Completing Humanity: The International Law of Decolonization, 1960-82

by Umut Özsu

Overview

After the Second World War, the dissolution of European empires and emergence of 'new states' in Asia, Africa, Oceania, and elsewhere necessitated large-scale structural changes in international legal order. In Completing Humanity, Umut Özsu recounts the history of the struggle to transform international law during the twentieth century's last major wave of decolonization. Commencing in 1960, with the General Assembly's landmark decolonization resolution, and concluding in 1982, with the close of the third UN Conference on the Law of the Sea and the onset of the Latin American debt crisis, the book examines the work of elite international lawyers from newly independent states alongside that of international law specialists from 'First World' and socialist states. A study in modifications to legal theory and doctrine over time, it documents and reassesses post-1945 decolonization from the standpoint of the 'Third World' and the jurists who elaborated and defended its interests.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108427692
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/21/2023
Pages:	348
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.25(h) x 0.87(d)

About the Author

Umut Özsu is Associate Professor of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. He is the author of Formalizing Displacement: International Law and Population Transfers (2015), and the co-editor of several volumes and journal symposia.

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Fixing Selves; 2. Forging Universals; 3. Redistributing Resources; 4. Pooling Rights; 5. Righting Markets; Conclusion; Bibliography; Index.

Editorial Reviews

‘In this study of the many initiatives of Third World states commencing in the 1960s, Özsu provides a vivid account of the personalities involved, the projects they inaugurated, and the battles fought over the meaning and direction of international law. What emerges is a masterly history of the ‘international law of decolonization’, a rich and valuable addition to the literature on a topic that is finally receiving the attention it deserves.' Tony Anghie, National University of Singapore

‘In this history of the Third World's bid to transform international law, Özsu illustrates why the law was such an important arena for political struggle, tracks the expansive visions of an international legal order pioneered by lawyers from the global South, and makes clear how the struggles of the past remain with us in the present. Written with clarity and precision, Completing Humanity is an important contribution to the growing scholarship on decolonization.' Adom Getachew, University of Chicago

‘In his stunning and unprecedented book, Umut Özsu describes the ambition and breadth of the decolonizing agenda — and why international law mattered so much to it – while probing the impasses, limits, and resistance that foiled it. An accessible and dramatic story, Completing Humanity is based on exemplary learning and overflowing with insight and provocation: the most significant and sophisticated contribution to the history of international law written in many years.' Samuel Moyn, Yale University

‘This is a gripping new take on the relationship between the historical process of decolonization and international law. Özsu focuses on five key debates in international law which hold at their heart the struggle between those who seek to move beyond the tragic legacies of empire, and those who benefit from those legacies. The book offers a sustained engagement with a panoply of eminent and courageous jurists from the South, their allies, interlocutors, and rivals. The thoughtful alignment between orientation, method, and structure is a model for scholars of all stripes.' Sundhya Pahuja, University of Melbourne

'This book kaleidoscopically charts the Third World's efforts to craft a post-colonial international law during the long 1970s … Özsu eloquently reconstructs the ideological scenery where North-South tensions unfolded.' Soheil Ghasemi, Asian Journal of International Law

‘A significant addition to the body of literature that interrogates, maps, explains, and theorizes the historical role of international legal praxis in colonialism, decolonization, coloniality, and resistance thereto … a sophisticated, historical, socio-legal, critical, and detailed account of the geopolitical contestations, dramas, goals, successes, and failures that framed and marked key aspects of international lawmaking during the period under study … an original and immense contribution to international law.’ Obiora Chinedu Okafor, The American Journal of International Law

‘In a compendious book that may not meet its equal in terms of empirical detail and analytical acuity for some time, Umut Özsu examines the rise and fall of efforts to decolonize international law. … The book’s historical richness offers a corrective to scholarship that continues to draw on international law as a normative tool ready to correct political problems as some kind of prepolitical, uncontaminated ethical resource … it also sets a standard for the proliferating scholarship that calls for decolonizing aspects of international law in the present moment.’ Sinja Graf, Political Theory

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