Resistance and Change in Form and Content of International Law: A Third World Perspective on Commodity Form Theory of International Law

Yıl 2024, Cilt: 21 Sayı: 82, 153 – 170, 12.06.2024

Muhammed Azeem

https://doi.org/10.33458/uidergisi.1496712

Öz

Can Marxists, especially in the Third World, use international law for progressive social change? Responding
to the Soviet Union’s context and its jurisprudential challenges in constructing socialism, Pashukanis’s
seminal work on commodity form theory is nihilistic, assuming the very nature of form of international
law as bourgeois with limited possibilities of radical change as its new content. European Marxism, on the
other hand, in its context of revolutionary defeat and consequent postmodernist pessimism of cultural
Marxism, either relies on Pashukanis’s nihilistic position or a pragmatist and realist posture, insisting on
staying within the law’s bourgeois form and being content with social democracy. As opposed to this,
Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholars, while exploring the imperialist nature of
international law and representing one variant of Third World Marxism, have been more optimistic, wanting
to use international law to restrain and shield against powerful Western states, i.e., they believe that the
content of Third World resistance can change the form of international law. This article deconstructs this
class “content” of international law in the understanding of TWAIL and shows the postcolonial Third World
states, and even in the yet to be independent states, were dominated by their dependent local elite, which
had compromised by the ex-colonizers and had started blocking radical structural changes in Third World.
Soon, the target of imperialism and the Third World elite became radical movements in the Third World,
and this struggle of the marginalized shaped international law. Therefore, relying on the radical tradition
of Third World Marxism and taking the right of self-determination as an example, this article argues that
both the content and form of international law were simultaneously used, subverted, and changed in a
dialectical and dynamic way by the resistance of the people of the Third World.

Anahtar Kelimeler

resistance, right of self-determination, Third World Marxism, Western marxism, Soviet Official Marxism

