What's Critical About Critical International Law? Reflections on the Emancipatory Potential of International Legal Scholarship

Abstract

This chapter aims to present an appraisal and critique of critical scholarship in international law. Rather than a variant of the sort of reactionary resistance to change exhibited by some in the mainstream and the old guard of the discipline, it is a call to action and an examination of the possibilities for change in the context of the post-foundational, in which most critical international legal scholarship situates itself. Our primary concern is to describe the tone, purpose and import of critical scholarship in international law by interrogating the meaning of the term “critical” in “critical international law,” and then to propose a shift from what we see as its tendency to paralysis to the pursuit of critical projects that seek to identify and pursue opportunities for change in the context of structures that support existing power asymmetries and the status quo. We start with a simpler question: what does the term “critical” in critical international legal scholarship mean? In fact, the adjective has seven primary meanings: (1) “inclined to judge severely and find fault;” (2) “characterized by careful, exact evaluation and judgment;” (3) “of, relating to, or characteristic of critics or criticism;” (4) “forming or having the nature of a turning point; crucial or decisive; (5) indispensable; essential;” (6) “being in or verging on a state of crisis or emergency;” (7) “fraught with danger or risk; perilous.” The next sections will briefly examine these meanings in order to explore what might be critical about critical international law. Finally, the last section will examine alternative approaches to critical legal engagement and offer normative arguments in favour of reorienting the critical endeavour in new directions for action and change.