This is the second award given to Dr Viterbo for his book, Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine, published by Cambridge University Press.
The Human Rights Section of the American Political Science Association recently granted Dr Hedi Viterbo its 2022 Best Book Award for his latest book, Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood in Israel/Palestine. Earlier this year, Dr Viterbo also received an award for this book from the Socio-Legal Studies Association.
Bridging disciplinary divides, and drawing on hundreds of previously unexamined sources (many of which are not publicly available), Problematizing Law, Rights, and Childhood, in Israel/Palestine reveals how Israel has increasingly used children's rights and international law to hone and legitimise its violence against Palestinians. In the book, Dr Hedi Viterbo exposes the human rights community's complicity in this situation, due to its problematic assumptions about childhood, its uncritical embrace of international law, and its recurring emulation of Israel's security discourse. And he examines how, and to what effect, both the state and its critics manufacture, shape, and weaponise the categories 'child' and 'adult.'
Dr Hedi Viterbo is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Queen Mary University of London and the Director of the Childhood, Law & Policy Network (CLPN).