Kaynakça

Alavi, Hamza. Marxism, Ex-Colonial Societies and Strategies of the Left (Extract from a letter to a friend), In Writings of Hamza Alavi: 109-118. Ali, G Noaman. 2020. Agrarian Class Struggle and State Formation in Post‐colonial Pakistan, 1959– 1974: Contingencies of Mazdoor Kisan Raj. Journal of Agrarian Change 20: 270-288.
Amin, George Forji. 2021. Marxism, International Law and the Enduring Question of Exploitation: A History. Athens JL 7: 359-378.
Amin, Samir. 1977. Self-reliance and the New International Economic Order. Monthly Review 29, 3: 1-21.
Amin, Samir. 1988/2009. Euro centrism: Modernity, Religion, and Democracy: A Critique of Euro centrism and Culturalism. 2nd edn. Oxford, Pambazuka Press.
Amin, Samir. 2008. The World We Wish to See: Revolutionary Objectives in the Twenty-first Century. New York, New York University Press.
Amin, Samir. 2014. The Countries of the South Must Take Their Own Independent Initiatives. In Pioneer of the Rise of the South, Springer: 71-74.
Anderson, Perry. 2016. Arguments Within English Marxism. Verso Books, first published 1980.
Anghie, Antony and Chimni, B.S. 2003. Third World Approaches to International Law and Individual Responsibility in Internal Conflicts. Chinese Journal of International Law 2: 79-87.
Azeem, Muhammad. 2024. Mapping the Politics of Postcolonial Critique in Pakistan Through the Writings of Aziz-ul-Haq (1958–1972). In Marxist Thought in South Asia, 40, eds. Kristin Pls at el. Emerald Publishing Limited: 47-74
Baron A Paul. 1957. The Political Economy of Growth. New York, Monthly Review Press.
Bowring, Bill. 2011. Marx, Lenin and Pashukanis on self-determination: Response to Robert Knox. Historical Materialism 19, 2: 195-209.
Bowring, Bill. 2008. Positivism versus Self-determination: the Contradictions of Soviet International Law. In International Law on the Left: Re-examining Marxist Legacies, ed. Susan Marks. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 133-168.
Buchanan, Ruth. 2008. Writing Resistance into International Law. International Community Law Review 10, 4: 445-454.
Brosnan, Donald. 1986. Serious but Not Critical, Southern California Law Review 60: 259-396.
Cabral, Amilcar. 1966. The Weapon of Theory. In Address Delivered to the First Tricontinental Conference of the Peoples of Asia, Africa and Latin America held in Havana.
Callinicos, Alex. 2010. The Limits of Passive Revolution. Capital & Class 34, 3: 491-507.
Chandra, Amitabha. 1990. The Naxal Bari Movement. The Indian Journal of Political Science 51, 1: 22-45.
Chimni, B. S. 2006. Third World Approaches to International Law: A Manifesto. International Community Law Review 8: 3–27.
Chimni, B. S. 2017. New Approaches to International Law: The Critical Scholarship of David Kennedy and Marti Koskenniemi. In International Law and World Order: A Critique of Contemporary Approaches, Cambridge University Press: 246-357.
Conway, M Janet. 2013. Edges of Global Justice: The World Social Forum and its ‘Others.’ Abingdon, Routledge.
Cox, W Robert. 1979. Ideologies and the New International Economic Order: Reflections on Some Recent Literature. International Organization 33, 2: 257-302.
Cox, W Robert. 1977. Labor and Hegemony. International Organization 31, 3: 385-424.
Dirlik, Arif. 2015. The Bandung Legacy and the People’s Republic of China in the Perspective of Global Modernity. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies 16: 615-630.
D’Souza, Radha. 2013. Imperialism and Self-determination: Revisiting the Nexus in Lenin. Economic and Political Weekly: 60-69.
Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. Penguin, orig. French 1961.
Fanon, Frantz. 1967. Towards the African Revolution. New York, Grove Press, original French 1964.
Fanon, Frantz. 1986. Black Skin, White Masks. Pluto Press, Ist edition 1952.
Forsythe, Dennis. 1973. Frantz Fanon–The Marx of the Third World. Phylon 34, 2: 160-170.
Frank, Andre Gunder. 1967. Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. New York, NYU Press.
Freeman, Alan. 2010. Marxism without Marx: A Note Towards a Critique. Capital & Class 34, 1: 84-97.
Fuller, Lon L. 1948. Pashukanis and Vyshinsky: A Study in the Development of Marxian Legal Theory. Mich. L. Rev. 47: 1157-66.
Golan, Galia. 1988. The Soviet Union and National Liberation Movements in the Third World. Boston, Unwin Hyman.
Goldsmith, L. Jack and Posner A. Eric. 2005. The Limits of International Law. Oxford University Press.
Gramsci, Antonio. 2005. Selection from Prison Notebooks. In Quintin Hoare and Geoffrey Norwell Smith.
Grzybowski, Kazimierz. 1964. International Organizations from the Soviet Point of View. Law & Contemp. Probs. 29, 4: 882-895.
Hazard, N John. 1938. Cleansing Soviet International Law of Anti-Marxist Theories. American Journal of International Law 32, 2: 244-252.
