At first sight, international law seems particularly moralistic and inclusive. For instance, its human rights instruments are often used to pressure governments into respecting citizens’ rights. Moreover, many of its institutions (such as the World Bank) are devoted to the amelioration of populations’ standards of living. Emmanuelle Tourme-Jouannet’s book, however, depicts international law more gloomily than mainstream literature; it proposes to take its readers for a visit through international law’s darker abysses — an area where few dare to venture. It is established that, contrary to what one might think, international law actually largely remains the expression of the West’s domination over the rest of the world — that “the rules of the game are designed by the winners.” During this disheartening visit, Tourme-Jouannet focuses on two specific areas: the international law of development and the international law of identity recognition. ‘International law of development’ is a term coined by the francophone literature, designating the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and all instruments tackling global economic disparities. The ‘international law of recognition’ consists of all instruments aiming to recognize the rights of minorities to be culturally different. This book relies on these two branches of international law to highlight the inequalities that have been created through “the global development agenda,” hoping that a better understanding of these problems may facilitate their resolution.
Many of the book’s ideas relate to an oppressive sociological phenomenon pertaining to the creation of laws (domestic or international), which seems to be at the root of many of international law’s insidious effects. This phenomenon manifests itself as follows. Law often tends to be the expression of a specific “vision of justice” shared by society’s most powerful classes. The rule is simple: powerful classes are politically influential and, therefore, succeed in creating a legal system that fits both their vision and needs. Footnote 1 This has the perverse effect of generating a legal system that will exclude weaker and culturally different classes. For instance, a key component of the discourse in feminist legal theory is that legal systems were created by men and for men, much to the exclusion of women. Footnote 2 Another example is the Roman Empire, where Roman citizens had full legal personality; where peoples from the Latium (what is now Italy) had most components of legal personality; where peoples from the colonies had some rights; and where everyone outside the Roman Empire was considered barbaric and therefore not entitled to any Roman rights. Footnote 3 International law has evolved in the exact same way. Historically, international law was a set of rules developed by a handful of culturally similar European nations to regulate their own international relations. Footnote 4 This set of rules then expanded its jurisdiction to the rest of the world, more or less imposing its own “vision of justice” over a weaker majority. According to this perspective, it is argued that international economic law mainly serves the West’s own interests and that human rights imperialistically impose the West’s own standards on all other cultures. Footnote 5 It is against this contextual backdrop that Tourme-Jouannet’s book incisively criticizes international law.
The book is divided into two main parts, each containing a relatively elaborate web of sub-parts and chapters. The book’s first part deals with the international law of development, and its second part deals with the international law of cultural recognition. The book’s first part begins by discussing how the international law of development has emerged and evolved into its present form. This historical account begins with the formation of the United Nations (UN) immediately after the Second World War. At this time, international development had highly political strategic incidences. The UN’s main mission at the time was to achieve peace and not development. However, the United States and the United Kingdom successfully argued that development should be part of the UN’s mission, as it would be a strong peace safeguard. The United States in 1949 had every interest in dismantling the great European colonial empires since that would afford access to new markets and would prevent poor countries from siding with the communist camp.
A few years later, in the 1960s, the Third World’s decolonization brought a plethora of new underdeveloped states into the UN General Assembly. These new underdeveloped states suddenly formed a majority in the UN General Assembly and began requesting more development aid from the West. These new states wanted to establish a new international legal order that would restore balance in their favour; they wanted a system whose rules would finally reflect their own values and interests. Unfortunately, despite many efforts, by 1980, attempts to restore balance through both development aid and the creation of a new international legal order had proven to be a failure. In line with the old liberal economic dream, certain Western states successfully argued that many of these failures were due to an excessive reliance on governmental programs and regulation. Consequently, international development took a strong liberal economic turn; it was hoped that heavy trade deregulation would facilitate investment, foster business opportunities, and therefore bring overall prosperity. And, indeed, many developing economies did achieve wealth in a deregulated context: Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong in the 1980s and 1990s, and the “BRIC” (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in the 2000s. The author argues that by focusing on stronger trade so as to achieve economic wealth, the international community has neglected its initial project of creating a more equal international new order. In other words, sheer economic development has developed to the detriment of other fundamental equality claims.
After having discussed the history of international development law, the book then moves on to present development law in its current form. Abuses committed by authoritarian post-decolonization governments have recently led development law to generally distrust governments and to seek to bypass them more and more. In order to maximize direct impact on individuals living under corrupt regimes, an ever greater emphasis has been put on liberalizing trade, fostering democracy, and promoting human rights. The World Bank, for example, has developed a battery of “good governance” tests where development aid is granted only when states meet certain criteria typical of Western democracies, such as the rule of law, human rights, the observance of property rights, the equality of the sexes, freedom of the press, transparency, and the fight against corruption. In the author’s view, these recent developments in international development law have reinforced an ever more Westernized vision of international law and society. In other words, these developments resulted in an ever greater dependence on compliance with Western societal standards.
