Présentation de l’éditeur

The contributions of socialist thinkers and states to the development of international law often go unrecognized. Socialism and International Law: The Cold War and Its Legacies explores how socialist individuals and governments from Eastern Europe, Africa, and Asia made vital contributions to international law as it is practiced today, and also brought ideas and initiatives that constituted important disruptive moments in its history.

The socialist world of the 20th century was an ambiguous and fragile construct: there were clear divisions between the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc, which kept one foot in Western Eurocentric traditions, and the positions of the radical Third World, primarily post-colonial Afro-Asian states, which mounted a more fundamental challenge to the international order. Far from a monolith, the socialist world was an intricate and dynamic space, which still had many shared common understandings of global affairs and the meaning of the law within them.

By examining how different state socialist ideologies, legal principles, and realpolitik affected contemporary international law frameworks, this book contests existing linear and Western-dominated histories. It considers these state socialist engagements in conversation with liberal and Western approaches and underlines the divisions that existed between versions of socialism from different regions and across the North-South divide. The legacies of socialist international law are still with us today, as are the consequences of its failure.

With a focus on the Cold War and its aftermath, Socialist International Law features astute commentary on the history and present-day effects of socialist principles applied to international law, provided by an esteemed and diverse group of contributors from around the world.

Raluca Grosescu, Lecturer in Politics, National University of Political Science and Public Administration (Bucharest), and Ned Richardson-Little, Wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter, Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History, Potsdam.

Sommaire

1:Socialism and International Law: Legacies of Innovation, Contradiction, and Failure, Raluca Grosescu and Ned Richardson-Little
2:A Socialist Legal Universalism? Cold War Struggles Over International Law, Sebastian Gehrig
3:Socialism and Self-Determination: Lenin, International Law, and National Liberation, Brad Simpson
4:Soviet Lawyers and Concepts of Aggression in International Law, Michelle Penn
5:Decentring Marxism: The Poznań School and Socialist International Law in Eastern Europe after 1945, Jakub Szumski
6:How China Came to Embrace International Institutions, Ryan Martínez Mitchell
7:Health as a Human Right and Eastern European Anticolonialism, Bogdan C. Iacob
8:Protecting Culture Through International Law in the Postwar World, Nelly Bekus
9:Socialist Internationalism and Decolonizing Moralities in the UN Anti-Trafficking Regime, 1947-54, Sonja Dolinsek and Philippa Hetherington
10:State Socialist Contributions to the Criminalization of Apartheid, Raluca Grosescu
11:Terrorists, Revolutionaries, and Migrants: Cold War Conflicts and Convergences over International Air Hijacking Law, Ned Richardson-Little
12:Socialisms and International Law: Epilogue, Paul Betts