Zohra Ahmed : “The Price of Consent”

Northeastern Law’s Center for Global Law and Justice 2025 Speaker Series, Issues in Human Rights and Humanitarian Law

Featuring:
Zohra Ahmed 
Associate Professor of Law, Boston University School of Law

This talk demonstrates how hierarchies in the international economy and in international financial institutions have facilitated the U.S.-led Global War on Terror (GWOT). Using U.S.-Pakistan relations as a case study, it shows how the United States has deployed its powerful position at the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to claim Pakistan's consent for its military activities in the region. In the GWOT's first decade, beginning in 2001, the United States openly sought forcible regime change, as in Afghanistan and Iraq; in its second and (now) third decades, the United States has waged covert counterinsurgency campaigns allegedly against militant groups in Muslim-majority states. The United States has depended on partnerships with other states, such as Pakistan, to engage in these military maneuvers. It relies on the doctrine of consent to exonerate its actions, arguing that Pakistani authorities have agreed to its interventions.

Respondent:
Liza Weinstein
Associate Professor of Sociology, Northeastern.University

Questions? 
Please contact Professor Zinaida Miller at [email protected].

The lecture series is open to the Northeastern University community and the general public.