ILAW K - MichiganClassic 2014 SS

International Law K
Notes
Although we made a 1NC, this is not a complete stand-alone
Kritik. Rather it includes a variety of reasons why international
law generally, and the Law of the Sea Treaty specifically, are
bad. It would be more strategic to use these cards to
supplement any of the following Kritiks:
-Western Epistemology K
-Frontier K
-Ocean Borders K
1NC
a. International law was founded by, and continues to
maintain, colonialism Treaties dont check state power,
they secure it in by universalizing law and sovereign
relationships.
Gardner 10 [David, Graduate student at San Diego State University, The

Colonial Nature of International Law, E-International Relations Students,
6/8/2014, http://www.e-ir.info/2010/06/08/the-colonial-nature-of-internationallaw/, 7/28/2014] B.S
International law was principally a consequence of imperial expansion .[1] In
this paper I will argue that international law is colonial . In order to argue this effectively I will start
by defining international law and colonialism. After which, I will show how international law is a colonial relic, having been
international
law is not based on an inherent natural law, and thus that it is merely a
tool for the imposition of western political ideas upon the world as a
whole. Finally, I will argue that international law is colonial in the sense that by ceding
sovereignty to be governed by law, sovereigns are being colonised by
the western, primarily, European legal system. For the purpose of this paper I define
developed at a time of colonialism, with roots in the Greek and Roman Empires. I will then argue that
international law, as the law of states, made for states. It is the law, which governs sovereign powers. In considering the
nature and development of international law states are the primary subjects of international law.[2] Equally,
colonialism
is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of

one people to another.[3] Colonialism is the creation and building of colonies
in a territory by the people of another territory. It is the process where, the sovereignty over the
colony is claimed by the coloniser. Colonialism brings with it the removal of a subjects sovereignty. Colonialism
implies inequality and subjugation, while international law should be equal
and universal. In being universally applicable to all, international law could not be considered simply as a method
of imposing ones values on weaker states. Bederman suggests that, while the modern international system can be
traced back some 400 years, certain of the basic concepts of international law can be discerned in political relationships
thousands of years ago.[4] Nicolson argues that even the earliest developing man may have dealt with one another on
such matters as hunting grounds and ending battles.[5] If this were the case, one of the first laws governing such
relationships, and consequently one of the first examples of inter-territorial law may have been the inviolability of a
messenger or negotiator; potentially an early example of diplomatic immunity. However, such examples from ancient
civilisations are geographically and culturally restricted, and one can not logically argue, without being overly reductionist,
that such examples are the origins of modern international law. There has been much discourse surrounding this question
from a merely historical point of view.
Historians may argue that law was developed at a

time of colonialism dating back to the Chinese, Greek and Roman Empires.
The Romans had a profound respect for organisation and the law.[6] The early Roman, jus civile,
applied solely to Roman citizens. However, such laws were unable to provide
a legal framework for expanding sovereigns. Jus gentium, was later
developed for this purpose; it was designed to govern relations between
foreigners and Roman citizens. Shaw explains that the instrument through which this particular system
evolved was the officially known as the Praetor Peregrinus, whose function it was to oversee all legal relationships,
including bureaucratic and commercial matters, within the empire[7]. However, it must be remembered that there was
no acceptance of other nations on a basis of equality or universality, and thus jus gentium remained solely a domestic law
for colonies under control of the Roman Empire. Such empires did develop import axioms and theories of law, which have
since become integral to international law but they did not establish an international law, due to the fact that they acted
with disregard to external rules in their dealings with those territories that were not already part of their respective
One of the most influential of Greek concepts taken up by the Romans

was the idea of natural law[8]: the argument that there is a body of rules of
universal relevance. Grotius, like many others believed that laws were constructed by men, but ultimately they
empires.
reflected essential natural law. Grotius maintained that natural law came from an essential universal reason, common to
Due to his
argument that the ideas and precepts of the law of nature were rooted in
all man. He argued that law was not imposed from above, but rather derived from principles.
human intelligence, he maintained that such rules could not be restricted to

any nation or any group but were of worldwide relevance. Advocates of
international law argue that international law is based on natural
law and is, therefore, universally applicable to all. In principle, there is a
strong case to be made for a law that is inherent in all man. Basing
international law on natural law is mistaking an a posteriori argument for an a
priori truth, and would perpetuate the spread of and dominance of
western academic thought through what is essentially a socially
constructed belief and not an a priori given. The classic problem associated
with natural law is, who decides what natural law is? Using a putative theory
as a basis for law, means that natural law will always be interpreted through
ones self-interest. It is intrinsically subjective to interpret natural law and this
led OConnell to argue that natural law will be constantly found to be aimed
at a particular state or group of states; and for this reason, if for no other, the
power element is obvious in international law.[9] The Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights,
are often criticised as being based too heavily on the Wests importance of
liberalism and individualism. Accepting such rights as intrinsic norms,
rather than western social constructions is to risk undermining
alternatives. For states to commit to one single declaration of international law would require sacrificing diverse
cultures and their unique way of viewing the world[10]. Commitment to a single declaration of international law would
mean the loss of culture, and from some perspectives, it would mean commitment to a law that has supported
Within
OConnells view is the argument that international law has allowed, and at
times required, the subjugation of people and suppression of distinct cultures
in a similar way that colonialism did at a time of imperialistic expansion. As a
result, international law is not universal, is not based on a given natural law,
and is subject to the manipulation and interpretation of powerful states,
consequently international law perpetuates current power
structures[12]. Concrete rules of international law are derived from what states actually do, and what
imperialism, militarism, male supremacy, racism, and other pathologies of human history[11].
precedents they set, rather than what the law of nature suggests they ought to do. Morgenthau argues that the great
majority of the rules of international law are generally observed . (because) it is in the interests of the state to
Where national self-interest demands action contrary to

international law, the only obligation on states is to act in their own
self-interest. Such a realist argument suggests that if states are
economically rational they will only comply with international law if the
cost, such as war, economic sanctions or trade embargoes outweigh the
benefits of such a move. However, such enforcement methods allow the
perpetuation of power to manifest itself in selective enforcement and
shows that the cost of contravening international law to the most powerful is
too small to force compliance as it they themselves who created such laws.
oblige.[13]
Equally, imposing sanctions on criminal countries may be to the detriment of the policing body. An interesting example
is the comparison between the differing enforcement policies adopted by the international community against China and
Uzbekistan. Recently, there has been much media attention about numerous counts of Human Rights abuses in China, as
well as their emotive treatment of Tibet: yet, no trade sanctions, punishments or international court appearances have
resulted. This is unlike in Uzbekistan, where after a bloody crackdown[14] in 2007, heavy economic, diplomatic and
arms sanctions were imposed on the central Asian state with a low GDP[15], compared to a powerful emerging superpower. It could be argued that western powers and international organisations, did not impose sanctions on China, due to
the large amount of exports from and the economic importance of China, in the international system, while a weaker state
such as Uzbekistan is forced to abide by international law due to its less powerful position in the international system. In
this case, we see that international law, although allegedly universally applicable to all, may only be enforced upon
certain states and that international law is used by the already powerful to protect that power[16]. Post-modern
They maintain that if

international law is not law, in that one has the choice to subscribe to it. It
is not international morality, as morality is a societal construct . Then law is
merely an aspect of politics, which can be manipulated to ones selfcritiques of international law hold a lot in common with classical realist arguments.
interest and politics. If we accept colonialism as a practice of domination,

which involves the subjugation of one people to another, which brings with it
the removal of a subjects sovereignty, then international law is arguably
colonising the states, who consent to international law . Bodin argued in De
Republica that to be sovereign a prince must be freed from laws[17], yet in consenting to
international law, it seems that states are ceding their sovereignty and thus , I
would argue, are being colonised by international law, and socially constructed
western values. Such values are being imposed on weaker states, who
are not powerful enough to contest international law. The threat of
becoming outcast in the global system is one that means the strong do what
they can and the weak suffer what they must[18]. As I have shown, the
origins of international law are rooted in colonial empires . Such
empires, primarily in the west, developed domestic law and treatise, which
formed the basis for an adoption of international law. International law is
not objective, nor is it universal and despite being constructed on
western values, it has, however, become widely adopted by
sovereign states. Ultimately, I have argued that international law is colonial.
b. The Law of the Sea is an integral part of this colonial

