The scandal of enlightenment and the birth of disciplines: Is international law a science?

International Community Law Review

Volumn 12, Issue 1, 2010, Pages 5-34

  Singh, Prabhakar ^a  

^a O P JINDAL GLOBAL UNIVERSITY   (India)

Author keywords

Anti modernism; Colonisation; Emotive and psychological aspect of pil; Enlightenment; History versus mythology; Nandy; Systems of knowledge; Twail

Indexed keywords

EID: 77749301853     PISSN: 18719740     EISSN: 18719732     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1163/187197410X12631788215792     Document Type: Article

References (176)

1. Jonathan Israel, Enlightenment Contested: Philosophy, Modernity, and the Emancipation of Man 1670- 1752 (New York: OUP, 2006).
2. See, Ashis Nandy, The Intimate Enemy: Loss and Recovery of Self under Colonialism, in A. Nandy (ed.) Exiled at Home (2nd impression, New Delhi: OUP, 2002) pp. v-121.
3. Jürgen Habermas, Modernity versus Postmodernity, 22 New German Critique (1981) pp. 3-14, at 3.
4. See a discussion and comparison of contributions of these three scholars in, Theodor Meron, Common Rights of Mankind in Gentili, Grotius and Suarez, 85 American Journal of International Law (1991) pp. 110-112.
5. Antony Anghie, The Evolution of International Law: Colonial and Postcolonial Realities, 27:5 Third World Quarterly (2006) pp. 739-753, at 740.
6. Id., at 741.
7. Id.
8. Nandy, supra note 2.
9. Id. at vii.
10. American Society of International Law/European Society of International Law Joint Conference, Call for papers, Changing Futures? Science and International Law (Helsinki, 2009) at (last visited Aug. 24, 2009).
11. See, Ashis Nandy, Alternative Sciences: Creativity and Authenticity in Two Indian Scientists (2nd ed., New Delhi: OUP, 2001) p. 68.
12. M. Sornrajah, International Law on Foreign Investment Laws (2nd ed., Massachusetts: CUP, 2004).
13. See, James Thuo Gathii, War's Legacy in International Investment Law, 11:4 International Community Law Review (2009) pp. 353-386.
14. Oche Onazi, Towards a Subaltern Theory of Human Rights, 9:2 Global Jurist (Advances), Article 8 (2009) available at (last visited Nov. 6, 2009).
15. Israel, supra note 1, at 108.
16. See, Martti, Koskenniemi, From Apology to Utopia: The Structure of International Legal Argument (reissue, Massachusetts: CUP, 2005) p. 108.
17. All the early jurists like Grotius, Hobbes, Barbeyrac favoured natural law for application among states. Wolff, later, talked about two kinds of natural laws: immutable and modifi ed. Vattel used morality for international as well. Thus by early 19th century international law had become a professional science. However, Kelsen in not uncontested, See, Jörg Kammerhofer, Kelsen - Which Kelsen? A Reapplication of the Pure Theory to International Law, 22:2 Leiden Journal of International Law (2009) pp. 225-249.
18. Id., at 125.
19. Id. at 197-200.
20. Id.
21. Helsinki School of Thought can be distinguished led by Martti Koskenniemi and his fellow colleagues at Helsinki University, Finland. See, Martti Koskenniemi, The Fate of Public International Law: Between Technique and Politics, 70 Modern Law Review (2007) pp. 1-30, at 1.
22. Also, Koskenniemi, The Lady Doth Protest too Much: Kosovo, and the Turn to Ethics in International Law, 65 Modern Law Review (2002) at 159.
23. See the scholarship emerging from Helsinki under Koskenniemi's guidance as a reply to, Rosie Cooney & Andrew Lang, Taking Uncertainty Seriously: Adaptive Governance and International Trade, 18 European Journal of International Law (2007) 523;
24. by Mónica García-Salmones, Taking Uncertainty Seriously: Adaptive Governance and International Trade: A Reply to Rosie Cooney and Andrew Lang (2009) 20 European Journal of International Law (2009) at 167.
25. See the response, Andrew Lang and Rosie Cooney, Taking Uncertainty Seriously: Adaptive Governance and International Trade: A Rejoinder to Mónica García-Salmones, 20 European Journal of International Law (2009) at 187.
26. Rajshree Chandra, Intellectual Property Rights: Excluding Other Rights of Other People, xliv: 31 Economic & Political Weekly (2009) p. 86.
27. Also see her, Rajshree Chandra, Knowledge as Property: Issues in the Moral Grounding of Intellectual Property rights (New Delhi: OUP, 2010, forthcoming).
28. Nandy, supra note 11, at 18.
29. Martti Koskenniemi, The Politics of International Law - 20 Years Later, 20 European Journal of International Law (2009) at 7,10.
