What is Radical in 'Radical International Law'?

Vol 22 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 2011 (Hart 2013) 1-29

27 Pages Posted: 15 Jun 2013

See all articles by Bill Bowring

Bill Bowring

Birkbeck College, University of London - School of Law

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Date Written: June 14, 2013

Abstract

In this article I explore some answers to the question whether there could or ought to be a radical international law, or even, more modestly, a radical approach to international law. Paavo Kotiaho has referred to ‘the left wing international law project’. Is there such a project? My own answer to the question is that almost all ‘critical’ or ‘radical’ approaches to international law are firmly located in the academy, or the ‘discipline’, or the ‘field’ as it is often called. These approaches are often marked by the eclecticism and the closely related pragmatism which traditionally emanate from the United States, just as British mainstream thinking is often termed ‘empiricism’. In this article I first review Critical Legal Studies as they have developed in Britain and the disjuncture - despite efforts at unification - between scholars and practitioners. I focus specifically on Britain, both for the intrinsic interest of the subject matter, but also my own involvement over many years. There is a striking, for me, absence in almost all of this work. That is, critical legal scholars miss - or even ignore - the ‘radical international law’ pursued by organised engaged political lawyers. Special attention is therefore given throughout this paper to the International Association of Democratic Lawyers (IADL), the umbrella organisation of activist lawyers in existence since World War II, and from time to time of real importance in the development of international law. The IADL’s own membership has comprised since its inception a number of national organisations of politically active lawyers in a large number of states – for example, the National Lawyers Guild in the USA and the Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers in England.

This leads me to a focus on the American and international dimension of my account, and a special focus, an immanent critique as it were, on one major and highly influential article by David Kennedy, “Thinking Against the Box”. Kennedy’s work, and this article in particular, have been extraordinarily influential for a number of leading critical scholars in Britain. In this respect the work of Akbar Rasulov is discussed in some detail. From Kennedy and his followers I turn to another scholar (who is also a practitioner) Martti Koskenniemi, and his recent reflections on the politics of international law. These are two of the most influential scholars in critical or radical international law, but for another – highly persuasive for me – account I draw from Pierre Bourdieu’s exceptionally penetrating analysis of the social world in which all lawyers, scholars and practitioners, have their being. This thematic is further developed in relation to the revolutionary content of post World War II international law. This leads me to my conclusion, a question and a plea to all lawyers.

Suggested Citation

Bowring, Bill, What is Radical in 'Radical International Law'? (June 14, 2013). Vol 22 Finnish Yearbook of International Law 2011 (Hart 2013) 1-29, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2279332

Bill Bowring (Contact Author)

Birkbeck College, University of London - School of Law ( email )

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HOME PAGE: http://www.bbk.ac.uk/law/our-staff/ft-academic/bowring

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