Ntina Tzouvala
The Australian National University, ANU College of Law, Faculty Member
- Public International Law, State Theory, Critical Legal Studies, Feminist Legal Studies, Marxism, New Approaches to International Law, and 31 moreHuman Rights, International Relations, Michel Foucault, Neoliberalism, International economic law, Jurisprudence, Comparative Law, Legal History, Post-Colonialism, Structuralism/Post-Structuralism, Global Governance, International trade law, Nationalism And State Building, Judith Butler, Colonialism, Socio Economic Rights, Radical Geography, Labour Law, Austerity Measures, Sovereignty, Marxian State Theory, Theory of the State, Comparative Constitutional Law, International Law, Critical Legal Theory, Louis Althusser, TWAIL - Third World Approaches to International Law, History and Theory of International Law, Marxist theory, Political Theory, and Political Economyedit
- LL.B (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), LL.M Sociology of Law (National and Kapodistrian University of... moreLL.B (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), LL.M Sociology of Law (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens) , LL.M International Law (UCL) PhD (Durham Law School)edit
Since 2008, a global 'land rush' has been unfolding and so have efforts by international, national and regional actors to position themselves as the principal authorities in the determination of appropriate usages of land. This article... more
Since 2008, a global 'land rush' has been unfolding and so have efforts by international, national and regional actors to position themselves as the principal authorities in the determination of appropriate usages of land. This article examines three of the most influential 'soft law' instruments , the Principles for Responsible Agricultural Investment, the Principles for Responsible Investment in Agriculture and Food Systems and Voluntary Guidelines on the Responsible Gov-ernance of Tenure. Despite their substantive differences, all three documents share a specific form of state-centrism. They imagine the host state of such large-scale investments as internally unitary and externally independent and entrust it with the bulk of responsibilities regarding the management of land investments. However, I argue, this particular form of state-centrism obscures the legal and administrative realities of the postcolonial state that is often legally bifurcat-ed and subject to pervasive forms of international authority. Rather, an appreciation of the multitude of actors who claim jurisdiction over the lands of the South enables a better understanding of the legal mechanics of land-grabbing. Sierra Leone, which has been positioned as a 'poster child' for the implementation of such 'soft law' instruments, serves as the focal point of this jurisdictional approach to land-grabbing. In this context, the promise of 'soft law' instruments to make the postcolonial state the guarantor of universally beneficial large-scale land acquisitions is shown to be a false one.
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In this chapter I will examine the origins, functions, and consequences of extraterritoriality in Siam, and its important role in the creation of the modern Thai state. More specifically, I will trace the role of extraterritoriality in... more
In this chapter I will examine the origins, functions, and consequences of extraterritoriality in Siam, and its important role in the creation of the modern Thai state. More specifically, I will trace the role of extraterritoriality in the creation of a territorially bound polity governed through bureaucratic mechanisms displaying a high degree of legalisation of social relations and integrated into a global capitalist system. In the first part of this chapter, I will examine the establishment, operation, and abolition of extraterritoriality in Siam, having as my main reference-point the 1855 Bowring Treaty and the subsequent legal, institutional, and economic reforms enacted by the Siamese monarchy in its attempt to have extraterritoriality abolished. In the second part, I will discuss the process of creating a territorialised, centralised state and the assumption of control over former vassal states by Bangkok. Here I revisit imperial struggle and co-operation between Britain and Siam regarding the resource-rich Northern Siam (Lanna). I will argue that extraterritoriality treaties in 1874 and 1883 crystallised the alliance between foreign capital and the Siamese ruling classes, an alliance that drove the process of state-building in Siam. The core of my argument is that extraterritorial jurisdiction was a legal technique through which British capitalists, the Foreign Office, the Siamese monarchy, and the nascent bourgeoisie formed a precarious and contradictory, yet operationally effective, alliance that enabled Siam’s transition to capitalism, the emergence of fixed borders, and the subjugation of northern vassal states and concomitant consolidation of state control over these territories, as well as the mastery over and commodification of nature.
