Let Us All Agree to Die a Little: TWAIL's Unfulfilled Promise

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Modirzadeh, Naz Khatoon
• 署名单位: Harvard University; Harvard University
• 刊物名称: HARVARD INTERNATIONAL LAW JOURNAL
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0017-8063
• 发表日期: 2023
• 页码: 79-131
• 关键词: INTERNATIONAL-LAW; HUMAN-RIGHTS; RACE; KNOWLEDGE; DEMOCRACY; FOREWORD; PARADOX; WORLD

摘要

Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) has aspirations to transform the tools and institutions of international law-which have served for centuries to construct, enact, and extend Western exploitation and domination-into tools and institutions for Global South empowerment, agency, and freedom. Characterizing itself as an intellectual and political movement, TWAIL promises to pave a path forward through a combination of scholarship and politics to achieve radical change. In this Article, I argue that TWAIL's promise is unfulfilled-and that, if TWAIL's current trajectory continues, its promise is likely to be unfulfillable. I first sketch TWAIL's origin and key successes, including bringing awareness to the colonial roots and neo-imperial present of international law. Yet I contend that TWAIL's diverse critical insights have not led to cohesive conceptual, doctrinal, or political positions, which would serve as tools to empower Global South -based actors. I propose that this is, at least partly, due to TWAIL's ambivalence toward the Third World state, its absence of a theory of legitimate political violence in international law, its failure to identify a methodology of representing the 'voices' of the Global South, and the growing influence of an academic ethos I call 'critique -as -wellness.' For those motivated by TWAIL's ambitions, I suggest three possible directions to take: the construction of a grassroots -centered campaign in the service of Global South peoples; the formation of a movement focused on empowering Global South states; or a coalition originating from the Global North aimed at reshaping Western attitudes and actions toward the Global South.