Towards a Carceral Geography of International Law

Grady, Kate

Abstract

This chapter provides a preliminary sketch of the relationship(s) between international law and carceral space. It draws on legal and carceral geography to explore how practices of, and ideas about, incarceration travel between different legal spaces, examining the contingency of aspects of international law’s carceral geography and its connections across states, domestic and international jurisdictions, and disparate legal fields. The chapter shows how islands within the resulting carceral archipelago are connected through shared physical spaces and through the movement of common ideas and ideologies. This movement is influenced by logics of capitalism and colonialism. The chapter concludes by considering the implications of this carceral archipelago for critical international lawyers and for resisting practices of carcerality.

Citation

Grady, K. (2021). Towards a Carceral Geography of International Law. In S. Pahuja, & S. Chalmers (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of International Law and the Humanities. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003170914-33

• Acceptance Date: Mar 21, 2025
• Publication Date: May 20, 2021
• Deposit Date: Feb 10, 2020
• Publisher: Routledge
• Book Title: The Routledge Handbook of International Law and the Humanities
• ISBN: 9780367420741
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003170914-33