This book provides a theoretical analysis of international law's impact on relations between dominant and subordinate, or subaltern, groups. It charts the law's role in the reproduction, legitimation, and transformation of systems such as capitalism, racism, and imperialism. It looks at 4 distinct moments: when law structures society; when rules and institutions are formally used; when law influences ideological positions; and when law is used to defend political claims. The book shows the law as a powerful tool for promoting the reproduction and legitimation of subordination. Offering a fresh perspective, it will appeal to scholars of international law and international relations.

"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."--Page 4 de la couverture.

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. 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.

The first book of its kind, Decolonizing Geography offers an indispensable introductory guide to the origins, current state and implications of the decolonial project in geography. Sarah A. Radcliffe recounts the influence of colonialism on the discipline of geography and introduces key decolonial ideas, explaining why they matter and how they change geography’s understanding of people, environments and nature. She explores the international origins of decolonial ideas, through to current Indigenous thinking, coloniality-modernity, Black geographies and decolonial feminisms of colour. Throughout, she presents an original synthesis of wide-ranging literatures and offers a systematic decolonizing approach to space, place, nature, global-local relations, the Anthropocene and much more. Decolonizing Geography is an essential resource for students and instructors aiming to broaden their understanding of the nature, origins and purpose of a geographical education.

Invited contributions from well-established scholars and emerging stars in law and politics provide instructors and students with a compact, essential reader of timely essays on the key issues facing international law today.

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there has been a continuing though vacillating gulf between the requirements of international law and the UN on the question of Palestine. This book explores the UN's management of the longest-running problem on its agenda, critically assessing tensions between the organization's position and international law. What forms has the UN's failure to respect international law taken, and with what implications? The author critically interrogates the received wisdom regarding the UN's fealty to the international rule of law, in favour of what is described as an international rule by law. This book demonstrates that through the actions of the UN, Palestine and its people have been committed to a state of what the author calls 'international legal subalternity', according to which the promise of justice through international law is repeatedly proffered under a cloak of political legitimacy furnished by the international community, but its realization is interminably withheld.

In a critical engagement with the function of public law and with constitutionalism in its political dimensions, this volume brings together the reflections of three leading constitutionalists: Martin Loughlin, James Tully and Frank Michelman. Comprising three critical commentaries on each, it addresses the multiple ways in which public law is implicated in the logic of rule. This operates on the one hand in maintaining and underwriting relative patterns of power and weakness through political structures and processes. On the other hand, public law is considered to contain the potential to redress these patterns through the use of constitutional authority, social and economic as well as civil and political rights, redistribution of political power, the expansion of territorial governance, and moves to supra-state levels of authority. The book reproduces, in a succinct and organized way, the insights into both the limitations and the potentialities of public law within its political setting.