International Law And The Third World

This volume is devoted to critically exploring the past, present and future relevance of international law to the priorities of the countries, peoples and regions of the South. Within the limits of space it has tried to be comprehensive in scope and representative in perspective and participation. The contributions are grouped into three clusters to give some sense of coherence to the overall theme: articles by Baxi, Anghie, Falk, Stevens and Rajagopal on general issues bearing on the interplay between international law and world order; articles highlighting regional experience by An-Na’im, Okafor, Obregon and Shalakany; and articles on substantive perspectives by Mgbeoji, Nesiah, Said, Elver, King-Irani, Chinkin, Charlesworth and Gathii. This collective effort gives an illuminating account of the unifying themes, while at the same time exhibiting the wide diversity of concerns and approaches.

This collection of essays explores different dimensions of the relationship between the third world and international law. The topics covered include third world approaches to international law, non-state actors and developing countries, feminism and the third world, foreign investment, resistance and international law, and territorial disputes and native peoples. It is a further contribution to the work done by scholars intent on elaborating what might be termed Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). This initiative seeks to continue and further develop the important work that has been done over many decades, particularly by scholars and jurists from the third world, to construct an international law which is sensitive to the needs of third world peoples. This body of scholarship has attempted to extend and expand the concerns and materials of international law. The essays in this volume are animated by these same motives at a time when unprecedented issues confront third world peoples, particularly since the contemporary international system appears to be disempowering third world peoples, intensifying inequality between the North and the South, and indeed, importantly, within the North and the South. TWAIL scholars attempt to look afresh at the history of colonial international law, engage previous trends in third world scholarship in international law, take cognizance of the dramatic changes which have characterized the body of international law in the last few decades from the perspective of third world peoples, record their resistance to unjust and oppressive international laws, and advance new approaches that address their needs and concerns. These are the broad themes and concerns which animate this collection of essays.

This book addresses the themes of praxis and the role of international lawyers as intellectuals and political actors engaging with questions of justice for Third World peoples. The book brings together 12 contributions from a total of 15 scholars working in the TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law) network or tradition. It includes chapters from some of the pioneering Third World jurists who have led this field since the time of decolonization, as well as prominent emerging scholars in the field. Broadly, the TWAIL orientation understands praxis as the relationship between what we say as scholars and what we do – as the inextricability of theory from lived experience. Understood in this way, praxis is central to TWAIL, as TWAIL scholars strive to reconcile international law’s promise of justice with the proliferation of injustice in the world it purports to govern. Reconciliation occurs in the realm of praxis and TWAIL scholars engage in a variety of struggles, including those for greater self-awareness, disciplinary upheaval, and institutional resistance and transformation. The rich diversity of contributions in the book engage these themes and questions through the various prisms of international institutional engagement, world trade and investment law, critical comparative law, Palestine solidarity and decolonization, judicial education, revolutionary struggle against imperial sovereignty, Muslim Marxism, Third World intellectual traditions, Global South constitutionalism, and migration. This book was originally published as a special issue of Third World Quarterly.

The emergence of transnational social movements as major actors in international politics - as witnessed in Seattle in 1999 and elsewhere - has sent shockwaves through the international system. Many questions have arisen about the legitimacy, coherence and efficiency of the international order in the light of the challenges posed by social movements. This book offers a fundamental critique of twentieth-century international law from the perspective of Third World social movements. It examines in detail the growth of two key components of modern international law - international institutions and human rights - in the context of changing historical patterns of Third World resistance. Using a historical and interdisciplinary approach, Rajagopal presents compelling evidence challenging debates on the evolution of norms and institutions, the meaning and nature of the Third World as well as the political economy of its involvement in the international system.

Globalization, interdisciplinarity, and the critique of the Eurocentric canon are transforming the theory and practice of human rights. This collection takes up the point of view of the colonized in order to unsettle and supplement the conventional understanding of human rights. Putting together insights coming from Decolonial Thinking, the Third World Approach to International Law (TWAIL), Radical Black Theory and Subaltern Studies, the authors construct a new history and theory of human rights, and a more comprehensive understanding of international human rights law in the background of modern colonialism and the struggle for global justice. An exercise of dialogical and interdisciplinary thinking, this collection of articles by leading scholars puts into conversation important areas of research on human rights, namely philosophy or theory of human rights, history, and constitutional and international law. This book combines critical consciousness and moral sensibility, and offers methods of interpretation or hermeneutical strategies to advance the project of decolonizing human rights, a veritable tool-box to create new Third-World discourses of human rights.

The intertwining of development and human rights is the subject of the twelve essays collected by the editors. The individual authors extensively examine the commonly held belief that economic development cannot take place in Third World countries without the short term sacrifice of political liberty and demonstrate that there is considerable evidence to the contrary. Following a theoretical stage-setting that concentrates on the severe power limitations and the dependency of weak Third World states, case studies focus on such issues as state terrorism, food, the right to modernize, refugees, and support of apartheid in Latin America, the People's Republic of China, the Middle East, and Africa. Several essays concern the implementation of human rights and the role of multinational corporations and international nongovernmental organizations in protecting them. The final essay considers the international framework of government, law, and organization as a means for implementing human rights development in the Third World.

Co-publication with Banyan Publications, New Delhi. No sales rights in India.