project. The aff represents ocean space only a site for
resource extraction and territorial control.
Genevra 10 (Garmendia Genevra, Ocean Governance: High Seas and the
Shift in Construction of Ocean Space as Social Space, Feb 12 2010, 7/28/14,

http://citation.allacademic.com/meta/p_mla_apa_research_citation/4/1/7/0/5/p
417052_index.html?phpsessid=m3m08arhga3gupqouuddmi3mg5)mc
Governance of spaces such as the High Seas is based on social constructions
of that space, rather than the attributes of that space itself. Such construction
is maintained through the dialectic of societys uses, regulations and
representations of that space. Cartography has mediated our conceptualization of
space and serves as a powerful tool of state rationalizing space to materialize
territorial control and secure resource extraction. Theories on the
construction of social space are concerned with the fixity and flows of both
space and time. A particular conceptualization of place as social space may
be fixed by the hegemonic discourse or informed by alternative cultural or
technological representations. The signing of the UN Convention Law on the
Sea spatially and temporally fixed our conception of ocean space as simply a
transport medium for the free movement of goods and navies, or as a
container for unlimited resources. Maps reinforced the view of the ocean which took into
account only surfaces the surface of the ocean and the seabed. The water column was invisible, a nonspace and therefore not social space to be governed. Our governance of High Seas was a reflection of the
construction of the deep oceans as only important as a highway to remain open; or as a future source of
Western juridical ideas (Grotius 1608, Seldan 1617) have

led to modern international law such as the UN Convention on the Law of the
Sea (UNCLOS). The signing of UNCLOS spatially and temporally fixed our
conception of ocean space as simply a transport medium for the free
movement of goods, a surface for the projection of power through navies, or as a container for
unlimited resources. Cartography mediates our conception of space and serves as
a powerful tool of state rationalization of space, homogenizing it to
materialize territorial control and secure resource extraction. Maps reinforced
resources on or below the seabed.
a view of the ocean which took into account only the flat surfaces the top of the ocean and the
seabed. The water column that which makes up the entire volume of water
that is the ocean was invisible, non-space and therefore not social space to
be governed. Our governance of High Seas is a reflection of that construction of the deep oceans
areas as only important as a highway to held open or a future source of resources on or below the
The physical, chemical and biological complexity of ocean space was

undermined and ignored. The introduction of new cartographic techniques
makes it possible to create complex representations, yet maps continue
maintain the homogenous view of ocean spaces which reinforce state power relations
seabed.
within the constructed view of ocean space (Pramono & Garmendia 2004). The release of Google Ocean
may provide the conditions of possibility for alternative narratives that include the actions of civil society in
a social space through videos, narratives and three-D tours. This paper problematizes the dominant
construction of ocean space, the way modern maps represent and erase the complexities of ocean space;
argues that such representations limit our ability to materialize appropriate governance structures;
questions whether this has brought about a shift in the social construction of ocean space the mediated
through Google Ocean on the internet; and whether such a shift may affect governance of the High Seas.
c. Vote negative Continued reliance on international law

will only result in war, inequality, environmental
destruction, and racism. Instead, our alternative is to
suspend our faith in the neutrality of international law
and to speak the narrative of colonialism.
Schmidt 10 (Patrick, Department of Political Science, Macalester College,
MEETING THE ENEMY: AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM AND INTERNATIONAL
LAW, by Natsu Taylor Saito.
http://www.lawcourts.org/LPBR/reviews/saito0910.htm)
I do not have to go out on a limb to assume that the substantial majority of those in academia were
pleased to see the end of the George W. Bush administration, and a significant percentage of those likely
looked for President Obama to usher in a policy sea-change, doing much to return equanimity and mutual
respect to Americas international engagements. In MEETING THE ENEMY, Natsu Taylor Saito leaves no
doubt about her place in the former camp, but the life of this book is her effort to put short-term changes
it will
never be enough for the United States to live up to its international
obligations or to engage existing international institutions, because those
structures are inherently flawed. This book, part of the Critical America series edited
of tone into historical relief. In so doing she puts herself at odds with the latter camp: to Saito,
by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic for NYU Press, takes on the challenging task of detailing her
objections to contemporary international law. The primary preoccupation of this book is to chronicle and
critique the origins and development of international law, reveali ng the ways
that the entire intellectual foundations of American and Western thinking
have brought the world to the perilous condition it is in today. Saito puts the
problem starkly at the conclusion of chapter 8:Ifone sees extant problems of global instability
ongoing wars, ecological disintegration, and the growing disparities in income
or social well-being as incapable of being resolved by the current
international regime, perhaps even as caused by the policies and practices of
civilized states, a different story will have to be told, and lived by, that
challenges both the contemporary framework of international law and the
precepts of American exceptionalism. (p. 228)That is, even though the Introduction and
first chapter invoke the post-2001 politics of the War of Terror, the recent behavior of the United States is a
The
contemporary failure of the United States to prosecute the war according to
international law demonstrates the deeply held belief that America is
exceptional; recent wars carry on a frame of seeing the civilized world
single scene in a longer play, the central plot of which can be sketched quite simply.
struggling against an uncivilized enemy; and, the nation has an obligation to

make safe the path and lead the world toward civilization , ends trumping means if
necessary. Co-incident with these ideological commitments is the belief that the
democracy, liberty, and human rights are rational and universal values; as is
the belief that the urbane, civilized peoples must assimilate the Other [*510] to
these norms through education and economic development. The bulk of the book Chapters 2 through 8
The central
conceptual narrative in this history is not international law qua
international law but colonialism. From the development of European
colonialism, the need to justify conquest resulted in the rehearsal of tropes
about civilization and savages, cementing the terms of international law
today. Thus, the long journey of American Indians drives Chapters 3 through 5, which retell how the
belief in the Manifest Destiny of Americas enabled white Americans to build an empire without
concern (and sometimes with overt malevolence) for indigenous
peoples. Slavery and Mexico make appearances in these chapters as well, before Chapter 6 extends
substantiates the role of this understanding of exceptionalism in the American project.
the account of the American Empire to Hawaii, Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines. Saitos unforgiving
emphasizes the unvarnished racism, greed, and brutality

of Americas 19th century pursuit of empire. Saito leaves no heroes in her wake, cherry picking
approach to these chapters
the most damning quotations to represent the views of Presidents from George Washington to Theodore
Roosevelt and many other figures along the way (such as Frank Baum, author of the much beloved
Wizard of Oz [p.111]). Her approach throughout is to draw extensively on secondary materials, weaving
together episodes and legal cases with illustrative primary material. The histories likely least familiar to
readers (such as the Philippines) form the bridge between Saitos vision of America and the rise of the 20th
century global legal order, which is the subject of Chapters 7 and 8. Chapter 7s more tightly focused
progression from the Hague Peace Conferences to the United Nations at mid-century contrasts with the
looser tour of international economic and legal instruments in Chapter 8. Yet, the arc remains one of
the European powers shed their colonial holdings, the

precepts of that system became part of the American approach to
international law, in which Western values would be imposed on the Other
while the United States asserted the right to act unilaterally in the interests of
civilization. There are natural tensions in the argument Saito advances. From the Introduction and the
colonialism, for however rapidly
first chapter the reader might detect and share an investment in international law, with the attendant hope
that the United States would put short term interests aside and stand by principles. At the same time, she
confront the centuries-old colonialism behind international law

