Crouching scholars, hidden civilizations

Abstract

It is important to understand what could have been effectively affirmed, at the early twentieth century, as a legal framework for international relations originated in American/Latin American continent in lieu of what was defended publicly as a special international law for the region. In order to explore such ideas, this text is divided into four parts. The first part describes the materials and methods used to gather information on Amerindian International Law and presents some methodological limits. The second part reports on testimonies of distinct Amerindian legal practices to engage in international relations before, during, and after European colonialism in Latin America. The third part discusses some foundations of an Amerindian International Law by contrasting it with parts of the early twentieth century discourse on the existence of an American/Latin American International Law. The fourth part examines aspects of the rising international liberal order between 1890 and 1920 and argues that this new order did not absorb legal experiences originated from Amerindian international relations and reaffirmed its structural European legal foundations. With this, I expect to contribute for current discussion by emphasizing that, at the rise of international liberal order in the early twentieth century, international law did not turn out to be so mestizo as someone would like to argue. By blocking the influence of an international legal framework derived from Amerindian civilizational experience, the so-called American international legal tradition was not a mere ‘source of legal inspiration’ for Europe; rather, it worked as a repository of European legal experience. In this sense, in the early twentieth century, by invoking American legal experience in international law, European civilization was only trying to once again meet with itself via its humble and faithful heirs in America.