Divest! the history and politics of a demand (2024)

This panelbrings together scholars, experts, practitioners, and organisers who have investigated how financial investments can be entangled with human rights abuses, the arms trade, and climate breakdown.

Taking its point of departure in a just-released report prepared by LSE students and staff, the panel will shed light on how such entanglements can be traced–and place calls for divestment within a broader historical and political context.

Meet the speakers and chair:

Representatives of the LSE student and staff authored report, Assets in Apartheid.

Dr Shahd Hammouriis a Lecturer in Law at the University of Kent. She is the author of the forthcoming book: Corporate War Profiteering and International Law. She has previously acted as a consultant on the question of the Levant and International Law, Business and Human Rights, and corporate accountability. She is also a non-resident fellow at al Haq.

Dr Dena Qaddumiisan urban and architectural scholar. Her work primarily draws on postcolonial urban theory, political geography, and cultural studies, with a regional interest in the Middle East and North Africa.

Andrew Feinstein is Executive Director of Shadow World Investigations and former ANC MP.

Katie Fallonis Advocacy Manager at Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), where she leads CAAT's parliamentary and legal advocacy. She co-led CAAT's campaign during its second Judicial Review challenging the UK government's decision to continue exporting arms to Saudi Arabia, throughout the war in Yemen. She has previously worked for the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs at their Mission to the UN in New York and the Embassy of Ireland, London, as well as the UK Bureau of Reporters without Borders, advocating for the rights of journalists in the UK and internationally. She is an Forum on the Arms Trade Emerging Expert (23/24). Katie has an MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Peter Frankentalis the Economic Affairs Programme Director of Amnesty International UK. He previously worked in the private sector, the NHS and the not-for-profit-sector. He has undertaken postgraduate studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science, the Institute of Latin American Studies, and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies.Peter has been an adviser to the International Commission of Jurists panel on corporate complicity in international crimes and was on the Steering Group of a three-year research project to develop a methodology for human rights impact assessments and apply it to five case studies of affected communities. He has served on the Boards of several NGOs including the Corporate Responsibility Coalition (CORE), the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre and London Mining Network. Peter is co-founder of an organisation ‘Hear Me Out’ that takes music-making into UK immigrations detention centres to release the words, music and life stories of people held inside.

Dr Mahvish Ahmadis Assistant Professor of Human Rights and Politics in the Department of Sociology and Co-Director of LSE Human Rights. She studies state violence and social movements, including the Global War on Terror. She recently published an article entitledMovement Texts as Anti-Colonial Theory(2023).

More speakers may be added.