The discussion paper will link the three papers together by thinking about different conceptualisations of public law and processes of legal change. It will contrast idealist approaches with readings drawn from historical materialism, as a theory that allows us to account for the heterogenous forms and varying temporalities of violence that cut across legal structures, including by tracing legal change to changing configurations of capitalism as a social order. Such insights also allow us to examine both the false contingencies and false necessities that are encoded into the law and hence the potential and possible pathways for progressive change.

Our 2020 Annual Conference was scheduled to be held at the University of Wrocław in Poland on July 9-11, 2020.
Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, our next Annual Conference will take place from July 8-10, 2021. The conference, "ICON•S Mundo", will be held online. Details regarding the organization of the 2021 Conference will follow soon.
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