The author also highlights many other problems posed by current international law models. One of them is environmental change. Another one is the alarmingly growing disparity between the rich and the poor among developing countries, making for “more poverty in a richer world.” These problems are argued to be the result of the conflict between international law’s economic and humanist agendas, a conflict where international economic law usually wins. Sadly, this is so because, in reality, the most potent of driving forces on the international scene remains self-interest. The main reason why states engage in international relations, first and foremost, is to defend their own interests.
In reaction to these problems, the author calls for a revision of international law, so as to put fairness at its very core. In order to support her view, the author notes that, according to recent economic theories, there would be greater economic opportunities for all states were the world a more equitable place. These theories argue that to prosper a good society must create incentives to encourage the vast majority of the population to invest and innovate. Excessive inequalities lead to conflict, frustration, skewed competition among states, and economic non-productivity. While seeing these economic theories as an opportunity for improvement, the author remains pessimistic that any significant change will happen.
While the first part of the book deals with unfairness in terms of wealth distribution among states, the second part of the book focuses on unfairness in terms of the right to be treated equally by international law despite cultural differences. The book’s second part begins with international law’s history of recognizing different identities. Under colonial rule, many Westerners justified their intervention in foreign countries by portraying it as “a sacred mission of civilization.” During this period, international law would only grant international legal personality to states that were deemed “civilized.” This, along with colonial rule more generally, made for a strong incentive to mimic Western society. In hoping to modernize, a plurality of countries therefore abandoned many components of their own traditions. This acculturation phenomenon even continued after decolonization, as many members of these newly independent countries’ elites believed in the superiority of Western institutions and subsequently adopted many of them.
However, other newly independent states emphatically rejected Western traditions and sought instead to rediscover their own roots. For example, in the 1960s, Mobutu’s Congo reinvented tribalism as part of a greater project for the “Zairianization” of the Congo. The rationale was to heal an identity wounded by colonialism. In fact, there has often existed a tension between, on the one hand, adopting Western traditions in order to modernize and, on the other hand, resenting those very traditions for causing so much cultural humiliation. While identity questions have traditionally been deemed to be less important than economic development, atrocities in the Balkans and Rwanda Footnote 6 in the 1990s have recently demonstrated their crucial importance. Identity denials cause feelings of humiliation, unbearable suffering, and radicalization through engendering extremely violent conflicts.
Nowadays, the Third World’s identity crisis continues. While still wanting what globalization brings, many countries fear that their cultural identities will continue to be harmed by a West that maintains its cultural hold via economic globalization and the outpouring of its own cultural products. Populations now demand the right to be recognized by the international community as different yet equally valuable. This movement is at the origin of the adoption of the Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions in 2005. Footnote 7 This convention advocates for communication between cultures and allows states to limit access to certain foreign cultural products so as to protect domestic cultural products from being drowned by foreign competition.
After having discussed the international law of recognition’s general rationale, the author then turns to several cases where the international law of recognition applies, such as indigenous peoples, women’s rights, human rights, and reparations for historical wrongs. All of these cases demonstrate that solely granting equality before the law to minorities is insufficient to adequately protect their cultural identities. The better approach is for law to adapt to the practical needs of minorities. Particularly, human rights are one of the Western traditions bombarding the rest of the world in this age of globalization. While most people agree to a certain cultural universalism of human rights, there also exist variations in the importance that different cultures give to certain human rights. For example, certain Asian countries value the stability of the community over individuals’ freedom of speech. Hence, there has been a strong demand for a conception of human rights that is “hospitable to difference” and therefore capable of “cultural adaptation.”
The book ends by establishing links between its two main topics: economic development and identity recognition. The author argues that economic development cannot continue expanding according to liberal economic theory at the expense of identity. In the author’s opinion, the “global equality gap” between richer and poorer nations will only continue expanding if it does. Economic disparities between rich and poor among Third World states will continue to increase, as has been demonstrated in the case of BRIC countries. Moreover, identity issues will worsen since globalization will increasingly bombard populations with Western cultural products. Economic development could be achieved by putting fairness at its forefront. The author argues that resolving identity issues could even foster economic development since a people comfortable in its own skin is more functional and a more functional people is more productive.
All in all, this book discusses a worthy and stimulating topic. One of the book’s richer takeaways is the contestability of international law’s generic conceptions of global fairness. Understanding this contestability will certainly be an indispensable step in the direction of achieving global fairness. This book follows a significant line of literature on the topic. For instance, it has already been argued by many authors that: (1) international law is unfair in that it is better suited to Western powers and (2) international economic law infringes on human rights and general North-South fairness. Footnote 8 A reader might wonder what contribution this book brings. One could think the added value of this book is to group already existing ideas into one single general and coherent argument. Moreover, it should be noted that this book was translated from French to English. Its style is unusual for the English reader. This book has the propensity to dilute arguments into long descriptive statements. This makes it difficult for the reader to understand where the author is going. Shorter, sharper points could have made a more compelling contribution. Finally, another interesting avenue would have been to analyze just how realistic the author’s expectations of global fairness are from the point of view of international relations. What are the forces in play that have kept this ideal from materializing for so long and how could one hope to change them? In other words, it would have been relevant to try to understand to what extent global fairness may be more than a mere ideal.
