LAW 495 Colonialism to Globalisation

Credit points: 15 points
Offered: First Semester
Contact hours: Lectures - 3 hours per week
Coordinator: Mohsen Al Attar
Prerequisites: LAW 201, 211, 231, 241

Course description

In the late 15th century, imperialist Europe emerged intent on exploring and possessing the New World. Fast forward through five hundred years of colonialism, capitalism, slavery, industrialisation, genocide, and international law and greet the 21st century in all its paradoxical glory. We now live in a world characterised by political binaries: developed & underdeveloped; civilised & primitive; wealthy & poor; lawful & unlawful. Did international law play a part in introducing the new world to the old one and, more insidiously, in dispossessing the new one for the benefit of the old one?

Content outline

In this paper, we will pierce through the rhetoric in an attempt to uncover the role of law in legitimating the divisions that now plague us. We will examine the colonial origins of underdevelopment - how Europe underdeveloped Africa as Walter Rodney famously stated. Following a brief review of historical inequity, we will turn our attention to the colonial origins of international law and its role in facilitating the subordination of native inhabitants in favour of European settlers. Our examination will then take us through a series of case studies - human rights, intellectual property rights, military interventions, labour (de)regulation, and the world trading system - all of which will be considered primarily from the hushed perspectives of the Third World.

Too often is the voice of international law represented as a unified one, a harmonious chorus of equality and goodwill. In this paper we will listen for sounds of discontent and explore the motivations of those struggling against the current global order. Our aim is to answer a gripping question: is international law intended to challenge or preserve the divisions of wealth and power that pervade contemporary society?

Assessment

In class and electronic participation - 10%
Group presentation - 20%
Critical commentaries (totaling 7000-7500 words) - 70%

Prescribed texts

To be advised