The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Assembly

Ours is an age of protest. Around the world, activists and movements believe in the potential of assembly to bring about important social and political change. The right of peaceful assembly has attracted growing policy and legal attention nationally and internationally as political actors are reminded of its power. Yet, this core civic freedom has received less scholarly exploration than the analogous rights of freedom of speech and association.

In this context, The Oxford Handbook of Peaceful Assembly examines assembly as a distinct political and social practice that lies uneasily at the heart of the modern state, at times posing as a threat to the political status quo. The Handbook brings together a diverse and multidisciplinary range of experts to provide a critical, international overview of the topic. It breaks new ground by interrogating key dilemmas relating to the value, scope, and legal protection of assembly, offering critically needed analysis on assembly qua assembly. Contributions from lawyers, political theorists, sociologists, anthropologists, and historians interrogate the importance of assembly, its value, its status as a legal right, and the boundaries of its legitimate regulation. Global in scope and richly grounded in history, this Handbook serves as an authoritative, comprehensive resource on the right of peaceful assembly.

Tabatha Abu El-Haj is a Professor of Law at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law. A scholar of U.S. constitutional law, she is an expert on the First Amendment’s rights of peaceable assembly and association. Shaped by her background in the sociology of law, her work takes an interdisciplinary approach. Her prior publications include ＂The Neglected Right of Assembly＂ in the UCLA Law Review and ＂Defining Nonviolence as a Matter of Law and Politics＂ in Nomos: Protest and Dissent. She has taught as a Visiting Professor at the University of Michigan Law School and the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School.

Michael Hamilton is a Legal Adviser at the International Secretariat of Amnesty International, working on civic space and the right to protest. Previously he was Associate Professor of Public Protest Law at the University of East Anglia (where he remains a Visiting Associate Professor), and he has taught at the Department of Legal Studies at Central European University and the Transitional Justice Institute at the University of Ulster. His research focuses on the legal protection of the right of peaceful assembly, and he is a founding member of the OSCE/ODIHR Panel of Experts on Freedom of Assembly and Association.
Thomas Probert has worked as a Research Consultant and a Special Adviser within the UN human rights system, both to the Special Rapporteur on summary executions and to the Human Rights Committee. He has also advised the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights. In addition to being a Senior Researcher at the Centre for Human Rights (University of Pretoria), he is a Research Associate at the Centre of Governance and Human Rights (University of Cambridge). He has also taught at the University of Oxford and the Geneva Academy for International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights.
Sharath Srinivasan is the David and Elaine Potter Professor of International Politics at the University of Cambridge. With expertise in African politics, he researches contentious politics and civic action from a global perspective. His work spans technology and democracy, civil politics in armed conflict, and assemblies and publics. His publications include When Peace Kills Politics: International Intervention and Unending Wars in the Sudans (Hurst/OUP, 2021) and Publics in Africa in a Digital Age (co-ed., Routledge, 2021). At Cambridge, he co-directs the Centre of Governance and Human Rights (CGHR), and is a Fellow of King’s College.