The Oxford Handbook of International Law and Development

Since the mid-twentieth century, 'international law' and 'international development' have become two of the most prominent secular languages through which aspirations about a better world are articulated.. They have shaped the both the treatment and self-understanding of the 'developing' world, often by positing the West as a universal model against which developing states, their citizens, and natural environments should be measured and disciplined. In recent years, however, critical scholars have investigated the deep linkages between the concept of development, the doctrines and institutions of international law, and broader projects of ordering at the international level. They have shown how the leading models de-radicalise, if not derail, initiatives to redefine development and pursue other forms of global well-being.

Bringing together scholars from both the Global South and the Global North, the contributions in this Handbook invite readers to consider the limits of common normative and developmentalist assumptions. At the same time, the Handbook demonstrates how disparate but still identifiable set of ideas, imaginaries, norms, and institutional practices - related to law, development and international governance - shape today's profoundly unequal material conditions, threatening the future of human and nonhuman life on the planet. The book focuses on five distinct areas: existing disciplinary frameworks, institutions and actors, regional theatres of international law and development, competing social and economic agendas, and alternative futures.

Offering a unique overview of the field of international law and development and assembling major critical, historical, and political economic insights, this Handbook is an unmissable resource for scholars of international law, international relations, development studies, and global history, as well as anyone interested in the past, present, and future of our world.

Author: Ruth Buchanan, Luis Eslava, Sundhya Pahuja
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: 02/23/2024
Pages: 864
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 3.65lbs
Size: 9.40h x 7.20w x 3.30d
ISBN: 9780192867360

About the Author
Ruth Buchanan, Professor, Osgoode Hall Law School, Luis Eslava, Professor of International Law, La Trobe University and University of Kent, Sundhya Pahuja, Professor of International Law, University of Melbourne

Dr. Ruth Buchanan is a Professor at Osgoode Hall Law School, in Toronto, Canada. An interdisciplinary legal scholar whose work spans critical legal theory, sociology of law, international law and development and cultural legal studies, Dr. Buchanan has published numerous articles and book chapters in Canada, Australia, the UK, and the US. Her current research projects include an investigation into the significance of the visual in framing North/South relations in law and development policy, funded by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada. In 2022, she edited a special issue of the Osgoode Hall Law School Law Journal called Visualizing Development.

Luis Eslava holds a Research Professorial Chair in International Law at La Trobe University, Australia and he is also Professor of International Law at Kent Law School, University of Kent, United Kingdom. His research interests are located at the intersection between international law, development and global governance. Bringing together insights from anthropology, history and legal and social theory, his work focuses on the multiple ways in which international norms, aspirations and institutional practices, both old and new, come to shape and become part of everyday life, particularly in the Global South. He is the author of Local Space, Global Life: The Everyday Operation of International Law and Development (CUP, 2015), and co-editor of Bandung, Global History, and International Law: Critical Pasts, Pending Futures (CUP, 2017).

Sundhya Pahuja is ARC Kathleen Fitzpatrick Laureate Professor, Director of the Laureate Program in Global Corporations and International Law, and co-director of the Institute for International Law and the Humanities both at the Melbourne Law School. She is known for her work on the encounter between plural forms of international law, and the legal, historical, political and economic dimensions of the relations between Global South and North.