30. See, Jalia Kangave, Taxing TWAIL: A Preliminary Inquiry into TWAIL's Application to the Taxation of Foreign Direct Investment, 10(4) International Community Law Review (2008) p. 389.
31. Call for Papers, The International Economic Law Interest Group of the American Society of International Law: Risk, Science and Law in International Governance (Chicago-Kent College of Law, Chicago, IL, December 5, 2009).
32. Koskenniemi, supra note 19, at 1.
33. Also, David Kennedy, Images of Religion in International Legal Theory, in Mark Janis & Carolyn Evans (eds.) Religion and International Law (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1999) pp. 145-54.
34. Id.
35. Nandy, supra note 2, at Preface vii.
36. See, B.S. Chimni, Towards a Radical Third World Approach to International Law, 5 ICCLP Review (2002) pp. 14, 23.
37. Richard Collins, Constitutionalism as Liberal-Juridical Consciousness: Echoes from International Law's Past, 22: 2 Leiden Journal of International Law, (2009), pp. 251-287.
38. Peter Fromuth, The European Court of Justice Kadi Decision and the Future of UN Counterterrorism Sanctions, 13:20 American Society of International Law (ASIL) Insight (2009) available at (last visited Nov. 7, 2009).
39. See, Prabhakar Singh, Indian International law: From a Colonised Apologiats to a Subaltern Protagonist, 23:1 Leiden Journal of International Law (2010) pp. 79-103.
40. Upendra Baxi, Postcolonial Legality, in Henry Schwarz & Sangeeta Ray (eds) A Companion to Postcolonial Studies (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2000), at 540.
41. Id.
42. Moses Rischin, The Promised City: New York Jews, 1870-1924 (New York: Harper Torchbooks 1970) p. 150. (Emphasis added).
43. García-Salmones, supra note 20, at 168.
44. Id.
45. See, Prabhakar Singh, From Narcissistic Positive International law to Natural Universal International Law: The Dialectics of Absentee Colonialism, 16 African Journal of International & Comparative Law (2008) pp. 56-82.
46. M. Koskenniemi (ed.), Fragmentation of International Law. Problems caused by the Diversification and Expansion of International law, Report of the Study Group of the International Law Commission, A/CN4/L.682 (13 April 2006) (Analytical Report).
47. Panos Merkouris, Debating the Ouroboros of International Law: The Drafting History of Article 31(3)(c) 9 International Community Law Review; (2007) pp. 1-31.
48. Also, The ICJ, 'Oil Platforms Case', Reports 2003, 161, para. 41; The Court applied Article 31(3)(c) of the VCLT.
49. For a comprehensive recent discussion, see C. McLachlan, 'The Principle of Systemic Integration and Article 31 (3) (c) of the Vienna Convention', 54 International & Comparative Law Quarterly (2005) 279.
50. See, Article 38 (c); 'The general principles of law recognized by civilized nations' available at (visited Aug. 25, 2009).
51. See the literature on TWAIL in leading international law journals, Makau Mutua, What is TWAIL? 94 American Society of International Law Proceedings (2000) pp. 31-39;
52. B.S. Chimni, Third World Approaches to International Law: A Manifesto, 8(1) International Community Law Review, (2006) pp. 3-27, Obiora Chinedu Okafor, Critical Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL): Theory, Methodology, or Both? 10(4) International Community Law Review (2008), pp. 371-378.
53. See, Nandy, supra note 2, at viii.
54. However, the reason why the terms "drafting history" or "debates" were selected over "travaux préparatoires" of Article 31(3)(c) was that the examination in this article covers fora and documents that would be debatable whether they constitute preparatory work in the sense of Article 32 of the VCLT;.
55. See, Merkouris, supra note 40, at 3.
56. Nandy, supra note 2, at preface.
57. Arjun Appadurai, Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (1996). Also see a very relevant text, Patricia Cotti, Freud And History Before 1905: From Defending To Questioning The Theory Of A Glorious Past, 10(1) Psychoanalysis & History (2008) pp. 3-19.
58. Steney Shami, Prehistories of Globalisation: Circassian Identity in Motion, in Arjun Appadurai (ed.) Globalisation (Duke Univ. Press, 2001) pp. 220, 221.
59. Ashis Nandy, Politics of Cultures in India, in Exiled at Home: At the Edge of Psychology, supra note 2, at 47-48.
