Dr Awol Allo

School of Law

Senior Lecturer

Staff Photo of Awol Allo
Profile picture of Staff Photo of Awol Allo
a.allo@sheffield.ac.uk

Full contact details

Dr Awol Allo
School of Law
Bartolome虂 House
Winter Street
葫芦影业
S3 7ND
Profile

Awol Allo is a Senior Lecturer in Law at the University of 葫芦影业. His research and teaching interests are in the areas of social justice, human rights, and international law, with a particular focus on the epistemic dimension of legal norms and discourses. Drawing on postcolonial and decolonial methodologies, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), and global histories of empire and imperialism, Allo鈥檚 work examines legal norms, discourses, institutions, and practices to understand the ways in which legal systems construct and reinforce dominant belief within society. His work has been published in various interdisciplinary journals including the Journal of Law and Critique, Journal of Social and Legal, the Journal of New Criminal Law Review, the Journal of Law, Culture and the Humanities, and the Yale Journal of Human Rights and Development. Allo held teaching positions in several universities including the London School of Economics (LSE), the University of Glasgow, the University of Addis Ababa, and the University of Keele. He was the 2020-2021 Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University, and held visiting positions at the Princeton University Centre for Human values (2023), Amherst College (2012) and the University of Chicago (2018).

Research interests

My research is in the areas of social justice, human rights, and international law, with a focus on Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), postcolonial and decolonial studies, and global histories of empire and imperialism. In my work, I examine norms (not only legal but also social and cultural), discourses (such as legality, the rule of law, terrorism, decolonisation, imperialism, and self-determination), practices (such as resistance and protest), and institutions (particularly knowledge- producing and/or truth-bearing institutions such as courts, universities, think tanks, and the media). My edited volume, 鈥淭he Courtroom as a Space of Resistance: Reflections on the Legacy of the Rivonia Trial鈥 (Routledge 2015), offers an analysis of the political trial as 鈥榤ethod鈥 and examines Nelson Mandela鈥檚 life-long engagement with law from diverse disciplinary perspectives. My scholarly articles have appeared in top-tier interdisciplinary journals including the Journal of Social and Legal Studies, the Journal of Law, Culture, and the Humanities, the Journal of Law and Critique, and the Yale Journal of Human Rights and Development. My forthcoming monograph, 鈥淟aw and Resistance: Toward a Performative Epistemology of the Political Trial鈥, will be published by Routledge in 2024.

I am currently working on a book project entitled 鈥淎frica as Method: Decolonizing Knowledge Production and the Quest for Epistemic Justice.鈥 It aims to offer a decolonial critique of existing knowledge production landscapes while exploring the conditions of possibility for African knowledges, methodologies and frameworks anchored in the histories and experiences of the African people.

In addition to publishing in top-tier interdisciplinary journals, I also write regularly for popular media outlets, and my publications have appeared in the New York Times, Foreign Policy (FP), CNN, Al Jazeera English, Open Democracy, African Arguments, and several other outlets. I comment regularly for global media, including the BBC (BBC News, BBC World Service, BBC Hard Talk, BBC Radio 4, and BBC Newsnight), CNN, Times Radio, Al Jazeera TV, ABC, CNBC, Sky TV News, NPR, SABC, TRT, Channel 4, Arise News, and several other outlets.
 

Research group
  • International Law
  • Human Rights
  • Socio-legal Studies
  • Law and Social Movements
  • Post-war governance and self-determination (with a focus on Horn of Africa)
     
Grants
Title Awarding Body: People Involved: Dates: Amount (拢):
Post-war State-building, Wartime Governance, and Dynamics of Violence in Self-determination Struggles in Ethiopia (QR Policy Fund) The University of Keele   June 2023 - June 2024 12,500
鈥淢ore Than Just Words": The Transformative Promise of Medemer and Solidarity in Ethiopia鈥檚 Political Transition鈥 (2019-2020) Globlal Research Network on Peoples and Parliaments (GRNPP) / AHRC Awol Allo (PI), Abdulatif Idris, Addis Ababa University (Co-I) 2019-2020 拢29,700
Africa as Method: Decolonizing Knowledge Production and the Quest for Epistemic Justice (Fellowship) Princeton University   September 2020 - June 2021 拢90,000
Teaching interests
  • Human Rights
  • Social Justice
  • International Law
  • Histories of International Law
  • Empire
  • Colonialism
Teaching activities

Undergraduate

  • Core Legal and Study Skills 1 (CLASS1)

Postgraduate

  • LAW6162 - Dissertation - the 葫芦影业 LLM (Spring - PGT)
  • LAW60044 - International Law and the Use of Force (LLM) (Spring - PGT)