as we know it. How deeply can one feel an attachment to international law when it fails so
consistently as to appear fundamentally flawed ? Realists and cynics resolve the tension
asks the reader to
here by abandoning any idealism about the international legal order (if not law in general), taking in their
stride the failure of legal rhetoric to induce compliant behaviors. Doesnt
every nation, not just
the United States, desire to live by the slogan, dont do as I do, do as I say? A more
critical generalization about law might be inspired by the ease with which Saito switches between making
America and Western civilization the target. [*511] Saitos America
is explicitly treated as a
case study of colonialism and the law, and moving from the case study she could have gone
further to consider how power and law connect at a higher level of generality. Some abstraction is on
display in Chapter 9s concluding discussion of prescriptions. However much a reader might find
the superiority of Western civilization is

laced through contemporary international law, the final chapter offers a bucket of cold
water. What can anyone do to provoke wholesale change in a
centuries-old conceptual frame? Perhaps not much, barring more imagination or
themselves persuaded that an assumption of
optimism than most readers will muster. All that seems available are general, jargon-laced calls to
unleash
the liberatory potential of alternative systems of world order (p.245)

by suspending the notion of universality and its concomitant division of
humanity into the civilized and the Othe r, (p.238), thus giving room for all
voices and a multiplicity of perspectives (p.241). Yet, dont judge this book by the final
chapter but rather by the diagnosis of the problem. Students of both American history and law should find
thought-provoking the extent to which the
traditional zones of domestic and foreign
policy blend, chapter-by-chapter, into one unified account about the dominance of
racist, Otherizing, colonializing ambitions. That narrative folds into the wider
argument about Western legal traditions, drawing on episodes and
discussions that implicate everything from political philosophy to
development economics. In total the book makes it difficult if not
impossible to ignore the historic continuities between international
politics today and the overt racism of a century ago .
LINKS
2NC Link
Law of the Sea enforce western ideals allowing them to
own the ocean
As Foucault states, space is fundamental to the exercise of power (1984) and
control. The mid twentieth century saw the territorialization of ocean space
with the codification of the UN Law of the Sea. States create territory
under historical and diverse social forces (Brenner & Elden 2009) and the historical
traditions and social constructions passed down from Grotius and Seldan played out in a
distinct dialectic between the concepts of freedom of navigation and the need
for the control of resources. Unlike land where territorialization gave state
control of access to an area, people and things, the introduction of the 200
nautical mile Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) limited state control only to
things. During the mid twentieth century developing nations saw drastic declines to their fishery
resources to Deep Water Fishing Nations (DWFN) and decided they needed to assert control. A few Latin
American, Asian and African countries to began to declare 200 mile fishing zone as territorial space
(Churchill & Lowe 1983). The DWFN were also the hegemonic powers of the Cold War and needed to
UNCLOS
preserved this contested nature of this space by giving coastal states
sovereign rights to the living resources only (UNCLOS 1982) while freedom of
navigation was preserved. UNCLOS served to confirm territorialization of 12 nautical miles
adjacent to shore only while homogenizing the 200 mile coastal EEZ to maintain freedom of navigation .
Governance structures set up through the Law of the Sea maintain the
traditional western landized control of ocean space governance flows
only through land in the form of the flag state control of any vessel or
artificial island (Garmendia 2006). The lack of any use value (or property
rights) of the water column itself have erased any possibilities currently for a
new locus of governance within the ocean itself.
prevent any restriction of their ability to project power freely across ocean space.
A2: Perm
The perm leaves the spirit of international law intact
causes co-option.
Chimni 11 (B.S Chimni is a Professor of International Law at the Jawaharlal
Nehru University and a scholar in law, Capitalism, Imperialism, and
International Law in the Twenty-First Century, Revised version of keynote
address from October 20-22 2011, Date Accessed: 7/28/14,
http://law.uoregon.edu/org/oril/docs/14-1/Chimni.pdf)
There is a parallel story of international law; that is of the endless renewal of the spirit of
international law. Each era has seen the production of new laws and
institutions that promise liberation and emancipation from the ills that
characterize the world order of the day. For instance, colonial international law
was able to reinvent itself as a democratic and universal international law
through various initiatives that supported decolonization . It then met the charge of
being a neo-colonial international law by evolving, among other things, an international development law.
In the era of global imperialism entirely new branches of international law

have emerged that promise to address the urgent problems of the day and
promote the welfare of global peoples renewing the spirit of international law. The rapid
development of international human rights law in particular lends credence to
international laws pursuit of the global common good.
Modern international law is still inherently colonial and

unredeemable the perms concealment ensures survival
of the current system
Anghie 99 [Antony - Professor Anghie received a B.A. and an LL.B. from
Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He earned an S.J.D. from Harvard
Law School, Finding the Peripheries: Sovereignty and Colonialism in
Nineteenth-Century International Law, Harvard International Law Journal / Vol.
40 19999 / Sovereignty and Colonialism in International Law, Winter 1999,
http://teachers.colonelby.com/krichardson/Grade%2012/Carleton%20-%20Int
%20Law%20Course/Week%203/FindingPeripheries.pdf, 7/28/2014, Pgs. 6669] B.S
My argument has been that the modern discipline operates very much within
the framework it has inherited from the nineteenth century . The problem
of how to establish order in the absence of an overarching sovereign is a problem that arises with the
articulation of the positivist framework. Since its articulation, it has been and continues to be a problem
that has preoccupied both mainstream and critical theorizing about the discipline. In making this point I am
not in any way seeking to diminish the extraordinary or defining importance of this body of work. Rather, I
an exclusive focus on this framework cannot provide an

understanding of the history of the relationship between international law and
the non-European world. The non-European world, relegated to the geographical periphery, is also
am arguing that
relegated to the margins of theory. The specific historical experience of European states is generalized and
universalized by its metamorphosis into the defining theoretical preoccupation of the discipline.[265] Nor
does it appear sufficient to me to claim that the racism of the nineteenth century has been transcended by
the achievement of sovereign statehood by the non-European world.
It is true that international
law is now more open and cosmopolitan; moreover, international law has promoted the
process of decolonization by formulating doctrines of self-determination where once it formulated doctrines
Still, this movement towards the decolonization of

international law was by no means universally acclaimed. In the 1960s, when
of annexation and terra nullius.
it was clear that the emergence of developing nations would change radically
the character of the international system, a number of eminent international
lawyers voiced concern about the dilution e ffect of these new states on an
international law that was, in the final analysis, European .[266] The question that
remained was the possibility and effectiveness of reversing the consequences of colonialism. The
optimistic international lawyers of the 1960s, even those notable scholars from developing nations, who
were the most trenchant critics of the Eurocentric character of international law, were hopeful that the
acquisition of sovereignty by developing nations and participation in international legal forums would
result in the creation of a truly universal, just, and equal international system.[267] Thus Guha-Roy, while
pointing to the obvious inequities of the doctrines of state responsibility, argued that developing nations
were intent, not on repudiating the whole of international law, but on repudiating those rules that
The civilized/non-civilized distinction featured in the

