and Michael Sfard).