International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance
Cambridge University Press, 1/12/2008
EAN 9780521016711, ISBN10: 0521016711
Paperback, 360 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm
Language: English
The emergence of transnational social movements as major actors in international politics - as witnessed in Seattle in 1999 and elsewhere - has sent shockwaves through the international system. Many questions have arisen about the legitimacy, coherence and efficiency of the international order in the light of the challenges posed by social movements. This book offers a fundamental critique of twentieth-century international law from the perspective of Third World social movements. It examines in detail the growth of two key components of modern international law - international institutions and human rights - in the context of changing historical patterns of Third World resistance. Using a historical and interdisciplinary approach, Rajagopal presents compelling evidence challenging debates on the evolution of norms and institutions, the meaning and nature of the Third World as well as the political economy of its involvement in the international system.
Abbreviations
Preface and acknowledgements
Introduction
Part I. International Law, Development and Third World Resistance
1. Writing Third World resistance into international law
2. International law and the development encounter
Part II. International Law, Third World Resistance and the Institutionalization of Development
the Invention of the Apparatus
3. Laying the groundwork
the Mandate system
4. Radicalizing institutions and/or institutionalizing radicalism? UNCTAD and the NIEO debate
5. From resistance to renewal
Bretton Woods institutions and the emergence of the 'new' development agenda
6. Completing a full circle
democracy and the discontent of development
Part III. Decolonizing Resistance
Human Rights and the Challenge of Social Movements
7. Human rights and the Third World
constituting the discourse of resistance
8. Recoding resistance
social movements and the challenge to international law
9. Markets, gender and identity
a case study of the Working Women's Forum as a social movement
Part IV. Epilogue
References
Index.