doctrines and treaties of the nineteenth century was generally expunged
from the vocabulary of international law. [268] It is clear that scholars from
developing nations never achieved the significant reforms that they desired.
For instance, the drive by developing countries to create a New International
Economic Order ended, on the whole, in failure. The alternative position is that the
nineteenth century remains an integral part of contemporary international law. On a material level,
the systems of economic and political inequality created by colonialism under
the auspices of nineteenth- century international law continue to operate
despite the ostensible change of legal regime. [269] It is doubtful whether a discipline
facilitated colonialism.
whose fundamental concepts, sovereignty and law, had been so explicitly and clearly formulated in
ways that embodied distinctions and discriminations that furthered colonialism could be readily reformed
the
International Court of Justice may theoretically draw upon the general
principles of law recognized by civilized nations, where civilized must now
be understood to mean all nations. But an examination of the recent
jurisprudence of the Court suggests that little effort has been made to draw
upon the legal traditions and systems of non- Western peoples in the
administration of international justice.[271] International law remains
emphatically European in this respect, regardless of its supposed receptivity
to other legal thinking. The legacies of the nineteenth century appear in even
more fundamental ways: despite recognizing that the treaties were unequal
and often extracted by force, these treaties continue to be legally binding.
The doctrine of terra nullius is now understood to have been used over the
centuries to dispossess and destroy indigenous peoples throughout the nonEuropean world. Nevertheless, these doctrines are not so much confronted as evaded through
by the simple expedient of excising or reformulating the offending terminology.[270] Thus,
reinterpretation of the relevant facts. For example, the argument is made that more recent anthropological
evidence suggests the Aboriginal peoples of Australia had a form of political organization, as a
consequence of which the terra nullius doctrine could not be said to apply to Australia. While the operation
of the doctrine is thus denied, the doctrine itself is rarely dismissed as outmoded because of the racist
ways in which it has been almost invariably deployed.[272] Similarly, in the Western Sahara Case, the
International Court of Justice asserted that the Western Sahara could not have been terra nullius because
the people who lived there did in fact have a form of political organization.[273] Thus, the doctrines
consolidated by nineteenth-century jurists continue, in important ways, to establish the framework within
which indigenous peoples struggle to assert their rights. Jurists and courts attempting to reverse the
The question
is not so much whether the nineteenth century has been transcended but
how its continuing effects within the contemporary legal system may be
obscured. Any tendency to treat the nineteenth century as being only of
historical interest must be treated cautiously. As I have attempted to argue, there
appears to be an inherent reflex within international law to conceal the
colonial past on which its entire structure is based. The same reflex may be
seen at the doctrinal level, for example, in the way that the construction of
law depends on a notion of society. Once that construction has served its
effects of these laws are often compelled to do so within these established frameworks.
purpose, it is inverted by way of a reconstructed jurisprudence in which

society has been successfully constituted as a function of law. On a larger scale,
as discussed earlier, positivists vehemently set out to detach themselves from their naturalist past . The
process of distancing and suppressing the past is a common feature of the
discipline, and a ritual enacted whenever it attempts to renew and revive
itself. The nineteenth century exists within the discipline in a way suggested by Freud, who asserted in
Civilization and Its Discontents: But have we a right to assume the survival of something that was
originally there, alongside of what was later derived from it? Undoubtedly. There is nothing strange in such
a phenomenon, whether in the mental field or elsewhere. In the animal kingdom we hold to the view that
the most highly developed species we have proceeded from the lowest; and yet we find all the simple
Positivism and the nineteenth century are an

integral part of the contemporary discipline. Simplifying considerably, the nineteenth
forms still in existence today.[274]
century could be said to embody a particular set of attitudes and methods: it posits an essentialist
dichotomy between the non-European and the European; it characterizes relations between these entities
to be inherently antagonistic; it establishes a hierarchy between these entities, suggesting that one is
advanced, just, and authoritative while the other is backward and barbaric; it asserts that the only history
that may be written of the backward is in terms of its progress towards the advanced; it silences the
backward and denies it any subjectivity or autonomy; it assumes and promotes the centrality of the
civilized and legitimizes the conquest and dispossession of the backward; and it contemplates no other
approaches to solve the problems of society than those that the civilized have formulated. Many of these
elements are evident in the work of prominent international relations scholars, from Samuel Huntingtons
influential argument regarding The Clash of Civilizations,[275] to Francis Fukuyamas assertions as to
The End of History.[276] There is a danger that the suggestive work being done on the liberal peace,
which relies on the distinction between liberal and non-liberal states, could embody and reproduce some of
Equally important, it must be

noted that nineteenth-century attitudes are by no means peculiar to relations
between European and non-European peoples. Many of the Asian and African
societies colonized in the nineteenth century had previously been involved in
imperial projects themselves. Further, it appears to be an enduring and unfortunate truth that
the elements and attitudes of the nineteenth century.[277]
non-European states that have been the victims of colonialism often have no inhibition from themselves
becoming colonial oppressors.
L International Law
Eurocentric ideology is the foundation of the worlds
decision making.
Sanjay 12 (Seth, Professor of Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London,
where he is also Director of the Centre for Postcolonial Studies. Postcolonial
Theory and International Relations: A Critical Introduction (Routledge,
forthcoming December 2012), The Limits of International Relations Theory: A
Postcolonial Critique, 8/24/12, http://www.e-ir.info/2012/08/24/the-limits-ofinternational-relations-theory-a-postcolonial-critique/)
A great deal of IR displays little interest in history , for history is unimportant if the
defining feature of the international order is considered to be the transhistorical fact of anarchy: thus
Kenneth Waltz, for instance, writes that the enduring anarchic character of international politics accounts
for the striking sameness in the quality of international life through the millennia.[i] There are, however,
those in the discipline who, even when they see anarchy as the defining feature of the international order,
are nonetheless interested in how this historically evolved; and how an order which, in their account, first
developed in Europe in the early modern period, came to encompass the globe. I refer of course to the
English School, which has the considerable merit of enquiring into the historical origins of the
contemporary international system. However, the account of the expansion of international society
offered by the English School in influential texts such as Adam Watsons The Evolution of International
Society and Buzan and Littles International Systems in World History is Eurocentric and mistaken.
Ironically, many of the authors of the English School are well aware of, and consciously seek to avoid,
Eurocentrism. Buzan and Little, for instance, argue that the Eurocentrism of IR mars its understanding of
past international systems, and its capacity to comprehend changes that may lie in the future. But its
Eurocentric assumptions make sense for most of the modern era for there is no
doubt that the existing international system, forged over the preceding few centuries, has its
origins in Europe and must be understood with reference to a specifically
European history. The European empires canbe seen as the nursery, or mechanism, by
which the political form of the modern state was transposed onto the rest of the world , write
Buzan and Little, and since the modern state is a quintessentially European
phenomenonit is therefore to Europes story that one has to look to explain
it.[ii] Thus while IR is admittedly Eurocentric in its understanding of the world, that Eurocentrism
is warranted for the modern period- or as Hedley Bull and Watson had put it sixteen years earlier, The
present international political structure of the world is , at least in its most basic
features, the legacy of Europes now vanished ascendancy. Because it was in fact Europe and not
America, Asia, or Africa that first dominated and, in so doing, unified the world, it is not our perspective but
Eurocentric.[iii]This narrative of the expansion of political

is modelled on the conventional account of the expansion of economic
and social forms, that is, of the spread of capitalism (or modernity). This
conventional account, which informs many disciplines, and is deeply ingrained in popular
understandings, is one which presumes that capitalism began in Europe, and later radiated outwards
the historical record itself that can be called
forms
through trade, armies and the like.
International law locks in the sovereign world order and is

used to suppress non-European states (all under the guise
of universality).

Law School, Finding the Peripheries: Sovereignty and Colonialism in
%20Law%20Course/Week%203/FindingPeripheries.pdf, 7/28/2014, Pgs. 1-3]
B.S
International law is universal. It is a body of law that applies to all states
regardless of their specific cultures, belief systems, and political
organizations. It is a common set of doctrines that all states use to regulate relations with each other.
The association between international law and universality is so ingrained that
pointing to this connection appears tautological. And yet, the universality of
international law is a relatively recent development. It was not until the end
of the nineteenth century that a set of doctrines was established as
applicable to all states, whether these were in Asia, Africa, or Europe. The
universalization of international law was principally a consequence of the
imperial expansion that took place towards the end of the long nineteenth
century.[2] The conquest of non-European [3] peoples for economic and
political advantage was the most prominent feature of this period, which was
termed by one eminent historian, Eric Hobsbawm, as the Age of Empire.[4] By 1914, after
numerous colonial wars, virtually all the territories of Asia, Africa, and the
Pacific were controlled by the major European states, resulting in the
assimilation of all these non-European peoples into a system of law that was
fundamentally European in that it derived from European thought and
experience. The late nineteenth century was also the period in which
positivism decisively replaced naturalism as the principal jurisprudential
technique of the discipline of international law. [5] Positivism was the new analytic
apparatus used by the jurists of the time to account for the events that culminated in the universalization
of international law and the formulation of a body of principles that was understood to apply globally as a
result of the annexation of unoccupied territories such as the Australian continent, the conquest of large
parts of Asia, and the partitioning of Africa. This Article focuses on the relationship between positivism and
colonialism. My interest lies in examining the way in which positivism dealt with the colonial confrontation.
this is an attempt to examine how positivism sought to account for

