A racist international law : domination and resistance in the Americas of the 19th century

This essay examines, in relation to one continent –the Americas– the 19th century rise of race as an element in international legal argumentation. Americans from the United States understood international law itself to be the law of the Anglo-Saxon race, justifying not only American expansion over the continent’s ‘vacant lands’, but also the limits of that expansion. Americans argued for segregation, when expansion run into ‘non-white races.’ The newly–independent states of the Americas were not to be conquered but disciplined – through diplomatic protection and military intervention. Spanish-Americans, realizing that the greatest threat to the independence of their Republics was no longer European recolonization, but Anglo-American expansion and intervention, called for both the unity of the Latin race and the enactment of a continental public law, what later became a Latin American international law with non-intervention at its center. But using the idea of a Latin-race confronting the Anglo-race to sustain the former’s claim to sovereignty, redefined indigenous peoples as races to be civilized by assimilation or war. If Latin America was born as an anti-hegemonic project of resistance vis-à-vis Anglo-America, a racialized international law enabled not only Anglo-American continental domination, but also dispossession of indigenous peoples by Latin American states

Los pueblos originarios y la práctica del derecho internacional en Chile: nuevos horizontes ante el debilitamiento de los legados del autoritarismo

International law, since the 1990s has come to recognize indigenous peoples’ demands. Since then, indigenous people have acquired the status of international legal subject. For Chile, this should have marked a significant departure. The 1990s inaugurated not only the end of the cold war and thus the renewed relevance of international law, but also the return to democratic rule. Following global trends, Chile started to confront the violation of human rights occurring during the dictatorship. But Chile’s colonial past and the demands of indigenous peoples continue to be ignored. We argue that the legacies of authoritarianism in the Chilean practice of international law, explain in part the inability to respond to these demands. We conclude exploring the possibility of disciplinary renewal in in light of the end of the political consensus that marked the Chilean transition to democracy. It remains to be seen if these shifts will render Chilean international lawyers more receptive to indigenous peoples’ demands.A partir de los años 1990 el derecho internacional ha comenzado a reconocer las demandas de los pueblos originarios. Desde entonces, los pueblos originarios han adquirido progresivamente el carácter de sujeto de derecho internacional. Para Chile este cambio debería haber sido significativo. Los años noventa no solo marcaron el fin de la Guerra Fría y la consiguiente renovada relevancia del derecho internacional; también fueron los años en que Chile recuperó su democracia. Mientras el país, siguiendo los avances del derecho internacional, comenzó a confrontar las violaciones a los derechos humanos cometidas durante la dictadura, el pasado colonial y las demandas de pueblos originarios siguen siendo ignorados. Argumentamos que los legados del autoritarismo en la disciplina del derecho internacional en Chile explican en parte la incapacidad de responder a las demandas de los pueblos originarios. Concluimos explorando la posibilidad de una renovación disciplinar en Chile a la luz del quiebre actual de los consensos que marcaron la transición. Aún es muy temprano para predecir si estos cambios traerán consigo una práctica del derecho internacional en Chile más receptiva a las demandas de los pueblos originarios

Turning international law against indigenous peoples

This essay explores how international law shaped the relationship between the states of Latin America and the indigenous peoples living within their territories. After independence, international law became part of the nation-building project of the new Republics. Latin American statemen engaged with international legal arguments to sustain the recognition of the Republics as sovereign states. They also advanced a legal fiction: sovereignty of the new Republics extended to the entire territory that had been claimed by colonial Spain, regardless of effective occupation. Lands inhabited by indigenous peoples became part of the territory of the post-independence state. Latin Americans proposed a particular doctrine, uti possidetis, to support this legal fiction. Indigenous lands were enclosed, and indigenous individuals became citizens, not only enjoying formal legal equality, but also acquiring the obligation to observe the law of the new nation-state. The 19th century legal fiction of indigenous land enclosure and assimilation was slowly made real by ‘expanding the law’s empire,’ through land registration, law enforcement violence and war. We argue that the 19th century patterns of assimilation and land dispossession by way of inclusion of the indigenous continued structuring relations between Latin American states and indigenous peoples in the 20th century. However, if in the 19th century Latin Americans developed international law doctrine to sustain the nation-building framework, in the 20th century, international lawyers from the region rejected the rise of international legal norms, doctrines and institutions that challenged the nation-building project by potentially conferring international rights to indigenous peoples. We show that Latin Americans resisted ILO supervision of native labor. They also resisted the extension of minority protections to indigenous groups and ultimately refused considering indigenous peoples as one of the peoples enjoying the right to self-determination. It was not European international lawyers, but Latin Americans, who turned international law against indigenous peoples

