International law in the vegetables department: the Swedish boycott of conflict tomatoes

As part of the Doing Business Right project, Professor Pål Wrange will present his paper on 'Self-determination and belligerent occupation in the vegetables department: The 2002 Corell opinion on Western Sahara and the Swedish nationwide boycott of conflict tomatoes'.

This presentation will discuss how the laws of self-determination, belligerent occupation and state responsibility have impacted how private Swedish food-chains make decisions. A legal opinion by UN Legal Counsel Hans Corell from 2002 provided an accessible and authoritative interpretation of the abstract principles, scholars added their opinions and activists were able to make a convincing case. The case-study is a part of a larger research project on the impact of global norms on local lives.

About the speaker
Pål Wrange (Ph.D, LL.M) is a professor of public international law at Stockholm University and the Director of the Stockholm Center for International Law and Justice. He is also a former principal legal advisor at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, and in that capacity he frequently advised the Swedish Government on issues related to Western Sahara. In his later academic capacity, he has studied the Western Sahara situation and made presentations about the issue, inter alia in the European, Norwegian and Swedish Parliaments. Professor Wrange has published widely on international law, international relations and theory and he has worked and consulted for the European Union, governments and NGOs.