the expansion of European Empires and for the dispossession of various
peoples stemming therefrom. In studying this relationship, I seek not only to outline an
Particularly,
architecture of the legal framework, but also to question extant understandings of the relationship
between colonialism and positivism and the significance of the nineteenth-century colonial encounter for
Positivist jurisprudence is premised on the notion of the

primacy of the state. Despite subsequent attempts to reformulate the
foundations of international law, the fundamental positivist position, that
states are the principal actors of international law and they are bound only by
that to which they have consented, continues to operate as the basic premise
of the international legal system. Positivism, furthermore, has generated the
problem that governs the major theoretical inquiries into the discipline: how
can legal order be created among sovereign states? Attempts to resolve this problem,
the discipline as a whole.
as well as the critiques of these attempts, have, on the whole, constituted the central theoretical debate
of the discipline over the last century.[6] The defining character of this problem to the discipline of
international law is further reflected by the structure of many of the major textbooks of international law,
which introduce the subject by outlining the problem and offering some sort of solution to it.[7] Colonialism
the colonial
confrontation was not a confrontation between two sovereign states, but
between a sovereign European state and a non-European state that,
according to the positivist jurisprudence of the time, was lacking in
sovereignty. Such a confrontation poses no conceptual di fficulties for the
positivist jurist who basically resolves the issue by arguing that the sovereign
state can do as it wishes with regard to the non-sovereign entity, which lacks the
legal personality to assert any legal opposition. This resolution was profoundly important
features only incidentally within this scheme. This appears inevitable, because
from a political point of view as its operation resulted in the universalization

of international law. Nevertheless, it seemingly poses no theoretical difficulties; consequently, the
colonial world is relegated to both the geographical and theoretical peripheries of the discipline. Certainly,
colonies were often exasperatingly troublesome, both in terms of their governance and international
jurisprudence. But for the international lawyers, colonial problems constituted a distinct set of issues that
how the colonized peoples

should be governed and, later, what role international law should play in
decolonization. Even when the colonies were perceived to challenge some of
the fundamental assumptions of the discipline, as in the case of the doctrine of selfdetermination, which was used in the 1960s and 1970s to effect the transformation of colonial
territories into sovereign states, such challenges were perceived, mainly in political
terms, as a threat to a stable and established system of international law,
which was ineluctably European and was now faced with the quandary of
accommodating these outsiders. The conceptualization of the problem in this way suggested
were principally not of a theoretical, but rather a political character:
again that the non-European world was completely peripheral to the discipline proper; and it was only the
disconcerting prospect of Africans and Asians acquiring sovereignty in the 1950s and 1960s that alerted
international lawyers to the existence of a multicultural world.[8]
L EEZ
Their defense of the EEZ ignores the colonial history
that made it possible The Law of the Sea is part of the
imperial project of expand and control.
Nolan 13 [Peter - holds the Chong Hua Chair in Chinese Development and is
Director of the Universitys Centre of Development Studies, University of
Cambridge. He is the Director of the Chinese Executive Leadership
Programme (CELP), IMPERIAL ARCHIPELAGOS, New Left Review, March-April
2013, http://newleftreview.org.proxy.lib.umich.edu/II/80/peter-nolan-imperialarchipelagos, 7/28/2014]B.S
The United States chose not to sign the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea,
but formally recognized the legality of the EEZ. A year after UNCLOS was enacted, Reagan duly
proclaimed the EEZ of the United States. It is the largest of any state by a wide margin ,
encompassing more than 12 million square kilometres, larger by a fifth than the land area of the United States; according
to one legal scholar, Reagans proclamation can be characterized as the largest territorial acquisition in the history of the
The forty-eight states of the continental USA have an EEZ of 2.45

million square kilometres in total. The territory was acquired, of course,
through the long westward extension of the frontier, primarily through
military action. The original thirteen states at Independence came into
existence through the expropriation by white colonial settlers of the
lands occupied by Native Americans. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 transferred to US
United States. [6]
ownership a vast swathe of Frances colonial possessions, stretching from Louisiana up to Montana and North Dakota. The
Mexican War of 184648 concluded with the absorption of the territories of New Mexico, Utah, Arizona, Nevada, part of
The massacre of Native Americans at Wounded

Knee in 1890 brought the construction of the continental nationstate to a conclusion, endowing the US with long coastlines facing on to
the Atlantic, the Pacific and the Gulf of Mexico . In that year, the US Bureau of the Census
officially declared the frontier complete. In addition to the EEZ of the forty-eight states, the
US has a further 9.6 million square kilometres of EEZ in the Pacific Ocean.
This derives from several different sources of territorial acquisition . The largest
Colorado, California and Texas.
component consists of the state of Alaska and the Aleutian Island chain, which Imperial Russia colonized in the eighteenth
century. In 1867 the US government purchased this vast territory from Russia for $7.2 million. The total EEZ of Alaska is
3.8 million square kilometreshalf as much again as that of the 48 mainland states. The Aleutian chain is 1,900
kilometres long, stretching out from Alaskas southwestern tip across the Pacific Ocean, towards Russias Kamchatka
peninsula. It has a population of just over 4,000, and its EEZ accounts for around one-third of the whole exclusive zone of
Alaska. Apart from Alaska and the Aleutian island chain, the total US exclusive zone around its Pacific island territories
amounts to 5.8 million square kilometres. Within this total, just 90 square kilometres of land area of uninhabited islands
accounts for an exclusive economic zone of 1.95 million square kilometres. The majority of this total is contributed by
territories annexed in 1856 under the Guano Islands Act. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, guano was a
valuable source of agricultural fertilizer, and could also be used to make saltpetre for gunpowder. Washington still
possesses most of the groups acquired under the Act, including the Howland and Baker Islands, Jarvis Island, Johnston
Atoll, Palmyra Atoll and Kingman Reef. They are little more than rocks and have no permanent human inhabitants. Their
combined land area is just 87 square kilometres. However, due to their dispersion across the ocean, they have a total
exclusive economic zone of 1.55 million square kilometres, almost as large as that of the entire east and west coast of the
By the 1890s, the

US was turning its attentions to overseas expansion . An editorial in the
Washington Post on the eve of the SpanishAmerican War noted the
emergence of a new appetite, the yearning to show our strength . . .
Ambition, interest, land hunger, pride, the mere joy of fighting, whatever it
may be, are animated by a new sensation. The taste of Empire is in the
mouth of the people even as the taste of blood in the jungle. [7] As a
US combined, and considerably larger than Chinas undisputed EEZ (see Table 4, below).
result of victory over Spain in 1898, the US not only gained effective control of Cuba and Puerto Rico, but also acquired a
string of territories across the Pacific, including the Philippines, Guam and Wake Island; the latter two remain US territories
today. Hawaii was an independent kingdom from 1801 to 1893, when a group consisting mainly of American businessmen
overthrew the monarchy.
Colonialism turns the case exclusive economic zones in

the ocean cause disease, violence, and environmental
destruction.
Light footprints? An important justification for the UNs establishment of the
concept of the exclusive economic zone was the desire to reduce damage to
exhaustible natural resources. It was hoped that establishing clear national property rights over
those resources would transform the areas in question from open-access global commons into regions of
However, the Wests own experience in managing resources

