OUVRAGE : R. Bachand, Subalterns and International Law: A Political Critique

Rémi BACHAND

What is the role of international law in the different societies of the world? What are its effects on the various relations of domination and exploitation that permeate and structure these societies? Should it be seen as being more favourable to dominant groups or to subalterns? Should the latter use international law as the main weapon in their fight against different forms of subordination, or should it be used only in certain strategic circumstances? This book proposes hypotheses to answer these and other questions.

Seeking in particular to radicalise the vocabulary used by critical international lawyers, the author of this book aims to theorise the effects of international law on relations between dominant and subaltern groups in different societies around the world. More specifically, he seeks to understand its role in the reproduction, legitimation, contestation, and transformation of systems of social relations of subordination such as capitalism, patriarchy, racism, and imperialism, which constitute the matrices of subordination in these societies. Essentially, this book considers that these effects occur at four distinct moments, namely when law structures international society, for example by organising it territorially into sovereign and formally equal States; when its rules and institutions are formally used by the various actors who are in a position to do so; when it is a factor influencing the different ideological formations in the world; and, finally, when it is used as a language for legitimately defending political claims.

The ambition of this book is to show that because of its structure, international law is an extremely powerful tool for promoting the reproduction and legitimation of social relations of subordination. Of course, it also contains rules, institutions, and regimes that are perceived as tools of resistance and as propositions for emancipation projects for subalterns, and it is regularly used as such. In the latter cases, however, it must be said that what international law proposes in terms of resistance and emancipation never goes beyond what is tolerable for the dominants.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1: The Foundations of a Subaltern Theory of International Law

The Ontological Choices of a Subaltern Theory of International Law
Which Systems of Social Relations of Subordination? Which Social Standpoint Categories?
Who Then Can Speak for the Subalterns?

Chapter 2: The Legal Form of International Relations 

The Identification of International Law’s Subjects
The Process of Normative Creation

Treaties
Custom

The Management of Disputes and Rule Violations

The Peaceful Settlements of Disputes
Judicial Settlement
The Institutionalisation of Sanctions and the Use of Force: Chapter VII of the Charter of the United Nations

Chapter 3: The Rules and Institutions of International Law

The Stakes of Law’s Indeterminacy

Custom’s Internal Incoherence
Difficulties Inherent in the Interpretation of Treaties
The Structural Indeterminacy of International Law
Disciplinary Bias and its Role in Determining the Content of Rules

The Influence of Rules on International Society

Gramsci, Spontaneous Consent, and Coercion in International Society
The Legitimacy of Law and the Construction of Hegemony
The Effect of Rules and Institutions on States’ Behaviour

Chapter 4: International Law as an Ideological Element 

The Normalisation of Situations of Domination and Exploitation: the Example of the Legitimation of the Nationalist Narrative
Human Rights as Central Elements of the Matrices of Subordination

The Promotion of the Liberal State
The Deradicalisation of Resistance Strategies and Models of Emancipation

Chapter 5: The Language of International Law as a Marker of Legitimacy for International Politics 

The Law of War as a Justification for the Dominants’ Aggressions

The 1989 American Intervention in Panama
The 2003 Invasion of Iraq

International Law as a Language of Resistance and Emancipation: Four Problems and Some Hypotheses of Practice

The Radicalisation of the Discourse of International Law through the Transgression of Disciplinary Biases
Reinventing the Language of International Law by Removing it from its Current Legal Form

Conclusion

Rémi BACHAND, Subalterns and International Law: A Political Critique, Paris, Pedone, 2022 (224 pp.)