Book Review of Antony Anghie, Bhupinder Chimni, Karin Mickelson and Obiora Okafor, eds., The Third World and International Order: Law Politics and Globalization, Developments in International Law

Abstract

The edited volume The Third World and International Order is the first, and remains the only published book that explicitly endeavours to represent and advance the emerging field of international legal studies known as Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). Its essays are based on papers presented at the second TWAIL conference held in 2001 at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, following the first TWAIL conference hosted by Harvard Law School in 1997. The third TWAIL conference held in 2007 has yet to result in a comprehensive publication.

Due to the theoretical density of the contributions, this review identifies TWAIL’s fundamental debates with mainstream international law by distilling the essential reasoning, legal critique, and political vision implicit in each chapter. Further, in view of the diversity of the contributions, this review organizes the debate into five areas of concern: (1) the ideology of international law; (2) the international law of war; (3) the international economic system; (4) third world women and international law; and (5) third world resistance to international law. Following this analytic and thematic synthesis, two priority issues that merit further conversations among TWAIL scholars are identified.

Keywords: international law, third world, imperialism, colonization, globalization, legal theory