The Twail Paradox

Abstract

A curious paradox animates Third World Approaches to International Law scholarship (TWAIL). On the one hand, the literature demonstrates that international law developed out of and perpetuates the colonial experience. International law, writes Makau Mutua, “is a predatory system that legitimizes, reproduces, and sustains the plunder and subordination of the Third World by the West.” On the other hand, however, its authors claim international law to be a source of future emancipation. “Rather than replacement,” explain Eslava and Pahuja, “TWAIL scholarship is more interested in overcoming international law’s problems, while still remaining committed to the idea of an international normative regime largely based in existing institutional structures.” In this brief essay, I wish to first map out TWAIL’s predominant critiques against international law, and second, to highlight some blind spots within TWAIL literature. My argument is that while TWAIL offers important corrections to mainstream international legal theory, it ultimately reinforces the Eurocentric liberal tradition it sets out to escape.

Keywords: TWAIL, Third World Approaches to International Law, International Law, Colonialism, Marxism, Neo-Liberalism, Legal Theory