within these areas hardly offers an adequate model. The early phases of
colonialism, in particular, had a profoundly negative impact on the Pacific
Oceans animal population. The three epic voyages of Captain James Cook between 1768 and
conservation.
1780, conducted under the orders of the British Admiralty and supported by the Royal Society, were a
critically important stimulus to the Wests intervention in the region. On each of his expeditions there,
Cook was accompanied by scientists who provided a detailed record of the wildlife they encountered. One
of the most surprising and striking results of the expeditions was the superabundance of wildlife they
discovered in the Great Southern Ocean, including vast numbers of birds, seals and whales. The detailed
accounts in Cooks journals and accompanying maps stimulated a wave of commercial exploitation of the
Seals were killed mainly for their valuable

skin and whales mainly for their oil. By the 1830s fur seals in the Southern
Ocean were virtually extinct. The main attack was then directed at the whale population, which
southern seas by European and American ships.
came south in the summer breeding season. The US was the leader in this industry. By 1846 New England
alone had 735 whalers, each averaging a kill of 100 whales per voyage. The killing went on until there was
virtually nothing left to kill: In a period of little more than 50 yearsroughly from the 1780s to the 1840s
these little ships with their polyglot crews . . . combed these vast icy oceans so thoroughly that no large
marine animal was to be easily found any more. By the 1880s commercial whaling had been abandoned
The impact on human populations was on a

comparable scale. Prior to the arrival of Western colonists, the combined indigenous population of
over large areas of the Pacific Ocean. [10]
Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific islands was relatively small; establishing colonial rule thus did not
present the same challenge as in India, China or the countries bordering the South China Sea.
numerous conflicts occurred between the Western colonists and

the indigenous peoples, particularly over land. The most severe was in New
Zealand, between 1843 and 1872, when as many as 20,000 Maoris may have
been killed in a series of brutal confrontations with British troops. Colonial
forces frequently used scorched earth tactics, laying waste to Maori villages
and destroying crops. Although much smaller in scale, the war in New Caledonia between French
Nevertheless,
colonists and indigenous inhabitants was equally bloody. France annexed the territory in 1853, and violent
conflicts ensued as French settlers attempted to expropriate land from the native Kanaka inhabitants. A
full-scale Kanaka uprising erupted in 1878, and the French authorities responded with attacks on their
Indigenous people in the Pacific were typically treated as subhuman, and often killed without compunction . In the case of Tasmania, the settler
villages and crops.
populationmainly convictscleared the indigenous people off their land through a ferocious manhunt. In
1830 Tasmania was put under martial law.
Aborigines were continually hunted and
tracked down like fallow deer,
and, once captured, are deported, singly or in parties, to the

islands of the Bass Strait. [11] Within just five years, only 100200 of the aboriginal population survived,
The spread of disease had an even more serious impact

on the demography of the Pacific territories. Sexually transmitted diseases
played an especially important role; from the late nineteenth century to the
late twentieth, the greatly increased number of sealers, whalers and ordinary
commercial shipping brought with it a thriving sex industry, as well as violent
out of an estimated 5,000.
sexual attacks on indigenous women. A combination of venereal disease,

tuberculosis, smallpox and dysentery was mainly responsible for the large
population declines on many Pacific islands, including Hawaii, Tahiti, the Marquesas and
Easter Island. Prior to Cooks arrival in 1778, Hawaiis population was around a quarter of a million on
conservative estimates, and may have been significantly higher.
L Nation State Focus

Conceptual shift needed to allow new world order to come
into view
Cohen 4 (Jean L., PhD, Professor of Political Thought, Columbia University,
Whose Sovereignty? Empire Versus International Law 2004,
https://www.carnegiecouncil.org/publications/journal/18_3/articles/5052.html/
_res/id
%3Dsa_File1/5052_Cohenforweb.pdf&sa=U&ei=48RTU_b4N_SQ4gSey4HYDQ
&ved=0CFcQFjAO&usg=AFQjCNFcq1AZ6zf0me1g3nXL9toL7zDvRA Accessed
July 27th, 2014)//bb
The first approach focuses on the emergence of new forms of transnational
governance that have allegedly replaced unitary states as the key actors in
the global political system.20 This involves both an epistemological and an
empirical claim. We must, first, stop imagining the international system as a
system of statesunitary entities like billiard balls. In order to perceive its new structural
features, we must open up the black box of the state and apply the idea of
the separation of powers, thus far restricted to domestic governments, to the global
political scene. This conceptual shift will allow the core components of the
new world order to come into view: horizontal and vertical transgovernmental
networks.21 The empirical claim is that the state has been disaggregated into
its component parts, each of which functions autonomously in the global
political system. Intergovernmental relations now occur primarily through a multiplicity of horizontal
networks linking government officials in distinct transnational judicial, regulatory, and legislative channels
that operate independently of one another without any claim to represent the state as a unitary entity.
Together with vertical governmental networks between national and supranational counterparts, these
linkages comprise the main loci of global governance and law making, replacing diplomacy and interstate
cooperation. The network structure of interaction is allegedly based on the disaggregation of the state and
its sovereignty: it enables officials in each domain to solve common problems, share information,
harmonize rules, generalize normative expectations, coordinate policy, and punish violators of global law
without claming to do so in the name of the state as a whole.22
L Mapping
The affs desire to map space flattens the complexity of
the ocean and locks in western modes of thinking.
space is pulverized by private property and the
scientific and technical capacity to treat space on ever more vast levels
(2009). Use of maps also decontextualizes and reduces the complexity of
the relations between humans and nature (Harvey 1989). Mobile forms of
traditional land tenure are lost and the full complexity of ocean space as
a dynamic three-dimensional space is reduced to surfaces the sea
surface and sea bottom (Pramano & Garmendia 2004). This facilitates the dispossession of
people ( including from the ocean if when one considers Hauofas analysis the creation of Pacific
Islanders now bounded by land). Maps of ocean space have served to reinforce
the representations of the western construction of the ocean as
surfaces the surface of the water as a highway to connect land spaces, a medium across which
As Lefebvre describes it,
power is projected and a seabed (surface) important only as a source of future resources (deep seabed
The water column was invisible, non-space and therefore not social
space to be governed only the resources within it had use value. Thus the
complexity of ocean space was undermined and ignored as its three-D nature was
mining).
erased. New cartographic techniques have developed over the years that would allow for more complex
representations that reinforce state power relations

continue manifest the fixed view of ocean space. It is easily possible to use current
representations but traditional
technology to create three-dimensional ocean maps as a norm with a transparent ocean layer to keep the
water column visible.
Rather than use such maps in negotiations between

countries or with policy-makers that would show a more complex construction
of ocean space, maps continue to flatten oceans, reinforce our constructed
view of surfaces and maintain present state power relations.
L South China Sea Advantage

Representing the South China Sea as a site of Chinese
military competition hides the US history of exploitation.
We may look to the wide extent of the Americas, Polynesia, the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, and we
find the same result. [16] String of pearls It is often alleged in the Western press that Beijing has a longrun string of pearls strategy to build a succession of overseas bases in Southeast Asia and the Indian
Ocean. Much of the analysis of the dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands has also focused on the
possibility that China might gain control over the natural resources in or under the South China Sea. Yet
the vast expanse of EEZs derived from the Wests colonial expansion
in and around the Pacific Ocean, and ratified by UNCLOS, dwarfs by
an enormous margin the territories that are in dispute between
China and its immediate neighbours in the South China Sea (Table 6).
China has existed as a unified state for many hundreds of years, with the Pacific Ocean forming its
backyard. From early in its history China possessed the technological and administrative capability to
invade Southeast Asia, as well as the sparsely populated territories of the Pacific, including todays
By the end of the

nineteenth century, the Western powers had turned the Pacific Ocean into
their own backyard and had colonized most of the territories around the
South China Sea, while China itself had been reduced to the status of a
beggar. Its drastically altered position was symbolized by the flood of millions of impoverished Chinese
Australia, New Zealand and the other archipelagos. However, it chose not to do so.
migrants to work in the mainly Western-owned mines and plantations around the South China Sea and on
The Wests preoccupation with Beijings

involvement in the South China Sea contrasts sharply with the
complete absence of discussion of the Wests vast exclusive
economic zones in the region, deriving from colonial conquest . The
former imperial powers acquisition of control over vast marine territories and
resources through UNCLOS has received negligible attention other than in
specialist legal journals, yet it eclipses by some distance the area and
resources that are in contention in the South China Sea. The contrast in treatment of
the widely scattered Pacific islands.
the two issues is especially disturbing in view of the talk of a new Peloponnesian War being triggered by
It is as though the Western media have

succeeded in focusing the minds of their populations on a mouse, when a
mighty elephant stands behind them unnoticed.
disputes over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.
L Property Rights
Property rights are western results in exploitation.

