"The nameless rapture of the struggle": towards a Marxist class-theoretic approach to international law

Rasulov, A. (2010) "The nameless rapture of the struggle": towards a Marxist class-theoretic approach to international law. In: Klabbers, J. (ed.) Finnish Yearbook of International Law. Hart: Oxford, pp. 243-294. ISBN 9781849460415

Abstract

We live in a time of extraordinary challenges, but also a time of great opportunities. The Washington consensus is dead. The global liberal empire is cracking under the weight of its own monstrous pretensions.Thee economic and ideological bankruptcy of New Finance Capitalism has been exposed so many times and in so many contexts that even its most ardent proponents no longer seem able to believe their own mantras. What can the forces of the Global Left offer by way of a new programmatic alternative in this context? How can they best contribute to the new processes of ideological and political contestation? This article attempts to answer these questions from the perspective of the leftwing international law project. As even its most passionate supporters would have to accept, one of the greatest weaknesses of the critical legal project historically has been its inability to move from the critical to the reconstructive stages of leftwing action. How can this weakness be best overcome? The answer offered in these pages begins with Marxism – in particular, the Marxist class-theoretical approach. The goal of leftwing international law scholars is to help the critical legal movement break out of its prison-house of conspicuous theoreticism and establish a system of durable political connections with the worlds of legal activism and diplomatic action. This article argues in favour of constructing a Marxist-style class-focused approach to international law and by way of a practical illustration offers a critical outline of how this project can be best accomplished. It explains what conditions need to be satisfied on the analytical and the ideological fronts for this enterprise to be successful and details a series of tenets and premises from which it must start.

• Item Type: Book Sections
• Status: Published
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Rasulov, Professor Akbar
• Authors: Rasulov, A.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Law
• Publisher: Hart
• ISBN: 9781849460415