60. Dissenting Opinion of Judge C.G. Weeramantry, Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons, Advisory Opinion, 1996 I.C.J. 226 (July 8) at (last visited Aug. 24, 2009).
61. The European commission has announced an overhaul of the EU's Value Added Tax (VAT) system in its latest attempt to prevent its much-vaunted "carbon trading" system being riddled by multimillion-pound fraud. Criminals who for years had been ripping off VAT from finance ministries around the EU on the trade of items have recently moved in on Europe's €90bn (£81bn) carbon market.
62. See, Ashley Seager, Brussels targets carbon trading fraud ahead of Copenhagen summit, The Guardian, Sept. 29, 2009, available at (visited on Sept. 29, 2009).
63. Superstitions and sub-cultural semiotics of rural existence is a global reality rather than only an Asian or African phenomenon. Europe was as superstitious as any other culture in the world. See, Bernd Roeck, The Enchantment of the Alien: Metaphysics and Marginality in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 7 Medieval History Journal (2004) pp. 39-57.
64. See, Vidyanath Jha & D.N. Tiwari, Certain Scientifi c Observations as Depicted in Indian Philosophical Principles, 2 Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge (2003) pp. 170-180.
65. Nandy, supra note 11, at 6.
66. Nandy, The Politics of Assassination of Gandhi, in supra note 2, at 83.
67. Id.
68. Alakh Niranjan Singh & Prabhakar Singh, What Can International Law Learn from Indian Mythology, Hinduism and History? 2 Journal of East Asia & International Law (2009), pp. 239, at 241.
69. Id., at 241.
70. Jürgen Habermas, Moral Development and Ego Identity, in Thomas McCarthy (ed.) Communication and the Evolution of Society (London: Heinemann, 1979), pp. 69-94.
71. For a detailed discussion on semiotics of myth, history and modernity vis-à-vis international law see, Prabhakar Singh, The Madness of Art, Modernity and International law in the East-West Telos, 23 Journal of East Asia & International Law (2010 forthcoming).
72. Nandy, supra note 2, at 63.
73. See, Ashis Nandy, The Illegitimacy of Nationalism: Rabindranath Tagore and the Politics of Self (4th impression, New Delhi: OUP, 2000) pp. 4, 5.
74. M.K. Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth (Mahadev Desai tr., Ahmadabad: Navjeevan, 1948).
75. See, B.S. Chimni, Draft: Is There an Asian Approach to International Law?, presented at ASIL Tokyo Conference (2009) at (last visited Sept. 10, 2009).
76. DILA: The Foundation for development of international law in Asia, available at (last visited on Sept. 10, 2009).
77. See generally, Singh & Singh, supra note 56.
78. Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Century of Forgetting, The Indian Express 15 (Patna 15 June 2009).
79. See, Roger Boesche, Kautilya's "Arthaśā stra" on War and Diplomacy in Ancient India, 67(1) Journal of Military History, (2003) pp. 9-37, at 9.
80. Id.
81. See, Chun-chieh Huang, On the Relationship between Interpretations of the Confucian Classics and Political Power in East Asia: An Inquiry Focusing upon the Analects and Mencius, 11(2 ) Medieval History Journal (2008) pp. 101-121.
82. Nandy, supra note 2, at 6, footnote no. 8.
83. A central challenge for the western Enlightenment as a whole in the eighteenth century was the question of how to classify 'the other'. Efforts were made by the Europeans to reach general assessments of Islamic, Indian, and Chinese thought. But as so often in cases of attempts at cross-cultural evaluation the result was curiously self-centred and limited; See, Israel, supra note 1, at 640.
84. See, Israel, supra note 1, at 657-60.
85. Western philosophers strove valiantly to grasp the fundamentals of classical Chinese philosophy but ended up, in the main, merely mirroring their own prior obsessions. The Radical Enlightenment's enthusiasm for what it took to be classical Chinese thought originated during the third quarter of the seventeenth century, among a small but remarkable group of libertine Deist neo-Epicureans. The first esprit fort, or 'suspected atheist', Reimmann calls him, to hit on the idea of using Chinese culture as a subversive strategy within western intellectual debate, apparently, was Isaac Vossius (1618-89), who deployed the evidence of Chinese antiquity and the ancient character of their philosophy during the late 1650s as part of his campaign to sap confidence in biblical chronology and notions of prisca theologia as well as the centrality of revelation. See, Id.
