Dr Hedi Viterbo

Profile

Dr Hedi Viterbo is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Law at Queen Mary University of London, as well as the Founder and Director of the Childhood, Law & Policy Network (CLPN). His research examines legal issues concerning childhood, state violence, and sexuality from an interdisciplinary and global perspective.

Previously, Dr Viterbo was Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Law at the University of Essex, a Leverhulme Early Career Fellow at SOAS (University of London), a visiting scholar at Harvard Law School, and a visiting researcher at Columbia University. He received his PhD in Law from LSE, his LLM (summa cum laude) from Tel Aviv University, and is also a graduate of the latter’s 4-year Interdisciplinary Programme for Outstanding Students.

Research

Publications

Books

• Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine (Cambridge University Press, 2021) [356 pages]
  
  • Awards:
  • 2022 Book Award of the Human Rights Section of the American Political Science Association.
  • 2022 Early Career Book Prize of the Socio-Legal Studies Association.
  • An honourable mention by the Association of Middle East Children and Youth Studies.
  • Reviews:
  • Smadar Ben-Natan (2022) 56 Law & Society Review 649–650.
  • Sunaina Maira (2023) 37 Children & Society 996–997.
  • Pietro Stefanini (2023) 16 Critical Studies on Terrorism 416–419.
  • Aoife Daly (2022) 30 International Journal of Children’s Rights 886–890.
  • Heidi Morrison (2022) 36 International Journal of Law, Policy & the Family.
  • Lama Karame (2022) 23 Palestine Yearbook of International Law 203–216.
  • Zvi Triger (2023) 35 Child & Family Law Quarterly 79–81.
  • Yeal Berda (2022) Critical Legal Thinking book symposium.
  • Rawia Aburabia (2022) Critical Legal Thinking book symposium.
  • Neve Gordon (2022) Critical Legal Thinking book symposium.
  • Noura Erakat (2022) Critical Legal Thinking book symposium.
  • Recorded book talks / panels / interviews:
  • Queen Mary University of London. Chair: Laleh Khalili. Panellists: Lisa Hajjar, Neve Gordon, and Sahar Francis.
  • Oxford University's Institute of Human Rights. Convenor: Chelsea Wallis.
  • The University of Chicago's Centre for Human Rights. Convenor: Kathleen Cavanaugh. Discussant: Darryl Li.
  • Rutgers University. Chair: Jorge Contesse. Panellists: Noura Erakat and Sarada Balagopalan.
  • The University of Essex. Chairs: Haim Abraham and Eden Sarid. Panellists: Alexandra Cox, Maryam Jamshidi, and Yaël Ronen.
  • Tel Aviv University. Chair: Aeyal Gross. Panellists: Saviona Rotlevy, Natalie Davidson, and Rabea Eghbariah.
  • The University of Haifa. Chair: Alexandre (Sandy) Kedar. Panellists: Yael Berda, Rawia Aburabia, and Zvi Triger.
  • The Critical Childhood and Youth Studies Collective. Chair: Kristen Cheney. Panellists: Rachel Rosen and Karen Wells.
  • The Socio-Legal Studies Association. Interviewer: Philip Bremner.
  • The Society for the History of Children and Youth. Interviewer: Heidi Morrison.
  • The Association of Middle East Children’s and Youth Studies. Interviewer: Sunaina Maira.
  • The Critical Childhood and Youth Studies Collective. Interviewer: Ekta Oza.
• The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Palestinian Territory (Cambridge University Press, 2018) [572 pages] (with Orna Ben-Naftali and Michael Sfard).
  • Recipient of the American Society of International Law’s 2019 Certificate of Merit in a Specialised Area of International Law (honourable mention) and the 2018 Outstanding Academic Title CHOICE Award of the American Library Association. The Introduction and two other chapters are all freely available to read here.

Journal articles

• 'Just for Kids? How the Youth Decarceration Discourse Endorses Adult Incarceration' (forthcoming) Criminology & Criminal Justice.
• ‘Rights as a Divide-and-Rule Mechanism: Lessons from the Case of Palestinians in Israeli Custody’ (2018) 43 Law & Social Inquiry 764-795.
  
