A Guerrilla at the Hague: TWAIL and the Future of International Law

Critical international legal theory involves a multitude of perspectives, objectives, and strategies. Two key referents singularise TWAIL within this wider theoretical orbit. First, TWAIL represents an approach toward international law that takes conquest, colonialism, empire, predation, and racism as empirical and discursive objects of study. It does so not only for historical accuracy but also to re-situate the legacies and innovations of each phenomenon in international legal scholarship, a site where they are overlooked or, worse, flouted. Second, TWAIL purports to offer alternatives to Eurocentric epistemology, challenging the subjectivity that sketches the contours of international legality. While it would be misleading to insinuate homogeneity in TWAIL viewpoints, what is consistent is the rejection of the presumption that the dominance of one epistemology in international law is sufficient reason for its perpetuation. My proposed book will provide a historically-informed appraisal of TWAIL as a critical theory of international law, innovative methodology in international legal scholarship, and subversive movement in legal academia. The subject matter of the book will thus be primarily legal, involving a close analysis of legal scholarship produced between the 1990s up until the latest TWAIL conference (Singapore, 2018) and legal judgments of the International Court of Justice during this period. Here I am interested in the evolution of TWAIL’s critique of international law but also the evolution of the movement. Organised around three interrelated themes—contexts, critiques, and aspirations—readers of this book will acquire an understanding and appreciation of TWAIL’s character and ambition as well as its successes and failures.