(Source: CUP)
Cambridge University Press is
publishing “Capitalism As Civilisation - A History of International Law”.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Methodologically and
theoretically innovative, this monograph draws from Marxism and deconstruction
bringing together the textual and the material in our understanding of
international law. Approaching 'civilisation' as an argumentative pattern
related to the distribution of rights and duties amongst different communities,
Tzouvala illustrates both its contradictory nature and its pro-capitalist bias.
'Civilisation' is shown to oscillate between two poles. On the one hand, a pervasive
'logic of improvement' anchors legal equality to demands that non-Western
polities undertake extensive domestic reforms and embrace capitalist modernity.
On the other, an insistent 'logic of improvement' constantly postpones and
engages such a prospect based on ideas of immutable difference. By detailing
the tension and synergies between these two logics, Tzouvala argues that
international law incorporates and attempts to mediate the contradictions of
capitalism as a global system of production and exchange that both homogenises
and stratifies societies, populations and space.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ntina Tzouvala, University of
Melbourne
Ntina Tzouvala is an ARC Laureate
Postdoctoral Fellow at Melbourne Law School. Her research focuses on the
political economy, the history, and the theory of international law.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. The standard of civilisation
in international law: politics, theory, method
2. The standard of civilisation
in the nineteenth century: between the 'logic of improvement' and the 'logic of
biology'
3. The institutionalisation of
civilisation in the interwar period
4. Arguing with borrowed
concepts: 'The sacred trust of civilisation' in the South West Africa Saga
5. From Iraq to Syria: legal
arguments for the civilising missions of the twenty-first century
6. Thinking through
contradictions on a warming planet.
More info here
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