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Politics of International Law

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Course Type Course Code No. Of Credits
Discipline Elective SLG2LP221 4

Course coordinator and team-Dr. Salvin Paul

Does the course connect to, build on or overlap with any other courses offered in AUD?

This course complements the MA programme by critically examining how international law is produced, interpreted, and deployed within global politics. It builds on foundational courses in political theory, international relations, and public law by providing a deeper analytical framework for understanding how states, organisations, and communities negotiate the authority of international legal norms. Rather than overlapping with existing courses, it extends them by foregrounding the political struggles, power asymmetries, and institutional practices that shape the contemporary international legal order.

2. Specific requirements on the part of students who can be admitted to this course: None

(Pre-requisites; prior knowledge level; any others – please specify)

None

3. No. of students to be admitted (with justification if lower than usual cohort size is proposed): As per cohort size

4. Course scheduling (semester; semester-long/half-semester course; workshop mode; seminar mode; any other – please specify): Semester long

5. How does the course link with the vision of AUD?

Aligned with AUD’s commitment to interdisciplinary, socially engaged, and critically informed pedagogy, this course equips MA students to analyse how international law structures global and domestic political life. By foregrounding postcolonial, critical, and sociological perspectives, the course cultivates the ability to interrogate power, justice, and inequality in the making and application of international law. For the MA in Law and Politics, it strengthens conceptual, analytical, and research skills essential to understanding India’s evolving engagements with global governance.

6. How does the course link with the specific programme(s) where it is being offered?

The course strengthens the MA programme by providing essential analytical tools to understand how international law shapes political decision-making, global governance, and state behaviour. It complements core courses in law and politics while deepening students’ capacity to interpret India’s international engagements through critical, historical, and theoretical perspectives.

7. Course Details

a. Summary

In a globalised and increasingly contested world, the Politics of International Law examines how legal norms shape international politics and how political forces influence the creation, interpretation, and enforcement of international law. The course introduces students to historical, doctrinal, and critical debates on the evolution of the international legal order; the functioning of institutions such as the UN and ICJ; the rights and duties of states, organisations, groups, and individuals; and the tensions between sovereignty, power, and legal constraint.
Through postcolonial, critical, and sociological perspectives, students analyse how international law both constrains and enables political action, and how actors use law strategically to advance claims of justice, legitimacy, and authority. Emphasis is placed on India’s engagements with international legal processes, past and present.

8. Couse Objectives

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  1. Explain the historical evolution and conceptual foundations of international law and its relationship to global politics.
  2. Analyse the institutional structures and political dynamics of international peace and security.
  3. Critically evaluate debates on rights, duties, and legal personality of diverse international actors.
  4. Examine contemporary challenges—such as globalisation, decolonisation, responsibility, and legitimacy—to the authority of international law.
  5. Apply critical, contractual, and sociological theories to assess how international law influences political outcomes and vice versa.

9. Expected learning outcomes:

Upon successful completion of the course, students will be able to:

  1. Critically interpret key debates on the origin, evolution, and political functions of international law, including postcolonial and Global South perspectives.
  2. Analyse the institutional mechanisms of international peace and security, with attention to the League of Nations, the United Nations, and the ICJ.
  3. Evaluate the rights, duties, and agency of states, international organisations, peoples, NGOs, and individuals under international law.
  4. Assess how power, ideology, and global inequality shape the creation, implementation, and contestation of international norms.
  5. Conduct research, identify gaps in existing literature, and formulate analytically grounded arguments about the politics of international law.

Modules and Readings

The course is organised into four modules tracing the historical foundations, institutional mechanisms, actors, and critical debates structuring the international legal order. Students engage with theoretical texts, case-based analysis, and contemporary scholarship to understand how international law is made, mobilised, and contested in world politics.

Module 1: Development of International Law

  • Origin and epochs of international law
  • Politics, values, colonial and postcolonial trajectories
  • Exclusion of Asian and African societies under positivism
  • Inter-civilizational and TWAIL perspectives

Readings

  • Orford, A. (2021). International Law and the Politics of History. Cambridge University Press.
  • Davis, M., Nesiah, V., & Okafor, O. (Eds.). (2023). The TWAIL Handbook. Edward Elgar.
  • Pahuja, S. (2022). Decolonising international law? European Journal of International Law, 33(1), 67–89.
  • Chimni, B. S. (2019). The global restructuring of international law: From colonialism to neoliberalism. Journal of International Law and Politics, 51, 389–424.
  • Zhang, Y. (2021). Asia and the making of international law revisited. Asian Journal of International Law, 11(2), 147–170.

Module 2: International Peace and Security

  • League of Nations to UN
  • ICJ and Security Council politics
  • Cold War, decolonisation, and the rise of the Global South
  • Globalisation, communitarian values, and state responsibility

Readings:

  • Fassbender, B., & Peters, A. (Eds.). (2020). The Oxford Handbook of the United Nations (Updated Edition). Oxford University Press.
  • Kuijper, H., & Wouters, J. (2022). The ICJ in a turbulent world: Compliance challenges. Netherlands International Law Review, 69(2), 151–172.
  • Sindico, F. (2021). The Security Council and global governance. Global Governance, 27(1), 1–20.
  • Acharya, A. (2020). Multiplex world order and the Global South. Ethics & International Affairs, 34(3), 341–356.
  • Nasu, H., & McLaughlin, R. (2020). The changing concept of state responsibility in global governance. International & Comparative Law Quarterly, 69(4), 779–807.

Module 3: Rights and Duties of International Actors

  • Recognition, statehood, legal personality
  • International organisations and NGOs as law-makers
  • Self-determination, indigenous peoples, individuals in International Law

Readings:

  • Crawford, J. (2019). The Creation of States in International Law (3rd ed.). Oxford University Press.
  • Daugirdas, K. (2020). How international organisations acquire and exercise legal authority. American Journal of International Law, 114(4), 604–641.
  • Aguirre, D., & Koivurova, T. (2020). The evolving right to self-determination of Indigenous peoples. International Journal on Minority and Group Rights, 27(2), 171–197.
  • Charnovitz, S. (2021). Nongovernmental organisations and the international legal order revisited. Chicago Journal of International Law, 21(2), 345–378.
  • Ryngaert, C. (2022). Individuals in international law: Expanding rights and responsibilities. Leiden Journal of International Law, 35(1), 1–20.

Module 4: Critical, Contractual, and Sociological Perspectives

  • Critical legal studies
  • International law as ideology
  • Cooperation, commitment, and screening problems
  • Socialisation, persuasion, norm internalisation
  • Integrated and pluralist theories of IL’s influence on politics

Readings:

  • Marks, S. (2020). International law and ideological critique. London Review of International Law, 8(2), 233–251.
  • García-Salmón, M. (2021). International law as ideology: Power, legitimacy, and interpretation. Journal of International Legal Theory, 22(1), 31–54.
  • Koremenos, B. (2020). The Continent of International Law: Cooperation, commitment, and institutional design (Updated Edition). Cambridge University Press.
  • Goodman, R., & Jinks, D. (2020). Socialisation and norm internalisation in international law. American Journal of International Law, 114(1), 1–38.
  • Wiener, A. (2019). Contestation and normative change in global politics: A pluralist theory. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 32(5), 623–645.
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