TWAIL: A Brief History of Its Origins, Its Decentralized Network, and a Tentative Bibliography
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James Thuo Gathii, TWAIL* A BriefHistoi
of its Orgins, its DecentraiZed Network, and a
Tentative Bibliography
3(1) TiRAD \ L. &DFNv.26 (2011)
TWAIL: A BRIEF HISTORY OF ITS ORIGINS, ITS
DECENTRALIZED NETWORK, AND A TENTATIVE
BIBLIOGRAPHY
JAMES THUO GATHL*
This article traces the contemporay orgins of Third World Approaches to
International Law (TWAIL) in the late 1990's. It argues that since then,
TWAIL-ers have not sought to produce a single authoritative voice or text. Instead,
they have generated a vibrant ongoing debate around questions of colonial histor),
power, identity and difference, and what these mean for international law. TWAIL
scholarshzp has also considered possibilities for egalitarian change in a broad variety of
areas in the fields of public international law and international economic law. In
doing so, TWAIL-ers have addressed multrtle issues related to socety, politics,
identty and economic - with an underlying commitment to democratic values and
concerns in relations within and between the Third World and developed countries.
As a distinctive way of thinking about international law, TWAIL is a historically
aware methodology - one that challenges the simplistic visions of an innocent third
world and a coloni?in/g and dominating first world. This methodology proceeds from
the assumption that is not possible to isolate modern forms of domination such as
governmentalty, from the continuation of older modes of domination (colonial and pre-
colonial).
This article argues that TWAIL has become an expansive, heterogeneous and
polycentric dispersed network and field of study. As a field, TWAIL is being
continuously re-invented and shaped by new scholars infusing their passion into its
central concerns. These scholars are refashioning and contesting what they take as
central TWAIL tenets and inventing their own TWAILS. Thus, TWAIL is a
discipline in transition, expansion, definition and internal contestation about the
vared agendas of its scholars, all at the same time.
Associate Dean for Research and Scholarship and Governor George E. Pataki
Professor of International Commercial Law, Albany Law School, 80 New Scotland
Av enue, Albany NY, 12208. E-mail: jgath[at]albanylaw.edu. The usual disclaimer applies.](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/traladpt3&div=7&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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TWAIL: A Brief History of Its Origins, Its Decentralized Network, and a Tentative Bibliography
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