Herbst, Jeffrey. 1990. Third World Communism in Crisis: The Fall of Afro-Marxism. Journal of Democracy 1, 3: 92-101.
Hunt, Alan. 1992. A Socialist Interest in Law. New Left Review 192: 105-119.
Kennedy, W David. 1990. Review of Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument, by Martti Koskenniemi. Harvard International Law Journal 31: 385.
Knox, Robert. 2009. Marxism, International Law, and Political Strategy. Leiden Journal of International Law 22, 3: 413-436.
Knox, Robert. 2017, Imperialism, Commodification and Emancipation in International Law and World Order. Blog of the European Journal of International Law.
Kosambi, Damodar Dharmanand. 1956. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Bombay, Popular Book Depot.
Koskenniemi, Marti. 2004. Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument. Helsinki, Finish Lawyers’ Publishing Company.
Kvangraven, Ingrid Harvold. 2019. Samir Amin: A Pioneering Marxist and Third World Activist. Development and Change: 1-19.
Langley, Paul. 1981. World Financial Order: An Historical International Political Economy. New York, Routledge.
Ludwikowski, R Rett. 1987. Socialist Legal Theory in the Post-Pashukanis Era. BC Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 10: 323.
Margot E. Salomon. 2018. Nihilists, Pragmatists and Peasants: A Dispatch on Contradiction. International Human Rights Law. New York, Institute for International Law and Justice.
McCorquodale, Robert. 2021. The USSR and its Influence on Developments in the Right to Self Determination. Brown J. World Aff. 28: 71.
Mieville, China. 2004. The Commodity Form Theory of International Law: An Introduction. LJIL 17: 271-302.
Miéville, China. 2005. Between Equal Rights: A Marxist Theory of International Law. Leiden, Brill.
Molyneux, Maxine and Halliday Fred. 1984. Marxism, the Third World and the Middle East. MERIP Reports 120, The Middle East after OPEC 18-21.
Nzongola-Ntalaja. 1984. Amilcar Cabral and the Theory of the National Liberation Struggle. Latin American Perspectives 11, 2: 43-54.
Pashukanis, E. B. 1980. General Theory of Law. In Pashukanis, Pashukanis: Selected Writings on Marxism and Law, eds. P. Beirne and R. Sharlet: 37-131.
Pashukanis, E. B. International Law. In Pashukanis, Pashukanis: Selected Writings on Marxism and Law, eds. P. Beirne and R. Sharlet: 168-182.
Quaye, O. Christopher. 1991. Liberation Struggles in International Law. Philadelphia, Temple University Press.
Rajagopal, Balakrishnan. 2005. The Role of Law in Counter-hegemonic Globalization and Global Legal Pluralism: Lessons from the Narmada Valley Struggle in India. Leiden Journal of International Law 18, 3: 345-387.
Rajagopal, Balakrishnan. 1998-99. Locating the Third World in Cultural Geography. Third World Legal Studies: 1-20.
Roman, Ediberto. 2000. A Race Approach to International Law (RAIL): Is There a Need for Yet Another Critique of International Law. U.C. Davis Law Review 33, 4: 1519-1546.
Sam Moyo and Paris Yeros, 2007. Intervention: The Zimbabwe Question and the Two Lefts. Historical Materialism 15:171-204.
Sands, Philippe. 2006. Lawless World: Making and Breaking Global Rules. UK, Penguin.
Sarkar, Summit.1997. Writing Social History. Oxford University Press.
Seppanen, Samuli. 2021. Crits and the Chinese Party-state. Series: Critical Legal Thinking on China [CLT series]
Seth, Sanjay. 2006. From Maoism to Postcolonialism? The Indian ‘Sixties’, and Beyond. Inter‐Asia Cultural Studies 7, 4: 589-605.
Seth, Sanjay. 1997. Indian Maoism: The Significance of Naxalbari. In Critical Perspectives on Mao Zedong’s Thought, eds. Arif Dirlik, Paul Michael Healy, Nick Night. Humanity Books: 293-294. Seth, Sanjay. 1995. Interpreting Revolutionary Excess: the Naxalite Movement in India, 1967-71. Positions 3, 2: 481-507.
Spitzer, Steven. 1983. Marxist Perspectives in the Sociology of Law. Annual Review of Sociology 9, 1: 103-124.
Susan Marks. 2005. International Judicial Activism and the Commodity-form Theory of International Law. European Journal of International Law 18, 1: 199-211.
Taonezvi Vambe, Maurice, and Abebe Zegeye. 2008. Amilcar Cabral: National Liberation as the Basis for Africa’s Renaissances. Rethinking Marxism 20, 2: 188-200.
Thiong’o, wa Ngugi. 1998. Decolonizing the Mind: The Politics of Language in African Literature.
In Literary Theory: An Anthology, eds. Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan. New Jersey, Blackwell Publishing.
Waterman, Peter. 2006. The Bamako Appeal: A Post-modern Janus? CSGR Working Paper No. 212/06. Coventry: Centre for the Study of Globalisation and Regionalisation, University of Warwick.
Young, Robert JC. 2016. Postcolonialism: An Historical Introduction. New Jersey, John Wiley & Sons.