Law is not just a set of rules to comply with (or not), but a terrain of political struggle. As the war in Gaza began 2023, leading politicians, international lawyers, and ordinary people engaged on that terrain, to advance strategy and honor principle. This lecture considers how the demand for war to be fought within humane limits has shaped how activists, observers, and politicians argue in the present and imagine the future. Does Gaza change whether we should regard international law mainly as a tool of the strong or a weapon of the weak?
Samuel Moyn is the Kent Professor of Law and History at Yale University, where he also serves as head of Grace Hopper College.
His forthcoming book is Gerontocracy in America: How the Old Hoard Power and Wealth — and What to Do About It, scheduled to appear from Farrar, Straus and Giroux in June 2026.
Booking required. Full event information: https://www.politics.ox.ac.uk/event/cyril-foster-lecture-2026-gaza-humanisation-war-and-politics-international-law
