On lizard pumps and the self-determination of Karen Knop

Karen Knop had a myriad of human and intellectual qualities, not least a remarkable ability to straddle a range of different worlds. She was as comfortable delving into legal theory as she was conversing with judges of the Supreme Court of Canada or the International Court of Justice. Her ability to meld the personal and the scholarly was reflected in her work and in the essence of her being, offering those who engaged with her scholarship the courage to mix the two in their own ways. Her book, Diversity and Self-Determination in International Law, laid bare the threads of unstated biases and instincts that influenced scholarship and rulings on self-determination. Its call to examine issues of diversity, marginalization, and gender impacted scholarship as well as the strategic and substantive choices of some who represented Mauritius in the Chagos proceedings before the International Court of Justice. This, it might be said, contributed to the life of the Court in its advisory opinion

Courage · Diversity (politics · Economic Justice · Political science · Scholarship · Sociology · Supreme court · Canadian Identity and History · Economic Zones and Regional Development · Law