Cultural Theory: Speaking back through a politics of listening: The London Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal “The Hostile Environment on Trial”

Prof. Leah Bassel (Roehampton University) Speaking back through a politics of listening: The London Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal “The Hostile Environment on Trial”

The Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) is an international public opinion tribunal established in the 1970s following the Russell Tribunals on Vietnam and Latin America. It acts as a platform to give voice to peoples marginalised in international law (Fraudatario and Tognoni 2018). I focus on the 2018 London Session, one of a series on violations of the rights of migrants and refugees across Europe. It put the UK and Europe-wide policies hostile to migrants on trial. This paper explores the London PPT as a pathway that listening might provide to holding powerful actors to account, outside of formal spaces such as government consultations.

Leah Bassel is Professor of Sociology at the University of Roehampton. Her research interests include the political sociology of migration, intersectionality and citizenship.