From the Ivory Tower to the Shantytown: How Does Critical Legal Theory Respond to Political Uprisings?

With Thamil Ananthavinayagan

Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) takes aim at colonial legacies within the international legal framework. This involves tracing the colonial roots of legalities that perpetuate neocolonial relations between the Global North and Global South. Informed by a critical belief in the value of international law in the struggle for social justice, TWAIL scholars seek to centre the Global South in the production and operation of international law: first, to counter the historical disenfranchisement of Third World peoples in the making of international law and, second, to diversify the epistemological foundations of international legal knowledge. Paradoxically, by transforming the Global South into a homogenised object of study, TWAIL reproduces a hierarchical relationship between academics and peoples similar to the one that colours orthodox approaches to international law, undermining the critical theory’s transformative potential.