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This article revisits the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of national-statehood in the Balkans. It traces this transitional process between the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and the United Nations involvement in the... more
This article revisits the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the emergence of national-statehood in the Balkans. It traces this transitional process between the Congress of Berlin in 1878 and the United Nations involvement in the Greek Civil War (1946-1949). I show that this transition from empire to the nation-state was overdetermined by the partial and fragmented, yet influential, internationalization of significant questions regarding state-building, including decisions about autonomy and independence, the drawing of boundaries, the protection of minorities and the continuation of economic relations. In fact, the Balkans became a site of experimentation for international legal techniques, such as fact-finding, peacekeeping missions or the administration of population exchanges, that would later acquire wider significance in the process of decolonization. The image of international law emerging from this account troubles the liberal understanding of international law and institutions as benevolent , cosmopolitan forces opposing, restraining and taming 'nationalist passions'. Rather, it was precisely because the relationship between nationalism and internationalism was one of cooperation and co-constitution, as much as one of antagonism that this multitude of international legal techniques conditioning sovereignty in the Balkans arose.
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This is the final, pre-proofs draft of an article due to appear in the London Review of International Law as part of a special issue on mega-regionals, neoliberalism and social movements.
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This paper revisits the occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2004. The focus of my analysis is the agricultural reforms promoted by the occupying power, the Coalition Provisional Authority, which aimed at the marketisation of agricultural... more
This paper revisits the occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2004. The focus of my analysis is the agricultural reforms promoted by the occupying power, the Coalition Provisional Authority, which aimed at the marketisation of agricultural production, at the enhancement of the position of multinational agribusiness and in the total integration of Iraq in global food markets. More specifically, this article maintains that the aggressively neoliberal reform of Iraq's agriculture can be better understood as the extreme end of a wider spectrum of promotion of neoliberal state-building through international law and international institutions post-1990. In the light of the recent cataclysmic events in the Middle East, this paper revisits the occupation of Iraq between 2003 and 2004. The focus of my analysis is the agricultural reforms promoted by the occupying power, the Coalition Provisional Authority, which aimed at the marketisation of agricultural production , at the enhancement of the position of multinational agribusiness and at the total integration of Iraq in global food markets. To do so, I first revisit the troubled history of Iraqi agriculture from the late Ottoman Empire to the Mandate System, from the independence to the embargo and finally, to the occupation mapping the devastating impact of local and international elites. Turning to the reforms of the CPA, I attempt an assessment in relation to international law that goes beyond the-plausible, yet simplistic-arguments about the illegality of the said reforms. Revisiting both the relevant UN Security Council Resolution (UNSC Res. 1483) as well as the recent practice of the UN in the area of international territorial administration, this article maintains that the aggressively neoliberal reform of Iraq's agriculture can be better understood as the extreme end of a wider spectrum of promotion of neoliberal Global Jurist 2016; aop Authenticated | konstantina.tzouvala@unimelb.edu.au author's copy Download Date | 11/30/16 7:46 AM state-building through international law and international institutions post-1990. Given the unfolding catastrophe in Iraq, the complicity of international law in the growing food insecurity in the region warrants serious consideration of the dark sides of the discipline.
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Reflecting upon critical international scholarship and its evolution through time, this review essay focuses on a volume co-edited by José María Beneyto and David Kennedy, along with as sistant editors, Justo Corti Varela and John... more
Reflecting upon critical international scholarship and its evolution through time, this review essay focuses on a volume co-edited by José María Beneyto and David Kennedy, along with as sistant editors, Justo Corti Varela and John Haskell, on the history of the new approaches to international law (NAIL) and the work of David Kennedy. Considering the individual contributions to this book, this essay argues that while the influence of NAIL upon younger scholars, critical or 'mainstream', is beyond contestation, it is questionable to what extent the intellectual priorities and institutional anxieties of the discipline (should) remain the same. Drawing heavily on the theme of professional responsibility that underlies most of the contributions to this volume, this essay proposes a reorientation of critical inquiry in the light of the implication of international law and institutions in the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath. Echoing Kennedy's call to engage with questions of political economy and global governance, this review essay suggests that for critical international law to reclaim its radical and innovative character, it is imperative to engage with the concerns of a post-crash world and to identify and disrupt the role of international law in the constitution of an unstable and unjust international economic order.
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There is a certain degree of irony in writing about Brexit for a law journal- a read put together, hosted and read mostly, if not exclusively, by ‘experts’. The irony lies in the fact that the outcome of the UK referendum on the EU was,... more
There is a certain degree of irony in writing about Brexit for a law journal- a read put together, hosted and read mostly, if not exclusively, by ‘experts’. The irony lies in the fact that the outcome of the UK referendum on the EU was, amongst other things, a rejection of experts; or rather, of current mobilizations of expertize and the political allegiances of a large number of experts. Despite this irony, or precisely because of it, I will reflect on three interrelated questions that, in my mind, determined the content and outcome of this historic referendum. First, I will discuss the discourse of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘control’ at the centre of the Leave campaign. Secondly, I will focus on the role of expertize and (technocratic) knowledge both in the construction of the European project and in the revolt against it. Finally, I will argue that given neoliberal hegemony and its heavily unequal distributive outcomes, revolts against contemporary structures of power, both national and inter/supranational are to be expected. Therefore, the question for progressive lawyers is how to mobilize our expertise so that these revolts do not become the exclusive playing terrain of the extreme right with unforeseen consequences.
