Fleur Johns
@fleurjohns.bsky.social
Dean & Head of School, Sydney Law School, University of Sydney. International law, legal theory, law & technology etc. Latest books: https://tinyurl.com/HelpBookOUP & https://tinyurl.com/2cv626hf
(Views expressed here are mine not those of my employer.)
(Views expressed here are mine not those of my employer.)
This article started life as the Dean’s Lecture delivered at University of Edinburgh Law School in November 2024 & is indebted to the generosity of colleagues there as well as to the work of many scholars working on time in the international law field, as both a timeless and most urgent concern.
<p><span>International Legal Critique Now: Neo-Presentism in International Law</span></p>
<p><span>How are scholars of law, especially international law, struggling to diagnose and inhabit the present? And how do those various efforts speak to one an
papers.ssrn.com
November 30, 2025 at 1:38 AM
This article started life as the Dean’s Lecture delivered at University of Edinburgh Law School in November 2024 & is indebted to the generosity of colleagues there as well as to the work of many scholars working on time in the international law field, as both a timeless and most urgent concern.
It's an attempt to write a way out of the rather desolate place that I took readers to in a recent piece in EJIL (on the kinds of presentism propagated by digital tech) through engagement with recent work of @mariepetersmann.bsky.social Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change & others.
November 30, 2025 at 1:38 AM
It's an attempt to write a way out of the rather desolate place that I took readers to in a recent piece in EJIL (on the kinds of presentism propagated by digital tech) through engagement with recent work of @mariepetersmann.bsky.social Pacific Islands Students Fighting Climate Change & others.
If you end up reading it, feel free to get in touch. As always, I couldn’t have done this work without the support, prior work, and generous engagement of many people — too many to thank here, but acknowledged in the notes. End.
July 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
If you end up reading it, feel free to get in touch. As always, I couldn’t have done this work without the support, prior work, and generous engagement of many people — too many to thank here, but acknowledged in the notes. End.
However, this is not the only register of presentism that international lawyers may imbibe in connection with digitalization. An abundance of creative and scholarly resources for thinking about the present offer alternatives, this article concludes.
July 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
However, this is not the only register of presentism that international lawyers may imbibe in connection with digitalization. An abundance of creative and scholarly resources for thinking about the present offer alternatives, this article concludes.
Using the above-mentioned examples, I show how the digitally assembled emergency no longer interrupts time (as in many prior international legal conceptions of crisis) but rather invites waiting and watching — vigilant attentiveness to present conditions and sufferance of their inevitability.
July 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
Using the above-mentioned examples, I show how the digitally assembled emergency no longer interrupts time (as in many prior international legal conceptions of crisis) but rather invites waiting and watching — vigilant attentiveness to present conditions and sufferance of their inevitability.
In other words, this article asks whether the presentism of some ICT might be helping to foster a palliative orientation in international legal work – towards incrementally addressing symptoms of global deterioration and exploitation without attempting, ambitiously, to arrest them.
July 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
In other words, this article asks whether the presentism of some ICT might be helping to foster a palliative orientation in international legal work – towards incrementally addressing symptoms of global deterioration and exploitation without attempting, ambitiously, to arrest them.
The article asks whether, insofar as international lawyers incline towards hand-wringing temporizing in the face of death and devastation, this might be a matter (in part) of their internalizing the logic of digital interfaces through which they are invited to engage with these phenomena.
July 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
The article asks whether, insofar as international lawyers incline towards hand-wringing temporizing in the face of death and devastation, this might be a matter (in part) of their internalizing the logic of digital interfaces through which they are invited to engage with these phenomena.
The article focuses on the temporal implications of this shift, situating it amid recent humanities and social sciences literature on presentism, and scrutinizing it through a close reading of two exemplary interfaces developed by IOs: VAMPIRE and HungerMap LIVE.
July 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
The article focuses on the temporal implications of this shift, situating it amid recent humanities and social sciences literature on presentism, and scrutinizing it through a close reading of two exemplary interfaces developed by IOs: VAMPIRE and HungerMap LIVE.
It starts from the observation that international organizations are having growing recourse to digital technologies in emergency response. Digital interfaces, such as online earning warning tools, are informing how humanitarian emergencies are perceived and analysed, and in what time frame.
July 23, 2025 at 1:19 PM
It starts from the observation that international organizations are having growing recourse to digital technologies in emergency response. Digital interfaces, such as online earning warning tools, are informing how humanitarian emergencies are perceived and analysed, and in what time frame.