| Many faces of International Law : Critiques and Limits

Mainstream, Eurocentric foundations of public international law have long been questioned as the sole narrative of the international legal discipline. However, while there is robust scholarship on various critical frameworks that challenge this hegemonic, a-historic account, the counter narratives to European IL are rarely included in its teaching. Critical approaches to International Law (International Law as is) escape the ‘prescribed’ IL curriculum or, are reduced to minimized, capsule versions of themselves while retaining the misplaced narrative of a universal international law. This course is an effort to diffuse this universality and critically engage with the notion of international law as hegemonic politics and power. It is a kaleidoscopic account of such laws and their encounters with historic events, institutions and processes from the vantage of its peripheral subjects.

Learning/teaching public international law in India treads a fine balance between what is presumably normative (‘learn the law’) and, acknowledging the value of its situated‘ness’(‘learn about your relationship with the law’). Keeping these considerations in mind, this course will explore the forms, boundaries and limits of international laws through the following themes:

• TWAIL: success, failure, fragmentation and universality.
• Feminist approaches to international law.
• Sovereignty and the post-colonial state.
• Knowledge making in international Law.
• Boundaries and limits of international law.

Many Faces of International Law is a course that re-frames core ideas of public international law as commonly taught/understood in law school curriculum. While this is usually offered as an elective to those who have completed a PIL course, it may be taken as a standalone subject as well.

Describe how you have approached the course. What have you included/excluded and why? Choice of materials: primary or secondary readings / case law;

The course, at its core is an interdisciplinary engagement with the notion of law(s) through the lens of critical legal studies. In an effort to provincialize the narrative potential of Eurocentric international law, I do not subscribe to the idea of a prescribed textbook/textbooks (even as I have offered suggested core readings). Unlike a traditional IL course, the study of case laws, principles and doctrines here are accompanied by a close reading of their histories, exclusions and contexts. Which is why the modules that discuss cases/doctrines are accompanied by exploratory texts. This course is not an account of international laws followed by their critique. It is an assemblage of many faces of the discipline through the eyes of its various interlocutors. Thus, I have designed this course to accommodate competing narratives through the work of socio-legal scholars working outside/beyond mainstream positivist ideas and institutions of the discipline.

Describe your pedagogical method: lectures, Socratic discussion, seminar style discussion, response papers or group work, field work;

The course is usually conducted through a combination of lectures and seminar style discussions with group work.

Describe the layout of the course: module structure and sequence.

The course is divided into 10 modules:

1. Reading International Law in Context: In this week, we learn to read two classic international law cases in their historical, social context. This module serves as an introduction to the idea of counter conduct and reading against the grain; themes we follow throughout the course.

2. Sources of International Law: In this week, we will critically unpack the sources of international law through the ideas of a) unequal treaties, b) hegemonic customs of the Global North and c) use of non traditional sources through feminist interventions.

3. Imperialism, Empire and Legacy: In this week, we will trace the history of international law from the 19th century to the present moment through its various institutions. In order to understand international law as a site of deep contestations, we will examine two moments in history closely – a) the emergence of the New International Economic Order and b) The Right to Self-determination as a protest against colonial continuities.

4. The Coordinates of TWAIL: In this week, we will be introduced to the broad ideas, principles, modes and impact of TWAIL. We will reflect on questions such as – what is TWAIL? How does one engage in it? When did it really begin?

5. TWAILian Projects and Paradox: In this week, we engage with the limits of the TWAIL project (what it is not claiming to do) and, the limitations of TWAIL as a critical discipline (what it is not able to do).

6. Feminist Approaches to International Law: Toolkit and Toy box: In this week, we will be introduced to some moving ideas and themes of various feminist approaches along with some tools and toys for different kinds of readers with complex relationships to feminist politics.

7. Feminist Approaches to International Law: Reading Closely: In this week, we will critically engage with two cases that illustrate the tensions between mainstream and postcolonial feminisms in international law.

8. Unpacking Sovereignty in International Law: In this week, we will unpack one of international law’s core concepts, sovereignty through two ideas – a) boundary making as an anti-feminist project and b) sovereignty as an act of erasure of indigenous praxis.

9. Knowledge Making In International Law: In this week, we will pause and take stock of all that we have engaged with by reflecting on the process of knowledge making in international law. We will engage with questions of expertise, who should we read and who do we tend to read.

10. International Law, its Other and their Stories: The final module is an exercise in storytelling and locating international law in minutiae. In this week, we will read three different stories of international law through the lives of some individuals, institutions and communities.