86. Singh & Singh, supra note 56.
87. See for a powerful discourse on the science of mythology, C.G. Jung & C. Kerényi, Essays on a Science of Mythology: The Myth of the Divine Child and the Mysteries of Eleusis (2nd Ed. London & New York: Routledge, 2001). Scholars have rejected the theory of evolution has a mythology of science, See, Bert Thompson, The Mythology of Science: Spontaneous Generation, in Brad Harrub & Bert Thompson (eds.) Truth About Human Origin (Montgomery: Apologetics Press, 2003).
88. See, Monica Juneja, Malabarian Dialogues: The Encounter between German Pietists and the Tamilian Populace during the Early Eighteenth Century, 5(2) Medieval History Journal (2002) 333-346.
89. Peter Raedts, Representations of the Middle Ages in Enlightenment Historiography, 5(1) Medieval History Journal (2002) pp. 1-20.
90. Id.
91. Id.
92. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire 1875-1914, (12th reprint, London: Abacus, 2002), at 231.
93. Israel, supra note 1, at 201.
94. R.P. Anand, Maritime Practice in South East Asia until 1600 AD and Modern Law of the Sea, 30 International & Comparative Law Quarterly (1981) pp. 440-454.
95. Hobsbawm, supra note 79, at 256.
96. Nandy, supra note 2, at 7.
97. Id.
98. J.W. Jackson, The Aryan and the Semite, 7(27) Anthropological Review (1869) 333-365.
99. Also, G.C. Spivak, Race before Racism: The Disappearance of the American, 25(2) Boundary (1998) 35-53.
100. Hobsbawm, Supra note 79, at 251.
101. Id. at 252.
102. Id. at 253.
103. Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason (Richard Howard (tr.), 1st Indian Reprint, Chennai: Routledge, 2003) pp. 183-84.
104. See an interesting discussion on differentiation between the true Christ and satanic Doppelgängers and impostors; Valentin Groebner, The Sight of Blood: Christ as a Delinquent in the Late Middle Ages, 3(2) Medieval History Journal (2000) pp. 223-233.
105. See, Barry Smart, Review, 39(3) Journal of History & Philosophy (2001) pp. 458-458 (reviewing Philip Barker, Michel Foucault: An Introduction (1998).
106. Foucault, Id., at 184.
107. Walter Eugene Clark, The Importance of Hellenism from the Point of View of Indic-Philology, 14(4) Classical Philology (1919) pp. 297-313.
108. Nandy, supra note 2, at 59.
109. Id.
110. Id.
111. Id.
112. See generally, Singh, supra note 38.
113. Piyel Haldar, Utilitarianism and the Painful Orient, 16 Social & Legal Studies (2007), pp. 573, at 574.
114. Id. at 588.
115. Id. Nandy categorically explains that unlike utilitarians and the Marxists, Freud's early disciples did not clearly identify primitivism and infantility with disvalues like structural simplicity and static history. See, Nandy, supra note 2.
116. Id.
117. Romila Thapar, Ancient Indian Social History: Some Interpretations (Hyderabad: Orient Longman, 1978).
118. Max Weber, Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958).
119. Hobsbawm, supra note 79, at 263.
120. Id.
121. Id.
122. Nandy, supra note 11, at 17.
123. Henry Staten, Derrida, Dennett, and the Ethico-Political Project of Naturalism, 1 Derrida Today 19-41 (2008).
124. Id., at 20.
125. Id. 25.
126. Edward Andrew, Marx's Theory of Classes: Science and Ideology, 8 Revue canadienne de science politique (1975) pp. 454, 454.
127. Yogendra Singh, A Life-World of Disenchantment: Modernity, Ethnicity and Pluralism, 47 Sociological Bulletin, (1998) pp. 155-65, 155.
128. Id., at 155.
129. Id.
130. Id.
131. Nandy, At the edge of Psychology: Politics of Cultures in India, supra note 2, at 53.
132. See, B.S. Chimni, International Institutions Today: An Imperial Global State in the Making, 15 European Journal of International Law (2004) pp. 1-37.
133. Partha Chatterjee, Beyond the Nation? Or within? 56 Social Text (1998) pp. 57, 61.
134. Chaim Waxman, The Sigma of Poverty: A Critique of Poverty Theories and Policies, (2nd edition, New York: Pergamon Press, 1983) at 67.
135. Id., at 80.
136. Joseph Townsend, Dissertation on Poor Law: By A Well-Wisher to Mankind (1786) (University of California Press, 1971).
137. Waxman, supra note 118, at 81.
138. Hobsbawm, supra note 79, at 254.
139. René Kuppe, The Three Dimensions of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 11 International Community Law Review (2009) pp. 103-118.
140. Id.
