Suchergebnisse

Reflecting upon critical international scholarship and its evolution through time, this review essay focuses on a volume co-edited by José María Beneyto and David Kennedy, along with assistant editors, Justo Corti Varela and John Haskell, on the history of the new approaches to international law (NAIL) and the work of David Kennedy. Considering the individual contributions to this book, this essay argues that while the influence of NAIL upon younger scholars, critical or 'mainstream', is beyond contestation, it is questionable to what extent the intellectual priorities and institutional anxieties of the discipline (should) remain the same. Drawing heavily on the theme of professional responsibility that underlies most of the contributions to this volume, this essay proposes a re-orientation of critical inquiry in the light of the implication of international law and institutions in the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath. Echoing Kennedy's call to engage with questions of political economy and global governance, this review essay suggests that for critical international law to reclaim its radical and innovative character, it is imperative to engage with the concerns of a post-crash world and to identify and disrupt the role of international law in the constitution of an unstable and unjust international economic order

First published online: 09 June 2021 ; When, early in Capitalism as Civilisation: A History of International Law, I positioned this book as yet another instance of productive (mis)reading, I rendered some argumentative moves unavailable to me. Whatever I say about the engaging and thoughtful reviews by Kanad Bagchi, Daniel R. QuirogaVillamarín, Rohini Sen, and Julie Wetterslev, then, cannot come from a position of presumed authority (pun intended) or control over the text. Tempting as it might be, I cannot now proclaim that this is or is not what the book 'really' says. After all, one of the principal interventions of this book has been to decentre the lawyerly subject, to push back against the idea that anyone can ever be the full author and master of international law. Rather, I have opted to take this as an opportunity not so much to respond to or to defend anything, but rather to create a new text out of the silences, omissions and slippages of the book that is under review here. In so doing, I am not claiming that my remarks had always been part of the book or even that they are in perfect harmony with that is already there. Rather, in keeping with an understanding of scholarship as structured dialogue, I will put forward three main propositions: first, I will argue that looking at conventional materials in unconventional ways is not only intellectually and politically defensible, but cannot but be at the centre of critical inquiry into law as both a critical and a legal business. Secondly, I will explain why I consider the conceptualisation of international law as a product of the 19th century to be persuasive on both disciplinary and historical materialist grounds and the implications of this periodisation. Finally, I will elaborate on my own understanding of historical materialism, its implications for law, and under what conditions it can encounter deconstruction productively.