The Degradation of the International Legal Order?: The Rehabilitation of Law and the Possibility of Politics

Front Cover
Routledge, Feb 19, 2008 - Law - 256 pages

Providing the basis for critical engagement with the pessimism of the contemporary age, The Degradation of the International Legal Order? argues passionately for a rehabilitation of the honour of historic events and processes, and of their role in generating legal concepts. Drawing primarily from the Marxian tradition, but also engaging with a range of contemporary work in critical theory and critical legal and human rights scholarship, this book analyses historical and recent international events and processes in order to challenge their orthodox interpretation. What is thus proposed is a new evaluation of international legal principles and human rights norms, the revolutionary content of which, it is argued, turns them from mere rhetoric into powerful weapons of struggle.

Accessibly written, but theoretically sophisticated, this original and timely book is intended for critical teachers and students of international law, human rights, and international relations, as well as legal and political activists.

 

Contents

Table of cases
Selfdetermination the revolutionary kernel of international law 9
The degradation of international law? 39
The legality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq 61
29
Ideology in international law and the critique of Habermas 99
53
A substantive account of human rights 111
70
Human rights as the negation of politics? 119
88
Postmodernreconstructions of human rights 131
107
The challenge of methodological individualism
149
The scandal of social and economic rights
165
The problem of legal transplantation and human rights 183
1997
References 209
1997
Index 233
2011

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2008)

Bill Bowring is Professor of Law at Birkbeck, University of London, and a practising barrister. His research interests include international law, human rights and Soviet and Russian law. He is also a legal and political activist and has taken many cases to the European Court of Human Rights.

Bibliographic information