Awol Allo is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Sheffield, UK. He holds an LLB from Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia), an LLM from the University of Notre Dame (USA), and a PhD from the University of Glasgow (UK). He has been a Fung Global fellow at the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies (PIIRS) and a visiting scholar at Princeton University Center for Human Values. Allo’s research examines the fundamental paradox at the heart of law and resistance, with particular attention to how legal moments, spaces, and discourses both enable and constrain political struggles. He is the editor of The Courtroom as a Space of Resistance: Reflections on the Legacy of the Rivonia Trial (2015), and his scholarly work has been published in leading academic journals. Beyond academia, his public writings have appeared in major international outlets, such as The New York Times, Foreign Policy, CNN, and Al Jazeera.

• Introduction1. Law and Resistance: A Genealogy of Silencing and Erasure2. Toward a Performative Epistemology of Law: Sovereignty, Law, and the Subject3. Toward a Performative Conception of the Political Trial4. The Courtroom as a Site of Performative Resistance: Nelson Mandela at Rivonia5. Marwan Barghouti in Tel Aviv: Occupation, Terrorism, and Resistance in the Courtroom6. The Insurrection of Subjugated Knowledges in the Courtroom: Slavery, Founding Fathers, and Black Power in the Chicago Eight Conspiracy Trial 7. Conclusion: The Traces of Law in Resistance and the Traces of Resistance in Law

"In this book, Allo carefully analyses the political trial to develop a performative theory of law which shows how legal authority is more fragile and contingent than is often taken be the case. With its focus on resistance as a constitutive element of law, this is a timely and important book."Lindsay Farmer, University of Glasgow, UK."Without resistance there is no law and without law there is no resistance. With astonishing verve and clarity, Awol Allo explores this foundational paradox and the performative encounters it brings into being, offering a vivid, human, and dignified account of the costs, struggles, and contradictions of resistance. A timely and important text for all those concerned with justice."Alison Phipps, UNESCO Chair for Refugee Integration through Education, Languages and Arts, University of Glasgow, Scotland.