We witness yet another chapter in the long history of conflict in the Middle East between Israel and Palestine. Proposals of one state and two state solutions both seem to have run their course. The presentation starts to explore a third range of options which merit more attention: (con)federal futures. These paths shift the focus from territorial and national sovereignty, be it of one or two states, to regard sovereignty as a bundle of powers and immunities, resources and protections which should be shared or divided in ways that secure the central interests of both Israelis and Palestinians.
The main objective of these reflections is modest. It is certainly not to provide a sketch of a workable (con)federal constitution. Rather, the presentation starts to gather lessons from previous attempts to unbundle sovereignty and allocate political authority to enable intermingled national groups to generate and maintain both unity and diversity, with sufficient domains of self determination in the form of self rule and joint rule and non-domination by other groups. This is not new – the 1947 Partition Plan called for an ‘economic union.’ Among the cases to draw lessons from are the post World War II European Union, the 1995 ‘Dayton agreement’ for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the 1998 ‘Good Friday Agreement’ for Northern Ireland. Further lessons from further cases are welcome, such as the experiences from Ethiopia and Nepal.
The lessons range from pre-negotiation issues of bringing parties to the table, include limiting inequality, to securing sufficient trust, and the roles and risks of international involvement.
Join us for this presentation by
Andreas Føllesdal (Professor of Political Philosophy, Faculty of Law, University of Oslo)
The following panel is moderated by
Sofia Rolim (PhD candidate, Department of Government at UiB and FGV São Paulo) with
Kjersti G. Berg (Associate Professor of Intercultural Studies, NLA)
Siri Gloppen (Professor of Political Science, Department of Government at UiB and Director of LawTransform)
🗓 Tuesday 28 October at 14:30–15:30
📍 Babelstuen, Faculty of Humanities Library, University of Bergen
🎟 Free, open to all!
The panel is a collaboration with the Intpart project
Photo credit: Wikimedia Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 by Nizzan Cohen