141. There are about 100 such tribes as documented by Survival International, an organisation for creating awareness about the aborigines around the world. See, Julie Christie, Narrator: Uncontacted Tribes, video on (last visited on Aug. 1, 2009).
142. See, Benedict Imbun, Cannot Manage without The, Significant Other': Mining, Corporate Social Responsibility and Local Communities in Papua New Guinea, 73(2) Journal of Business Ethics (2007) pp. 177-192.
143. This concern has been refl ected in my, Singh, supra note 32, at 95-95.
144. Nancy Love, Epistemology and Exchange: Marx, Nietzsche, and Critical Theory, 41 New German Critique (1987) pp. 71, 73.
145. Lee Swepston, Indigenous and Tribal Peoples and International Law: Recent Developments, 30 Current Anthropology (1989) pp. 259-264.
146. Sally Merry, Anthropology, Law, and Transnational Processes, 21 Annual Review of Anthropology (1992) pp. 357-379.
147. See, Marco Moretti, International law and Nomadic People available at (last visited on Aug. 1, 2009).
148. Also see, Patrice Kunesh, Transcending Frontiers: Indian Child Welfare in the United States, 16 Boston College Third World Law Journal (1996), pp. 18-34.
149. See, The UNWGIP Reports, The International Indian Treaty Council, at (last visited on Aug. 1, 2009).
150. Shami, supra note 47, at 221.
151. See, ASIL/ESIL, Call for papers, supra note 10.
152. Id.
153. Wikipedia, Definition of Science, at (last visited Aug. 24, 2009).
154. Call for papers, supra note 25.
155. Id.
156. Id.
157. Id.
158. Thomas Frank, On proportionality of Countermeasures in International Law, 102 American Journal of International Law (2008) pp. 715-67, at 715.
159. Susan Franck, Foreign Direct Investment, Investment, Treaty Arbitration, and the Rule of Law, 19 Global Business & Development Law Journal (2007) pp. 338, at 340.
160. See, B.S. Chimni, Developing countries and the GATT/WTO system. Some Reflections on the Idea of Free Trade and Doha Round Trade Negotiations, in Joel Trachtman and Chantal Thomas (eds.), Developing Countries in the WTO Legal System (New York: OUP, 2009) 21-43.
161. Id., at 23.
162. Nandy, supra note 11, at viii.
163. Id., at ix.
164. Martti Koskenniemi, Georg Friedrich von Martens (1756-1821) and the Origins of Modern International Law, NYU Institute of International Law and Justice Working Papers 1/2006 (2006), at (last visited Oct. 5, 2008).
165. John D. Haskell, The Complicity and Limits of International Law in Armed Conflict Rape, 29 Boston College Third World Law Journal (2009) pp. 35, at 84.
166. Id.
167. See generally, Onuma Yasuaki, A Transcivilizational Perspective on Global Legal Order in the Twenty-first Century: A Way to Overcome West-centric and Judiciary-centric Deficits in International Legal Thoughts, 8(1) International Community Law Review (2006) pp. 29-63.
168. However, this vision of Yasuaki is not uncontested as Christian Tomuschat replies to this in his article, World Order Models: A Disputation with B.S. Chimni and Yasuaki Onuma, 8(1) International Community Law Review, (2006) pp. 71-79.
169. Koskenniemi for example in his book Gentle civilizer of nations makes an elaborate discussion on the shared common history of Europe which also is the history of international law. His new works goes further back in European history. See e.g., Koskenniemi, The Gentle Civilizer of Nations: The Rise and Fall of International Law 1870-1960 (Massachusetts: CUP, 2002).
170. Habermas, supra note 3, at 14.
171. Chimni, Tokyo, supra note 63.
172. Nandy, supra note 11, at 15.
173. Id.
174. See for a careful observation on where to situate the "post-colonial" voice, Sundhya Pahuja, The Postcoloniality of International Law, 46 Harvard International Law Journal (2005) at 459.
175. See B.S. Chimni, The Sen Conception of Development and Contemporary International Law Discourse: Some Parallels, 1 Law & Development Review, article 2 (2008) at (last visited May 3, 2009).
176. Chimni outlines six distinct visions of just world order refl ected in recent academic and political discourse in India. These perspectives may be designated as establishment, left, Dalit, subaltern, anti-modernist, and spiritual. Each of these perspectives offers a certain understanding of the state, society, globalization, and international institutions. See, B.S. Chimni, Alternative Visions of Just World Order: Six Tales from India, 46(2) Harvard International Law Journal (2005) p. 289.