Rhetoric and Rage: Third World Voices in International Legal Discourse
![handle is hein.journals/wisint16 and id is 361 raw text is: RHETORIC AND RAGE:
THIRD WORLD VOICES IN INTERNATIONAL
LEGAL DISCOURSE
KARIN MICKELSON*
That is the partial tragedy of resistance, that it must to a
certain extent work to recover forms already established or
at least influenced or infiltrated by the culture of empire.
Edward Said'
I. CHALLENGING CONVENTIONAL VIEWS OF THE THIRD WORLD AND
INTERNATIONAL LAW
There is no coherent and distinctive Third World approacf to
international law; this appears to be the conventional view among
international legal scholars. While no one would deny that particular issues
have triggered similar responses from the so-called Third World countries,2
the standard view expressed is that these disparate strands do not weave
together into any sort of pattern. While for convenience they might be
lumped together under the Third World rubric, they constitute little more
than a series of ad hoc responses to discrete issues. Even those who would
admit the existence of a pattern tend to deny its distinctiveness. To the
extent that a broader Third World approach to international law is
recognized at all, it is ordinarily characterized as essentially reactive in
nature.
A.B. Duke, LL.B. Columbia University, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Law, University
of British Columbia. The author would like to acknowledge the invaluable assistance of B.R.
Mickelson, as well as numerous helpful comments from Ivan Head, Deanna MacLeod, David Moore,
Obiora Chinedu Okafor, and J.C. Smith.
'EDWARD S. SAID, CULTURE AND IMPERIALISM 210 (1993).
2 For an anthology that examines a number of these issues see THIRD WORLD ATTITUDES
TOWARD INTERNATIONAL LAW: AN INTRODUCTION (Frederick E. Snyder & Surakiart Sathirathai eds.
1987). For early discussions of the impact of the Third World on international law see Georges N.. Abi-
Saab, The Newly Independent States and the Rules of International Law, 8 How. L.J. 95 (1962); Jorge
Castaneda, The Underdeveloped Nations and the Development of International Law, 15 INT'L tGt. 38
(1961); A.A. Fatouros, International Law and the Third World, 50 VA. L. REV. 783 (1964). Sce also
Tunku Sofiah Jewa, The Third World and International Law, 4 J. MALAYSIAN & COMP. L. 215 (1977).
A bibliography that covers most of the early literature is The Third World and International Law:
Selected Bibliography-] 955-1982 (1983).
' Early on, for example, Wolfgang Friedmann argued that any difference in the approach
taken by the underdeveloped countries could be explained in terms of their lack of econon ic and
political clout. In the present-as it has done in the past, and will do in the future--a status of economic
under-development will produce certain attitudes and approaches toward international law, which will
change or even be reversed as the underlying condition changes.: The Position of Underdeveloped
Countries and the Universality of International Law, 2 COLUM. J. TRANSNAT'L L. 78, 79 (1963). The
same basic view seemed popular twenty years later; see, for example, PATRICIA BUIRETrE-MAUR ,u, LA](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/wisint16&div=15&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Rhetoric and Rage: Third World Voices in International Legal Discourse
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most