Introduction: International Law and Inequalities

Abstract

Equality is both a premise and a promise (or at least much lip service is paid to such) of today’s international law. Customary international law and instruments such as the United Nations Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other foundational treaties of the multilateral system are premised on the equality of states, the right to self-determination and the fundamental equality of human beings. With the era of decolonization, international law also became a battleground for material equality.1 In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, (economic in-)equality once again entered the limelight in a number of disciplines, not as a premise or promise but as a challenge. In the field of international law, Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) scholarship had already been pushing equality to the centre of attention. There is good reason indeed to subject the relationship between international law and (in)equality to critical interrogation.