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Given the long history of violent encounters between the Global North and the Global South, legal arguments concerning the use of force are a fertile ground for testing the virtues and limits of Third World Approaches to International Law... more
Given the long history of violent encounters between the Global North and the Global South, legal arguments concerning the use of force are a fertile ground for testing the virtues and limits of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) as a theory aspiring to " address the material and ethical concerns of Third World peoples. " 1 This essay examines the usefulness and limits of TWAIL in the context of the " unwilling or unable " doctrine currently promoted by a series of Western scholars and states in order to expand the scope of application of the right to self-defence under Article 51 of the United Nations Charter. Adopting TWAIL's impulse to historicize, this essay argues that the structure of this doctrine closely repli-cates the " standard of civilization " that informed international legal theory and practice throughout the nineteenth century. At the same time, widespread resistance to the " unwilling or unable " doctrine indicates that the profound transformation of international law on the use of force after 1945 and the diffusion of sovereignty outside the West put into question certain methodological and political commitments of TWAIL. The " unwilling or unable " doctrine has been summarised by Ashley Deeks as follows: " [I]t is lawful for State X, which has suffered an armed attack by an insurgent or terrorist group, to use force in State Y against that group if State Y is unwilling or unable to suppress the threat. " 2 The assassination of Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces in the territory of Pakistan 3 and, more recently, the bombing campaign of the United States against ISIS in Syrian territory 4 and the drone strike of the United Kingdom against three individuals in Syria, 5 are examples of the relatively clear and direct invocation of the principle to justify the use of force. Despite the fact that Deek's account is conceptually unclear at times, the argument appears to be that a customary norm has arisen, according to which the " inherent " right to self-defence can be exercised against a state even when the acts of individuals are not attributable to it under the test set by the International Court of Justice in the Nicaragua case, 6 if the said state is " unwilling or unable " to put an end to the use of its * Lecturer in law, Durham Law School (UK). I would like to thank Dr Aoife O'Donoghue and the AJIL Unbound reviewers warmly for their useful comments. Usual caveats apply.
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The revelation of a series of child abuse incidents committed by Catholic priests and other members of religious orders has given rise to the question of establishing the responsibility of the Holy See for these acts under international... more
The revelation of a series of child abuse incidents committed by Catholic priests and other members of religious orders has given rise to the question of establishing the responsibility of the Holy See for these acts under international human rights law. This article focuses on the report issued in 2014 by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the monitoring body of the Convention of the Rights of the Child (crc). It is argued that in order to fulfil this task we need to take three steps: first, to establish the relationship between the Vatican City state and the Hole See, a distinct and peculiar international legal subject. To do so, a historical account of the Holy See and its position within the fabric of international law is considered necessary. Secondly, this article argues that the crc was ratified by the Holy See both in its capacity as the government of the Vatican City and as a non-territorial legal subject. Hence, the application of the crc is not confined within the limited territory of the Vatican City, but ‘follows’ the authority of the Holy See irrespective of state borders. Thirdly, it is argued that the vertical, hierarchical structure of the Holy See is homologous to that of the modern state and, therefore, attribution rules can be applied by analogy in this case. The final conclusion is that it is possible to hold the Holy See responsible under the crc for acts of child abuse that occurred under its authority around the globe.
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Institutional and material conditions matter for the production of feminist international legal scholarship as well as for the future of women's engagement with international law. This simple assumption lies at the heart at the heart of... more
Institutional and material conditions matter for the production of feminist international legal scholarship as well as for the future of women's engagement with international law. This simple assumption lies at the heart at the heart of this chapter that attempts to map the consequences of the ongoing neoliberalisation of universities and its impacts on the processes of teaching, learning and researching international law in an academic environment. More specifically, I will reflect on how the disciplining of academic endeavours according to market imperatives has contradictory implications for the position of women within the discipline and for the emergence of feminist orientations both in the ways we teach international law and on research and publising. To do so, I will proceed in three steps. First, I will reflect on the need to examine the teaching of international law in higher education institutions as an essential step for safeguarding the future of women in international law. Secondly, I will map the transformation of higher education in Anglophone environments in the course of the last three decades with an emphasis on the rapid subordination of these spaces to the imperatives of neoliberalism. Finally, I will examine the impact of these evolutions on feminist legal scholarship and the position of women within international legal academia. My concluding argument is that even though the marketization of higher education has begun dissolving former status-based hierarchies and has opened up space for heterodox approaches to the discipline, increased emphasis on competition and an emerging consumerist culture are directly antithetical to a meaningfully feminist ethos in academic international law.