This tradition of property rights and land appropriation continues to play out
on the land side of the ocean/land boundary as recently as the past twenty years with the
growth of shrimp farming. Aid and loans have been given to many coastal developing nations to begin
shrimp aquaculture along the shoreline as high value crop that can bring in foreign revenue .
In many
countries this meant the need to create a property rights regime so that the
rule of law could secure foreign investment. As a result, people who
traditionally lived along the coast and had no tradition or documented history
of property rights were displacement. Property rights thus continue to be
rooted in the land but operate differently in the ocean . With occasional exceptions
around very near shore property; ocean space itself has not been subject to property rights. Instead, a
system of property rights has been recently been created for resources contained within ocean space.
Once again the container is ignored by Individual Transferable Quotas (ITQs) are a market device designed
State
Territorializaton, Ocean Space and Governance While property rights have not
generally been applied to ocean space, state territorialization of ocean space,
like land space, has occurred. The state uses space to control places
(Lefebvre 2009) and does so through a process of territorialization a
strategy to assert control of access to an area, people and things (Sack 1986).
Space that were unoccupied become commodified for its use value, which according to Sack means
that a space is considered empty if it is devoid of socially or economically
valuable artifacts or things that were intended to be controlled. The modern state
to give property rights to fisherman for a certain share of the allowable fish catch.
production of space is homogenous, fractured, hierarchized.
L Sovereignty
The nation-state system is in flux, but invoking the value
of sovereignty secures mainstream IR knowledge.
Sanjay 12 (Seth, Professor of Politics at Goldsmiths, University of London,
where he is also Director of the Centre for Postcolonial Studies. Postcolonial
Theory and International Relations: A Critical Introduction (Routledge,
forthcoming December 2012), The Limits of International Relations Theory: A
Postcolonial Critique, 8/24/12, http://www.e-ir.info/2012/08/24/the-limits-ofinternational-relations-theory-a-postcolonial-critique/)
In the preceding section I suggested that we cannot treat collectivities, whether cultures or nations, as if
while
cultures and nations are historical and constructed. We are accustomed to
think that the social contract theorists of the seventeenth century awoke to
the fact that men are born free, rational and equal, equipped with the
capacity for willing, desiring and promising. However there are those who have also
they were like individuals, even by analogy. But this does not mean that individuals are natural,
sought to show that the free, equal, rational and unitary individual presumed by the social sciences as an
incontestable fact is no such thing; like the nation and state, s/he is a product of processes and discourses.
The prime source for such sceptical modes of thinking is of course Nietzsche, who in Genealogy of Morals
and other writings argued that the individual capable of making promises, seeing in effects a consequence
of the exercise of the will, and feeling guilt, was forged on the anvil of Greek philosophy, Christian morality
and Roman law. Partly inspired by Nietzsches work, Foucaults writings have in turn influenced those who
have similarly sought to show how the individual was produced, including produced by the knowledges
which posited him, rather than discovered by a knowledge which finally recognised what had always been
there, awaiting to be unveiled (as in Jacob Burckhardts classic account, in which the veil which made
man conscious of himself only as a member of a race, people, party, family or corporation finally lifted in
Renaissance Italy, enabling man to recognise himself as a spiritual individual[xv]). In contrast and
contestation with accounts which trace the emergence into sunlight of the individual subject who had once
been shrouded in darkness (but who nonetheless had always been there, awaiting discovery), there are
now accounts which trace the creation of this individual through various historical processes, including
social, economic and discursive transformations.[xvi]The free, equal, rational and unitary individual is not a
fact of the world, the starting point of knowledge, but rather, a consequence or product which has been
naturalised such that it can seem to be a fact. The elements which have produced it as a fact include those
knowledges and discourses which purport to simply recognise and represent the fact that they have
It is not that the individual is real and that culture and nation
are cobbled together and contingent, but rather that the former has
stabilised, and the marks of its manufacture have, over time, been erased;
such is not the case with state and nation, which continue to be contingent
and contested, with the struggles that went into their making often still
inscribed on their bodies. Liberal political theory, one could say, has had more
success in naturalising the individual than mainstream IR theory has had in
naturalising state, nation and the international order. The international is a realm
helped to produce.
where endless and seemingly irresolvable contestations- over meanings and morals as much as resources
and power- testify to the fact that few things have become so naturalised that they are not potentially
In this
sense, there is something to the importance accorded to the
sovereignty/anarchy distinction, even if not in the sense that mainstream IR
usually appreciates it. In what is still one of the most illuminating texts on the subject, Leviathan,
Hobbes shows that sovereignty is the name and form of a capacity to impose and
stabilize meanings. It is always a function of strategies and tactics, struggles and
conflicts, and to that degree, contingent and variable. This becomes
especially apparent in the international realm, where no sovereignty has yet succeeded in
subject to contestation, few presumptions so stabilised that they are not periodically destabilised.
imposing stable meanings.It is precisely this- the fact that in the international realm meanings have not
become stabilized, and the precarious and contested nature of modernity can be more readily seen- that
makes the international especially interesting. However, the discipline which makes the international its
object of its enquiry is, for the most part, an obstacle to a recognition and exploration of this, rather than a
Mainstream IR seems content to naturalize what it could

problematize, and to assume that which it should deconstruct: whence the
need for its critique.
guide to it.
IMPACTS
2NC Impact
Changes within international law doesnt challenge
IMPERIAL law which will always trump the plan the law
itself is a tool that enforces imperialism the impact is
exceptional violence.
Petras 2012, Writer at Global Research, (James Petras, Writer at Global
Research, Legal Imperialism and the international Law: Legal Foundations for
War Crimes, Debt Collection and Colonization
http://www.globalresearch.ca/legal-imperialism-and-international-law-legalfoundations-for-war-crimes-debt-collection-and-colonization/5313891
December 03,2012, July 30, 2014)MS
Introduction By now we are familiar with imperial states using their military power to attack, destroy and
occupy independent countries. Boatloads of important studies have documented how imperial countries
have seized and pillaged the resources of mineral-rich and agriculturally productive countries, in consort
with multi-national corporations. Financial critics have provided abundant data on the ways in which
imperial creditors have extracted onerous rents, royalties and debt payments from indebted countries and
their taxpayers, workers, employees and productive sectors. What has not been examined fully is the overarching legal architecture which informs, justifies and facilitates imperial wars, pillage and debt collection.
The Centrality of Imperial Law While force and violence, especially through
overt and covert military intervention, have always been an essential part of
empire-building, it does not operate in a legal vacuum: Judicial institutions,
rulings and legal precedents precede, accompany and follow the process of
empire building. The legality of imperial activity is based largely on the imperial states judicial
system and its own legal experts. Their legal theories and opinions are always
presented as over-ruling international law as well as the laws of the countries
targeted for imperial intervention. Imperial law supersedes international
law simply because imperial law is backed by brute force; it possesses
imperial/colonial air, ground and naval armed forces to ensure the supremacy of imperial law. In contrast,
international law lacks an effective enforcement mechanism. Moreover,

