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In the shadow of rising authoritarianism: law, critique and possibility

When: Wednesday, May 13, 2026, 4:00 PM - 6:00 PM
Where: Room 313, Third Floor, Laws Building, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road, London E1 4NS

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This talk explores how legal theory can move beyond a purely critical position to reclaim law’s constructive possibilities. While contemporary analysis often treats authoritarian turns as moments of crisis or exception, I argue that they are neither novel nor anomalous but follow recurring patterns across historical and geographic contexts. Against this backdrop, law remains a vital, if contested, terrain. International and domestic regimes continue to structure our every day lives and still enable forms of accountability, mobilization, and redistributive claims what increasingly seems the exercise of unilateral power. Meaningful transformation demands we engage law from within: interrogating its limits, exposing its contradictions, and mobilizing its doctrinal, procedural, and institutional force to imagine a different, possible world.

Speaker Biography

Professor Helen AlvierHelena Alviar García is a Colombian SJD from Harvard Law School and lawyer from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. Before joining Sciences Po, Paris, she served as Dean of Los Andes Law School where she also held tenure as full Professoressor (Professoresora titular), teaching courses on Property, Public law, legal theory and feminist theory. She has been a visiting Professoressor in universities in Latin America, Europe and the United States including Harvard Law School, University of Pennsylvania, Università di Torino, University of Miami, Universidad de Puerto Rico and University of Wisconsin in Madison. Notably, she was the Robert F. Kennedy Visiting Professoressor at Harvard Law School in 2017; the Bok Distinguished Visiting Professoressor at Penn Law School in 2015 and the Tinker Visiting Professoressor at the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 2008. Professoressor Alviar is also the co-founder of Dejusticia, one of the leading human rights NGO’s in the Global South. She is also an academic member of the Institute for Global Law and Policy-IGLP- at Harvard Law School.

Speaker(s)

  • Keynote: Professor Helena Alviar (Sciences Po, Paris)
  • Chair: Dr Alexis Alvarez-Nakagawa (Queen Mary)

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