'International Law in a Transcivilizational World': An Intimate Account of International Law

Abstract

In the introduction to 'International Law in a Transcivilizational World', in the span of its very first sentence, Professor Yasuaki Ōnuma observes that the treatise is ‘written by an Asian international lawyer and published in the early twenty-first century’. With these words, Ōnuma openly lays out and places emphasis on the situation of the author. This simple act of cognition — pointing to the existence of the author, his identity, and time-period, although Ōnuma later notes the influence of other personal characteristics — is an acknowledgment that the exercise of preparing a treatise or textbook reflects a selection that is not free from cultural, social, and historical perspectives of those undertaking the observation. Raising the curtain on the presence of the author provides Ōnuma’s treatise with a measure of intimacy that has more to do with the essay than the textbook, an effect enhanced by the sparse footnoting throughout the volume. As argued in this review, this approach unsettles the veneer of alleged neutrality and universality common to the genre of the textbook, leaving room for a reflection on how the particularities of the author’s framework and perspective shapes his account of international law. This degree of reflexivity, where the place of the author is recognized in the production of writings is particularly pressing when, as Ōnuma explains, most treatises or textbooks of international law published by major publishers are written by international lawyers in Western Europe and the US.