Possibilities and pitfalls of cosmopolitanism

Abstract

The concept of cosmopolitanism has long shaped scholars’ understanding of Indian Ocean history, though the model of a maritime realm free from provincial attachments is a relatively poor fit for parts of the region, notably the Somali coast. Comparing and contrasting two treaties, one made between the Majerteen Sultanate in north-eastern Somalia and the Naqib of Mukalla in 1875, and the other made between the Majerteen Sultanate and the British in 1884, this chapter examines the nature – and limits – of Indian Ocean cosmopolitan international law-making, charting its ebb and flow over time in the late nineteenth century. Mixing a close reading of the two treaties with a review of the wider political context in which the treaties were produced, the chapter critically re-examines cosmopolitanism as a framework for understanding north-western Indian Ocean history, and suggests an approach to Indian Ocean history which takes account of what was sovereign as well as what was shared in the region’s legal tradition.