Universal International Law: Nineteenth Century Histories of Imposition, Appropriation, and Circulation

https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/clark_speakers/1021/thumbnail.jp

After TWAIL’s Success, what next? : afterword to the foreword by Antony Anghie

Published online: 14 December 2023In the span of two decades, Third World approaches to international law (TWAIL) experienced a meteoric rise, becoming not only one of the most interesting but also one of the dominant approaches to international law. This Afterword to the Foreword by Antony Anghie reflects upon the rise of TWAIL and its significance to the discipline of international law. I argue that having become part of the disciplinary mainstream, TWAIL ‘civilizes’ international law, making it more difficult for international lawyers to ignore or dismiss the colonial origins and legacies of their field. As TWAIL leaves a mark on international law, new spaces for international legal action by the peoples of the global South might have been opened. Does greater action weaken TWAIL’s central insights about colonial origins and legacies? Maybe, and if so, a mainstream TWAIL opens also disciplinary space for other critical approaches that shine light on Third World experiences of international law that point not just to oppression but also to North/South engagement and, potentially, Southern resistance

La Consulta indígena en Chile: ¿Derecho de participación o de libre determinación?

The purpose of this paper is to develop the contradictions of the international standard of the right to indigenous consultation expressed in the confrontation between two paradigms: a decolonial one of self-determination, and that of a human right to participate within the democratic framework of a State. Discussions of the reliable history - from the mid-19th century - of the discussion of the main instruments of international law referring to indigenous peoples as subjects of international law, and in particular the right to indigenous consultation, are examined. This is complemented by specialized doctrinarian literature and official interpretation agencies. We conclude that there is a paradoxical coexistence to the extent that, even though the participation paradigm has been prioritized in abstract and formally, the weak consolidation of the right to consultation, added to certain particularities, brings with it the increase in the legitimacy of self-determination.El presente trabajo tiene por objeto desarrollar las contradicciones del estándar internacional del derecho a la consulta indígena expresadas en la confrontación entre dos paradigmas: uno decolonial de libre determinación, y la de un derecho humano a la participación dentro del marco democrático de un Estado. Se examinan los debates de la historia fidedigna -desde mediados del siglo XIX- de la elaboración de los principales instrumentos de derecho internacional referentes a los pueblos originarios como sujetos de derecho internacional, y en particular del derecho a la consulta indígena. Se complementa aquello con la literatura de doctrina especializada y organismos de interpretación oficial. Concluimos que existe una coexistencia paradójica en la medida que, aun habiéndose priorizado en abstracto y formalmente el paradigma de participación, la consolidación débil del derecho a consulta, sumado a ciertas particularidades, trae aparejado el incremento de la legitimidad de la autodeterminación

Los pueblos originarios y la práctica del derecho internacional en Chile: nuevos horizontes ante el debilitamiento de los legados del autoritarismo

International law, since the 1990s has come to recognize indigenous peoples’ demands. Since then, indigenous people have acquired the status of international legal subject. For Chile, this should have marked a significant departure. The 1990s inaugurated not only the end of the cold war and thus the renewed relevance of international law, but also the return to democratic rule. Following global trends, Chile started to confront the violation of human rights occurring during the dictatorship. But Chile’s colonial past and the demands of indigenous peoples continue to be ignored. We argue that the legacies of authoritarianism in the Chilean practice of international law, explain in part the inability to respond to these demands. We conclude exploring the possibility of disciplinary renewal in in light of the end of the political consensus that marked the Chilean transition to democracy. It remains to be seen if these shifts will render Chilean international lawyers more receptive to indigenous peoples’ demands.A partir de los años 1990 el derecho internacional ha comenzado a reconocer las demandas de los pueblos originarios. Desde entonces, los pueblos originarios han adquirido progresivamente el carácter de sujeto de derecho internacional. Para Chile este cambio debería haber sido significativo. Los años noventa no solo marcaron el fin de la Guerra Fría y la consiguiente renovada relevancia del derecho internacional; también fueron los años en que Chile recuperó su democracia. Mientras el país, siguiendo los avances del derecho internacional, comenzó a confrontar las violaciones a los derechos humanos cometidas durante la dictadura, el pasado colonial y las demandas de pueblos originarios siguen siendo ignorados. Argumentamos que los legados del autoritarismo en la disciplina del derecho internacional en Chile explican en parte la incapacidad de responder a las demandas de los pueblos originarios. Concluimos explorando la posibilidad de una renovación disciplinar en Chile a la luz del quiebre actual de los consensos que marcaron la transición. Aún es muy temprano para predecir si estos cambios traerán consigo una práctica del derecho internacional en Chile más receptiva a las demandas de los pueblos originarios