Third World approaches to international law
Third World approaches to international law is a critical school of international legal scholarship and an intellectual and political movement. It is a "broad dialectic opposition to international law", which perceives international law as facilitating the continuing exploitation of the Third World through subordination to the West. TWAIL scholars (known as TWAIL-ers) seek to change what they identify as international law's oppressive aspects, through the re-examination of the colonial foundations of international law. History Early origins (Generation I) TWAIL was inspired by the decolonization movements that occurred after World War II in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Symbolically, the conference held in Bandung, Indonesia, in 1955 is seen as the birthplace of TWAIL, as it was the first attempt by African and Asian states to create a coalition to address the issues specific to the Third World. TWAIL came about to address the material and ethical concerns as well as hardships of the Third World. New age movement (Generation II) The study of TWAIL and its organization originated from a group of Harvard Law School graduate students in 1996. Subsequent to a conference regarding post-colonialism, critical race theory and law and development studies held at Harvard Law School in December 1995, graduate students held a meeting to analyze the viability of creating third world approaches to international law. TWAIL scholars have subsequently held conferences at various universities: Harvard Law School, 1997 Osgoode Hall Law School, 2001 Albany Law School, 2007 University of British Columbia, 2008 Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2010 University of Oregon Law School, 2011 American University in Cairo, 2015 Faculty of Law, University of Colombo, 2017 Faculty of Law, National University of Singapore, 2018 UCLA School of Law, 2019 Objectives TWAIL's main objectives include: Developing an understanding as to how international law perpetuates the subordination of non-Europeans to Europeans through international legal norms. Creating opportunities for Third World participation in international law. Proposing an alternative mechanism of international law that coexists with other critiques of the neoliberal approach to international law Eradicating underdevelopment of the Third World through scholarship, policy, and politics Understanding and engaging Third World scholarship in the analysis of international law. Concepts Third World The Third World according to TWAIL-ers, is a group of states, which are politically, economically, and culturally diverse, but are simultaneously united in their common history of colonialism. TWAIL emphasizes that even after the end of the Cold War, the Third World is still a political reality. Some TWAIL-ers believe this distinction to be even more alive today, due to the aggregation of diversification of states based on economic development. They underline that the maintenance of the unity of the Third World is crucial in combating the continuing domination of the First World and that the term has no pejorative connotation. The First World is considered to be the group of states engaged in imperial practices and which continue to dominate global politics and economics. Approaches TWAIL reconsiders the history and development of international law and highlights the colonial legacy inherent