Today on Speaking Out of Place we are joined by Noura Erakat and Jeffrey Sachs in a discussion of possible futures for Palestine. Our conversation includes different stances toward a two-state solution, a discussion of international humanitarian law and the laws of warfare, and a deliberation on the practical steps necessary to stop Israel’s devastating genocide of the Palestinian people and the complicity of the United States . We end with a discussion about the need to go beyond state-centric notions of justice and the recommendation that a people’s parliament might be a better way to approach the crises we see on a planetary scale.

Noura Erakat is a human rights attorney and an Associate Professor at Rutgers University, New Brunswick.  She is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya.

Her book, Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine (Stanford University Press, 2019)  narrates the Palestinian struggle for freedom as told through the relationship between international law and politics during five critical junctures between 1917-2017 to better understand the emancipatory potential of law and to consider possible horizons for the future. Erakat’s research interests include human rights law, humanitarian law, refugee law, national security law, social justice, critical race theory, and  the Palestinian-Israel conflict. 

Jeffrey Sachs serves as the Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he holds the rank of University Professor. From 2001-18, Sachs served as Special Advisor to UN Secretaries-General Kofi Annan (2001-7), Ban Ki-moon (2008-16), and António Guterres (2017-18). Sachs has authored and edited numerous books, including The End of Poverty (2005), Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet (2008), and The Price of Civilization (2011). Sachs has received 42 honorary doctorates, and his recent awards include the 2022 Tang Prize in Sustainable Development, the Legion of Honor by decree of the President of the Republic of France, and the Order of the Cross from the President of Estonia. Prior to joining Columbia, Sachs spent over twenty years as a professor at Harvard University, most recently as the Galen L. Stone Professor of International Trade.