Is There a ‘Populist’ International Law (in Latin America)?

Abstract

It is usually assumed that populism is hostile towards international law. However, this assumption is based on a particular version of populism (far-right) and of international law itself (that associated with the liberal international order). A closer look at the many manifestations of populism, actually reveals that different approaches to international law have been present across time and space. Taking Latin America as the case-study, this chapter shows that governments which have been labelled ‘populist’ have proactively advocated certain conceptions of international law. Conscious of their status in the semi-periphery, Peronismo in Argentina promoted a Cold War doctrine of equidistance to the major powers based on efforts of regional legal integration, while the government of Echeverria in Mexico became the major force behind the New International Economic Order (NIEO). Both represent early Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL). Based on Andean indigenous ontology, the government of Evo Morales in Bolivia has advanced an emerging global law of nature. Hence, reducing populism to a parochial, international law unfriendly ideology is partly grounded in an outdated vision of international law that has not yet learned, or does not want to recognise, that there are several possible versions of it.