Hedi Viterbo
Biographic Data
| ID | 1371504 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Hedi Viterbo |
| GIVEN NAMES | Hedi |
| FAMILY NAME | Viterbo |
| SIGNATURE | VITERBO H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Queen Mary University of London |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-8693-5231 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 8 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 8 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
Reassessing Age Assessment: When the Violence of Age Meets the Violence of the Border
Young refugees often lack knowledge or proof of their chronological age. To determine eligibility for child-specific rights, countries use various age assessment methods, criticized for inaccuracy, harm, lack of consent, and ethical violations. However, the core practice of distinguishing refugees by age remains unquestioned. We argue this distinction is ageist, essentialist, and violent, relying on socially constructed stereotypes that reduce re…
Entangled Others: Intergroup Connectivity in Racialization—Israel/Palestine and Beyond
This article develops a novel framework for conceptualizing othering and racialization by foregrounding an underexamined phenomenon: intergroup connectivity. Using Israel/Palestine as a case study, it examines how the othering and racialization of one group, such as Palestinians, are linked to those of others, including African asylum seekers, faraway Indigenous peoples, migrant workers, and non-European Jewish Israelis. The article introduces a …
Youthwashing: The co-optation of young people-and how child rights enable it
Governments, corporations, international bodies, NGOs, researchers, and others often engage in youthwashing-co-opting young people in a self-serving manner without addressing their concerns. This article, the first academic study of youthwashing, analyzes its mechanisms, driving forces, and effects, especially in contexts involving disadvantaged and minoritized children. Through case studies on working children and child political prisoners, it r…
No Refuge from Childhood: How Child Protection Harms Refugees
This article sheds new and critical light on the notion, enshrined in international law, that child refugees are a uniquely vulnerable and dependent age group requiring special protection. Although protection is not inherently detrimental, this conception of child protection often ends up harming refugees of all ages. It casts adult refugees as less vulnerable, less dependent and less deserving of protection than their younger counterparts. It do…
Just for kids? How the youth decarceration discourse endorses adult incarceration
This article lays bare three interrelated and previously overlooked pitfalls of calls to reduce or abolish youth incarceration. First, despite their anti-carceral semblance, such calls persistently portray the overwhelming majority of people in trouble with the law—namely, adults—as incorrigible, blameworthy, and therefore as deserving of punishment and imprisonment. Second, this ageist rhetoric often disregards adult vulnerability. Thus, despite…
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 embrac…
The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Israel's half-a-century long rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and some of its surrounding legal issues, have been the subject of extensive academic literature. Yet, to date, there has been no comprehensive, theoretically-informed, and empirically-based academic study of the role of various legal mechanisms, norms, and concepts in shaping, legitimizing, and responding to the Israeli control regime. This book seeks to fill this gap, while sh…
Rights as a Divide-and-Rule Mechanism: Lessons from the Case of Palestinians in Israeli Custody
Critics have highlighted the complicity of human rights law in mass disempowerment and domination—a criticism equally applicable to child law. This article investigates this issue, as evidenced by three recent developments that Israel has justified by invoking these legal frameworks: an increased separation of Palestinian adults and children in Israeli custody; the Israeli legal system's growing preoccupation with “rehabilitating” the now-segrega…
Rights as a Divide-and-Rule Mechanism: Lessons from the Case of Palestinians in Israeli Custody
Critics have highlighted the complicity of human rights law in mass disempowerment and domination—a criticism equally applicable to child law. This article investigates this issue, as evidenced by three recent developments that Israel has justified by invoking these legal frameworks: an increased separation of Palestinian adults and children in Israeli custody; the Israeli legal system's growing preoccupation with “rehabilitating” the now-segrega…
No Refuge from Childhood: How Child Protection Harms Refugees
This article sheds new and critical light on the notion, enshrined in international law, that child refugees are a uniquely vulnerable and dependent age group requiring special protection. Although protection is not inherently detrimental, this conception of child protection often ends up harming refugees of all ages. It casts adult refugees as less vulnerable, less dependent and less deserving of protection than their younger counterparts. It do…
Rights as a Divide-and-Rule Mechanism: Lessons from the Case of Palestinians in Israeli Custody
Critics have highlighted the complicity of human rights law in mass disempowerment and domination—a criticism equally applicable to child law. This article investigates this issue, as evidenced by three recent developments that Israel has justified by invoking these legal frameworks: an increased separation of Palestinian adults and children in Israeli custody; the Israeli legal system's growing preoccupation with “rehabilitating” the now-segrega…
The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory
Israel's half-a-century long rule over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and some of its surrounding legal issues, have been the subject of extensive academic literature. Yet, to date, there has been no comprehensive, theoretically-informed, and empirically-based academic study of the role of various legal mechanisms, norms, and concepts in shaping, legitimizing, and responding to the Israeli control regime. This book seeks to fill this gap, while sh…
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 embrac…
Just for kids? How the youth decarceration discourse endorses adult incarceration
This article lays bare three interrelated and previously overlooked pitfalls of calls to reduce or abolish youth incarceration. First, despite their anti-carceral semblance, such calls persistently portray the overwhelming majority of people in trouble with the law—namely, adults—as incorrigible, blameworthy, and therefore as deserving of punishment and imprisonment. Second, this ageist rhetoric often disregards adult vulnerability. Thus, despite…
No Refuge from Childhood: How Child Protection Harms Refugees
This article sheds new and critical light on the notion, enshrined in international law, that child refugees are a uniquely vulnerable and dependent age group requiring special protection. Although protection is not inherently detrimental, this conception of child protection often ends up harming refugees of all ages. It casts adult refugees as less vulnerable, less dependent and less deserving of protection than their younger counterparts. It do…
Entangled Others: Intergroup Connectivity in Racialization—Israel/Palestine and Beyond
This article develops a novel framework for conceptualizing othering and racialization by foregrounding an underexamined phenomenon: intergroup connectivity. Using Israel/Palestine as a case study, it examines how the othering and racialization of one group, such as Palestinians, are linked to those of others, including African asylum seekers, faraway Indigenous peoples, migrant workers, and non-European Jewish Israelis. The article introduces a …
Youthwashing: The co-optation of young people-and how child rights enable it
Governments, corporations, international bodies, NGOs, researchers, and others often engage in youthwashing-co-opting young people in a self-serving manner without addressing their concerns. This article, the first academic study of youthwashing, analyzes its mechanisms, driving forces, and effects, especially in contexts involving disadvantaged and minoritized children. Through case studies on working children and child political prisoners, it r…
Reassessing Age Assessment: When the Violence of Age Meets the Violence of the Border
Young refugees often lack knowledge or proof of their chronological age. To determine eligibility for child-specific rights, countries use various age assessment methods, criticized for inaccuracy, harm, lack of consent, and ethical violations. However, the core practice of distinguishing refugees by age remains unquestioned. We argue this distinction is ageist, essentialist, and violent, relying on socially constructed stereotypes that reduce re…
Political science (6 works) · Sociology (6 works) · History (4 works) · Jewish and Middle Eastern Studies (4 works) · Law (4 works) · Middle East Politics and Society (4 works) · Politics (4 works) · Ancient history (3 works) · Children's Rights and Participation (3 works) · Criminology (3 works)