• ‘Ties of Separation: Analogy and Generational Segregation in North America, Australia, and Israel/Palestine’ (2017) 42 Brooklyn Journal of International Law 686-749.
  
• ‘Seeing Torture Anew: A Transnational Reconceptualization of State Torture and Visual Evidence’ (2014) 50 Stanford Journal of International Law 281-317.
  
• ‘The Crisis of Heterosexuality: The Construction of Sexual Identities in Defamation Law’ (2010) 53 Tel Aviv University Law Review 5-50 [peer-reviewed; Hebrew].
  
• ‘Guarantees of Collectivity: Education Law and the Erasure of Ethnic Minority History’ (2005) 7 Tel Aviv University Interdisciplinary Journal 44-47 [Hebrew].
• ‘From the Abyss of Oblivion to the Depths of the Feminine: A Poetic-Political Perspective on Gender and Sexuality’ (2004) 6 Tel Aviv University Interdisciplinary Journal 2-6 [Hebrew].

Chapters in edited collections

• ‘Critical Childhood Studies Meets Critical Legal Scholarship’ (2023) in Sarada Balagopalan, John Wall, and Karen Wells (eds.), The Bloomsbury Handbook of Theories in Childhood Studies (Bloomsbury) 349–364.
• 'The Pitfalls of Separating Youth in Prison: A Critique of Age-Segregated Incarceration' (2021) in Alexandra Cox and Laura S. Abrams (eds.), The Palgrave International Handbook of Youth Imprisonment (Palgrave Macmillan)
• ‘Torture’s In/visibility’ (2019) in Lon Olson and Stuart Molloy (eds.), Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Torture (Brill) 23–43.
  
• ‘Defamation Law’ (2016) in Alon Harel et al. (eds.), LGBTQ Rights in Israel: Gender Identity, Sexual Orientation and the Law (Nevo Press) 653-678 [Hebrew].
• ‘The Age of Conflict: Rethinking Childhood, Law, and Age through the Israeli-Palestinian Case’ (2012) in Michael Freeman (ed.), Current Legal Issues Vol. 14: Law and Childhood Studies (Oxford University Press) 133-155.
  

Supervision

Dr Viterbo welcomes proposals for postgraduate supervision in the areas of human rights, child law, armed conflict, sexuality, critical legal theory, and socio-legal studies.

Public Engagement

Opinion pieces and media appearances

• 'Why Israel Has So Many Palestinian Prisoners' (2023) Vox.
• 'In the UK, Israel Has Spotted a Like-Minded Government' (2023) Novara Media
• 'Israel is Weaponising Palestinian Children’s Rights' (2022) Al Jazeera
• 'Response: Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine' (2022) Critical Legal Thinking.
• 'Israel Is Using International Child Rights, Too, Against Palestinians' (2021) Local Call (Hebrew).
• 'Palestinian Men’s Lives Matter: The Problem with Singling Out Children and Women' (2021) Jadaliyya.
• ‘Homophobia Disguised as Children’s Rights in Russia’s Constitutional Referendum’ (2020) Verfassungsblog (with Yulia Ioffe).
• 'Seeing State Secrets: The Significance of Abu Zubaydah’s Self-Portraits of Torture' (2020) Jadaliyya (with Lisa Hajjar).
• ‘Critiquing in the Light of the ABC of the OPT’ (2019) Verfassungsblog (with Orna Ben-Naftali and Michael Sfard).
  
• ‘Interview on the ABC of the OPT’ (2018) Jadaliyya (with Orna Ben-Naftali and Michael Sfard).
  
• ‘How the United States and Israel Praise Each Other as National Security Exemplars to Validate Their Own Actions’ (2018) Jadaliyya.
  
• ‘A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Imprison: Confining Palestinian Political Thought’ (2018) Jadaliyya.
  
• ‘Defamation in the Good Gay Era’ (2015) Haokets (Hebrew).
  
• ‘Defamation and Real Gays’ (2011) Haokets (Hebrew).

Educational videos

• 'Childhood, Law, and Rights - an Introduction'

This introductory video provides an overview of the next four videos.

• 'Is Childhood a Legal Invention?'

This video examines to what extent differences between children and adults are natural and universal. Is it possible that childhood is largely a social and legal invention?