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In his pathbreaking 1979 article ‘The Structure of Blackstone’s Commentaries’, critical legal theorist Duncan Kennedy made two important observations about the nature of law and the role of lawyers under conditions of liberal capitalism.... more
In his pathbreaking 1979 article ‘The Structure of Blackstone’s Commentaries’, critical legal theorist Duncan Kennedy made two important observations about the nature of law and the
role of lawyers under conditions of liberal capitalism. First, he argued that law is fundamentally contradictory as it reflects the fundamental tensions between individual autonomy and state authority. This claim about the indeterminacy at the core of the legal argument is, of course,
familiar to international lawyers. However, Kennedy also made a second, crucial claim. He posited that it is the very job description of lawyers to obscure the existence of these contradictions and to mediate them through the deployment of legal technique. Kennedy, in fact, argued that
since Blackstone the primary mode of mediation for liberal legal thought has been the invocation of ‘rights’. This singling out of rights as the mediating technique of liberal legalism was probably somewhat of an exaggeration. Kennedy’s argument has nonetheless drawn attention
to both the structural features of capitalist legality and to the specific role legal work plays in this context. In fact, Kennedy noted that these mediating functions need not necessarily be apologies for the status quo, even though they certainly gravitate in that direction.
World Trade and Investment Law Reimagined offers a stark example of the promise and peril of legal work that aims at mediating the contradictions of capitalist globalization.
role of lawyers under conditions of liberal capitalism. First, he argued that law is fundamentally contradictory as it reflects the fundamental tensions between individual autonomy and state authority. This claim about the indeterminacy at the core of the legal argument is, of course,
familiar to international lawyers. However, Kennedy also made a second, crucial claim. He posited that it is the very job description of lawyers to obscure the existence of these contradictions and to mediate them through the deployment of legal technique. Kennedy, in fact, argued that
since Blackstone the primary mode of mediation for liberal legal thought has been the invocation of ‘rights’. This singling out of rights as the mediating technique of liberal legalism was probably somewhat of an exaggeration. Kennedy’s argument has nonetheless drawn attention
to both the structural features of capitalist legality and to the specific role legal work plays in this context. In fact, Kennedy noted that these mediating functions need not necessarily be apologies for the status quo, even though they certainly gravitate in that direction.
World Trade and Investment Law Reimagined offers a stark example of the promise and peril of legal work that aims at mediating the contradictions of capitalist globalization.
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The financial crash of 2007-2008 brought words like 'capitalism', 'capital', and 'socialism' back in vogue. However, the discipline of international law remains to reflect systematically on its relationship with the ways in which wealth... more
The financial crash of 2007-2008 brought words like 'capitalism', 'capital', and 'socialism' back in vogue. However, the discipline of international law remains to reflect systematically on its relationship with the ways in which wealth and power are produced and distributed. This thesis examines the relationship between international law, imperialism and capitalism through historical lenses, arguing that the diffusion of capitalist relations is a core function of international law. Analysing the nineteenth-century 'standard of civilisation', I contend that transforming (semi)colonised polities into centralised, territorialised states operating as guarantors of capitalist relations of production was at the core of the concept. Extraterritoriality in Japan and the Ottoman Empire serves as a case study to verify this statement and to highlight the transformative functions of the 'civilising mission'. The Mandates System of the League of Nations established a system of partial internationalisation of this transformative process, while attempting to safeguard the long-term interests of capital through the introduction of limited forms of welfarism. My thesis then argues that decolonisation assumed the form of national statehood due to the transformative functions of nineteenth-century international law. Therefore, the attempt to push for a New International Economic Order was both a challenge to contemporary international law and a reaffirmation of its role in promoting capitalist relations on a global level. These reformist attempts did not succeed, however, and a new model of capitalist accumulation, neoliberalism, became hegemonic after 1990. The quantitative expansion and qualitative refinement of international law during that period was intrinsically linked to the neoliberal aversion to democratic and mass politics. The neoliberal reconstruction of Iraq in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion is interpreted in the light of this reality. In so doing, my thesis highlights the ongoing synergies between international law and capitalist expansion.