Ezra's Bookshelf

Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law

by Antony Anghie · 384 pages · ~7 hrs

Law & JusticeHistory

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Legal scholar Antony Anghie examines how European colonialism shaped the development of international law, arguing that imperialism was not a deviation from the legal order but constitutive of it. He traces how legal doctrines developed to manage relationships between European powers and non-European peoples, from the sixteenth-century encounters with Indigenous Americans through nineteenth-century African colonization to twentieth-century decolonization. Anghie shows how international law repeatedly created frameworks that legitimized European domination while appearing to extend universal principles. The concept of sovereignty itself was defined in ways that excluded non-European peoples, who were deemed to lack the institutions necessary for recognition as legal equals. Anghie, a professor at the National University of Singapore, engages deeply with legal theory while keeping sight of historical consequences. His analysis suggests that the colonial origins of international law continue to shape its contemporary operation, particularly in areas like development policy and humanitarian intervention. The book has been influential in critical legal studies and postcolonial theory, challenging mainstream international law scholarship that treats colonialism as separate from the discipline's foundations. For anyone seeking to understand the relationship between law and empire, this work provides rigorous analysis of how legal frameworks enabled and legitimized global inequality.

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