Full Description
The contributions of socialist thinkers and states to the development of international law often go unrecognized. Socialism and International Law: The Cold War and Its Legacies explores how socialist individuals and governments from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia made vital contributions to international law as it is practiced today, and also brought ideas and initiatives that constituted important disruptive moments in its history.
The socialist world of the 20th century was an ambiguous and fragile construct: there were clear divisions between the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, which kept one foot in Western Eurocentric traditions, and the positions of the radical Third World, primarily post-colonial Afro-Asian states, which mounted a more fundamental challenge to the international order. Far from a monolith, the socialist world was an intricate and dynamic space, which still had many shared common understandings of global affairs and the meaning of the law within them.
By examining how different state socialist ideologies, legal principles, and realpolitik affected contemporary international law frameworks, this book contests existing linear and Western-dominated histories. It considers these state socialist engagements in conversation with liberal and Western approaches and underlines the divisions that existed between versions of socialism from different regions and across the North-South divide. The legacies of socialist international law are still with us today, as are the consequences of its failure.
With a focus on the Cold War and its aftermath, Socialist International Law features astute commentary on the history and present-day effects of socialist principles applied to international law, provided by an esteemed and diverse group of contributors from around the world.
Contents
1: Raluca Grosescu and Ned Richardson-Little: Socialism and International Law: Legacies of Innovation, Contradiction, and Failure
2: Sebastian Gehrig: A Socialist Legal Universalism? Cold War Struggles Over International Law
3: Brad Simpson: Socialism and Self-Determination: Lenin, International Law, and National Liberation
4: Michelle Penn: Soviet Lawyers and Concepts of Aggression in International Law
5: Jakub Szumski: Decentring Marxism: The Pozna'n School and Socialist International Law in Eastern Europe after 1945
6: Ryan Martínez Mitchell: How China Came to Embrace International Institutions
7: Bogdan C. Iacob: Health as a Human Right and Eastern European Anticolonialism
8: Nelly Bekus: Protecting Culture Through International Law in the Postwar World
9: Sonja Dolinsek and Philippa Hetherington: Socialist Internationalism and Decolonizing Moralities in the UN Anti-Trafficking Regime, 1947-54
10: Raluca Grosescu: State Socialist Contributions to the Criminalization of Apartheid
11: Ned Richardson-Little: Terrorists, Revolutionaries, and Migrants: Cold War Conflicts and Convergences over International Air Hijacking Law
12: Paul Betts: Socialisms and International Law: Epilogue