Accompanying reading materials: Reading materials - Video 2 [PDF 223KB]

• 'The Problem with Child Protection'

This video discusses the principle of child protection. As shown in the video, this principle has often worked to the detriment of children and adults alike, especially those from disempowered communities.

Accompanying reading materials: Reading materials - Video 3 [PDF 229KB]Reading materials - Video 3 [PDF 229KB]

• 'The Child's Right to Be Heard - Does It Serve Youngsters' Interests?'

This video explores a legal principle known as 'the child's right to be heard.' As the video explains, what this right actually does is enable adults to ignore, misrepresent, and operate against the views of young people.

Accompanying reading materials: Reading materials - Video 4 [PDF 230KB]

• 'Should Child Work Be Banned?'

This video focuses on child work - a topic that illustrates all the issues discussed in the previous videos. Child protection laws, it is argued, have often harmed working children and ignored their wishes.

Accompanying reading materials: Reading materials - Video 5 [PDF 234KB]Reading materials - Video 5 [PDF 234KB]

Talks and conference papers

• 'Just for Kids? How the Youth Decarceration Discourse Legitimises Adult Incarceration': The Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, Universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Stirling and Strathclyde (2022).
  
• Panel discussion: 'Childist Approaches to Law' - Childism Institute, Rutgers University (2022).
  
• 'Just for Kids? How the Youth Decarceration Discourse Legitimises Adult Incarceration': University of Cambridge, Institute of Criminology (2021).
  
• Panel discussion: 'Putting "Children First"? Tentative Explorations of Alternative Imaginaries' (June 2021, co-sponsored by Queen Mary's Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences and the Centre for Childhood Cultures)
  
• 'Child Rights in the Service of State Violence: Lessons from Israel/Palestine': University of Manchester – Institute of Education; University College Dublin – Centre for Human Rights ('Critical Exploration of Human Rights' conference); Annual Conference of the British Society for Middle Eastern Studies (all in 2021)
• 'Putting "Children First"?: Tentative Explorations of Alternative Imaginaries' – panellist: 'Rethinking Childhood Studies Today' seminar series, Queen Mary University of London (2021)
• ‘Disempowering Children by “Rectifying Childhood’s Boundaries”’: Contemporary Childhood Conference, University of Strathclyde (2018).
• ‘Stolen Childhood’: King’s College London (2018).
• ‘Analogy, Resistance, and Generational Segregation’: Columbia University – Center for the Study of Law and Culture; York University – Osgoode Hall Law School; Queen’s University – Faculty of Law (2016).
• ‘Adult-Child separation: Transnational Links, Parallels, and Continuities’. University of Melbourne – Legal Theory Workshop; University of Sydney – Law & Society Research Network; University of New South Wales – Indigenous Law Centre; Monash Faculty of Law – Staff Seminar; Swinburne Institute for Social Research Seminar Series (all in 2015); SOAS Centre for Gender Studies Seminar Series (2014).
• ‘Witnessing the Representational Economy of Torture’. Law & Society Northeast Conference, Amherst, US. The paper was selected to be the focus of a session, with three designated discussants (2013).
• ‘The Occupation of Children’s Rights’. Harvard Law School – Visiting Scholars Colloquium; Harvard FXB Center for Health and Human Rights; Columbia University – Center for Palestine Studies (2012).
• ‘The Age of Conflict: Socio-Legal Constructions of Childhood and Time in the Occupied Palestinian Territories’. 15th interdisciplinary colloquium of the UCL Law Faculty (2010).

Related news

• Why Israel has so many Palestinian prisoners
  13 December 2023
• Dr Hedi Viterbo appears on the Speaking Out of Place podcast discussing childhood in Gaza
  21 November 2023
• Calls Grow for Prisoner-Hostage Exchange as Israel’s War on Gaza Escalates
  9 November 2023
• Dr Hedi Viterbo wins APSA Human Rights book award
  22 September 2022
• Dr Hedi Viterbo wins Socio-Legal Studies Association Early Career Book Prize
  14 April 2022
• Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine
  22 September 2021
• Homophobia Disguised as Children’s Rights in Russia’s Constitutional Referendum
  30 June 2020
• Seeing State Secrets: The Significance of Abu Zubaydah’s Self-Portraits of Torture
  4 June 2020