Global South, Imperialism and International Law: The Post Pandemic Era

Conférence en anglais.

Global South, Imperialism and International Law: The Post Pandemic Era

The tendency of capitalism to universalize in order to overcome an accumulation crisis has meant that the evolution and development of international law, its doctrines and regimes, have since the colonial era been inextricably tied to the phenomenon of imperialism. In the postcolonial period international law and international institutions have sustained and legitimized a neo-colonial project.

The Covid-19 pandemic is now threatening to reverse, in an already unequal and unjust world, whatever progress was made in addressing the scourge of poverty and inequality. The ensuing situation can become the fertile ground for right wing nationalism and populism. A form of deglobalization is also taking shape that may see a selective retreat from multilateralism. In so far as weak states are concerned it may preserve the worst aspects of neo-liberal globalization, ensuring continuing loss of sovereign policy space, but now accompanied by policies of advanced capitalist states that pursue more vigorously narrow national interests.

If this trend has to be reversed and the present global order is to advance the goal of ensuring universal human dignity in the post pandemic era international law scholarship (ILS) has to undertake two crucial tasks. First, it has to fashion an appropriate epistemology to identify the problems with the structure and process of contemporary international law. It has in particular to break free from the stranglehold of positivism and appraise international law from the perspective of both weak nations as also from class, gender, race and caste perspectives. Second, ILS has to suggest fundamental reforms in the basic doctrines (especially doctrines of sources and state responsibility) and regimes of international law (especially economic, trade and environment regimes).

In the absence of a world state it is these doctrines, rules and practices along with different regimes of international law that have created the normative conditions for global imperialism. The lecture after touching upon the history, sociology and epistemology of international law will review contemporary developments in the domain of international law and international institutions to suggest ways forward in the matrix of the concept of global justice.

Biographie

Dr. B.S. Chimni is Distinguished Professor of International law, Jindal Global University, Haryana, India. He has been elected Associate Member, Institut de droit international. He is former Vice-President and present Member of the Advisory Council of Asian Society of International Law.

He has been a Visiting Professor at Brown University, Tokyo University, American University at Cairo and the Graduate School of International Studies, Geneva. He has also been Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Nantes, France; Senior Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Harvard Law School, a Visiting Fellow at Max Planck Institute for Comparative and Public International Law, Heidelberg, Centre for Research in Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities, Cambridge University, UK. He is also Member, Academic Council, Institute for Global Law and Policy, Harvard University.

He has delivered several prestigious lectures including the Eighth Grotius Lecture at the Centennial Meeting of the American Society of International Law in Washington (2006) and the first Harrell-Bond Lecture at Centre for Refugee Studies, Oxford University (1999).

His most recent publications include International Law and World Order: A Critique of Contemporary Approaches (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2017); “Customary International Law: A Third World Perspective” American Journal of International Law (2018). He is member editorial board of American Journal of International Law and Asian Journal of International Law.

Bhupinder Chimni est invité par l'assemblée du Collège de France, sur proposition de la Pr Samantha Besson.