international law, to the extent that it is effective, is applied only to the weaker powers and to
regimes designated by the imperial powers as violators. The very judicial processes, including the
appointment of judges and prosecutors who interpret international law ,
investigate international crime and arrest , sentence and punish guilty parties are under to
the influence of the reigning imperial powers. In other words, the application and jurisdiction of
international law is selective and subject to constraints imposed by the configurations of imperial and
national power. International law, at best, can provide a moral judgment, a not insignificant basis
for strengthening the political claims of countries, regimes and people seeking redress from imperial war
crimes and economic pillage.
To counter the claims and judgments pertaining to
international law, especially in the area of the Geneva protocols such as war crimes and crimes
against humanity, imperial legal experts, scholars and judges have elaborated a legal framework to justify
The Uses of Imperial Law Empire-building throughout

history is the result of conquest the use or threat of superior military force.
The US global empire is no exception. Where compliant rulers invite or submit to
or exempt imperial-state activity.
imperial domination, such acts of treason on the part of puppet or client rulers usually precipitate
popular rebellions, which are then suppressed by joint imperial and collaborator armies. They cite imperial
legal doctrine to justify their intervention to repress a subject people in revolt. While empires arose through
the maintenance and consolidation of

empires requires a legal framework. Legal doctrines precede, accompany and follow
the direct or indirect use of unbridled force,
the expansion and consolidation of empire for several reasons. Legality is really an extension of imperial
conquest by other means. A state of constant warfare raises the cost of imperial maintenance. Force,
especially in imperial democracies undermines the sense of civic virtue, which the rulers and citizens claim
to uphold.
Maintaining law and order in the conquered nations requires a legal
system and doctrine to uphold imperial rule , giving the facade of legitimacy to the outside
world , attracting collaborator classes and individuals and providing the basis for the recruitment of local
military, judicial and police officials. Imperial legal pronouncements, whether issued directly by executive,
are deemed the supreme law of the universe ,

superior to international law and protocols fashioned by non-imperial
authorities and legal experts. This does not imply that imperial rulers totally
discard international law: they just apply it selectively to their adversaries,
judicial, military or administrative bodies,
especially against independent nations and rulers, in order to justify imperial intervention and aggression
Hence the legal bases for dismantling Yugoslavia or invading Iraq and assassinating its rulers. Legal
rulings are issued by the imperial judiciary to force states to comply with the economic demands of multinational corporations, banks, creditors and speculators, even after the local or national courts have ruled
such claims unlawful. Imperial law protects and provides sanctuary and financial protection to convicted
former collaborator-rulers charged with human rights crimes, pillage of public treasury and destruction of
democratic institutions. Imperial judicial and administrative agencies selectively investigate, prosecute and
levy severe fines and even jail sentences on banks, individuals and financial institutions of their competitor
imperial countries, thereby strengthening the economic position of their own national imperial firms.
Judicial officials are not only instruments of closely related imperial political and economic powers; they
also instrumentalize and, in some cases, override officials from other branches of their own imperial
may rule in favor

of one group of creditors thereby prejudicing others . In a recent ruling, a New
government and economic sectors. Judges, with ties to particular financial sectors,
York judge ruled in favor of the demands by minority creditors that the Argentine government make full
payment on long-standing national debt in, prejudicing already agreed upon payments to the majority of
creditors who had negotiated an earlier debt-restructuring arrangement. Imperial legal doctrine has played
a central role in justifying and providing a basis for the exercise of international terrorism. Executives, such
as US Presidents Bush and Obama, have been provided with the legal power to undertake cross-national
in clear
violation of international law and national sovereignty . Imperial law, above all
targeted assassinations of opponents using predator drones and ordering military intervention,
else, legalizes aggression and economic pillage and undermines the laws of targeted countries, creating
lawlessness and chaos among its victims. Imperial law and judicial rulings form the basis for imperial
subjugation on the assumption that the world legal systems are multi-tiered: Imperial-centered legal
systems supersede those of less powerful states. Within each tier there are further refinements:
Competing imperial legal systems adjudicate in favor of their partisan political and economic elites.
Imperial clients who obey their imperial overlords are favored by imperial laws while imperial laws are
applied against their adversaries. Conclusion Clearly in a world imperial system there can be no
independent judicial bodies who abide by universally accepted legal codes. Each set of judicial authorities
reflect and actively promote policies favoring and extending their imperial prerogatives. There are rare
exceptions where a judge will rule against a particular imperial policy but over the long run imperial law
guides judicial opinions Imperial legal doctrines and judicial decisions set the groundwork for imperial wars
and economic pillage. The empires legal experts redefine assassinations, coercion, torture and arbitrary
arrests as compatible with the constitutional order by claiming imminent and constant threats to the
Law is not simply part of the superstructure reflecting

the power of economic or political institutions : it also guides and directs political and
security of the imperial state.
economic institutions committing material resources to implement imperial doctrines. In this sense,
imperial rulers are not lawless as some liberal critics would argue; they function in accordance with
imperial jurisprudence and are faithful to the legal doctrines of empire building. It is pointless to argue
that most imperial leaders trample on constitutional guarantees and international laws. If an imperial ruler
applied
international law to prosecute those carrying out brutal imperial policy , he would
pursued a constitutional agenda eroding imperial prerogatives or, even worse,
be quickly condemned for dereliction of duty and/or immoral behavior and impeached or overthrown.
# - Exceptionalism
Colonial international law is exceptionalist and destroys
democracy.
Simpson 11 [Michael - as his B.G.S., M.F.A. and Ph.D.. He has been a
journalist and cultural consultant on the Oregon coast for ten years, Meeting
the Enemy: American Exceptionalism and International Law, Tribal College
Journal, 11/3/2014, http://www.tribalcollegejournal.org/archives/12601,
7/27/2014] B.S
Review by Michael W. Simpson The cover for this book shows that it is slated for the law section of the
bookstore. But it should also be stocked in the American Indian/ Indigenous Studies and History sections,
Earlier this year,

the United States was confronted with an embarrassment when it was
revealed that Osama bin Ladens secret code name was Geronimo. This book
explains why we should not be surprised that such was the case. The alleged
newness of U.S. policy toward global terrorism isnt anything new. Rather, the
choice to annihilate the perceived Other is deeply ingrained in U.S.
policy and practice. This book explains the connections to and the
continuations from American colonists to the war on terror and
how the United States both claims international law and excepts
itself from it. Further, the book explains how the United States has
claimed itself the greatest beacon of freedom, liberty, and democracy
while justifying the denial of such to a substantial number of
persons and groups over time. Finally, we get a glimpse at how American
exceptionalism can be confronted and why it is important for us all to do so. It
contains an especially enlightening exposition on federal Indian law. This
important piece of work needs to be read and discussed at every tribal college.
as well as in the Serious Stuff We Need to Confront for Human Survival section.
# - Genocide
International laws have been deeply entrenched by Eurocentric ideals and beliefs, justifies genocide and violence
towards those not deemed to fit in

Law School. Finding the Peripheries: Sovereignty and Colonialism in
%20Law%20Course/Week%203/FindingPeripheries.pdf, 7/28/2014, Pgs. 6-7]
B.S
My interest lies, however, not only in the important point that positivism legitimized conquest and
dispossession, but also in the reverse relationshipin identifying how notions of positivism and sovereignty
were themselves shaped by the encounter. In contrast to the view that the colonial confrontation
my argument is that no
adequate account of sovereignty can be given without analyzing the
constitutive effect of colonialism on sovereignty. Colonialism cannot be
accounted for as an example of the application of sovereignty; rather,
sovereignty was constituted and shaped through colonialism. 11 My
argument is that what passes now as the defining dilemma of the discipline,
the problem of order among states, is a problem that has been peculiar, from
the time of its origin, to the specificities of European history. Additionally, the
extension and universalization of the European experience, which is
achieved by transmuting it into the major theoretical problem of the
discipline, has the effect of suppressing and subordinating other histories of
international law and the people to whom it has applied. Within the axiomatic
framework of positivism, which decrees that European states are sovereign
while non-European states are not, there is only one means of relating the
history of the non-European world, and this the positivists proceed to do: it is
a history of the civilizing mission, the process by which peoples of
Africa, Asia, the Americas, and the Pacific were finally assimilated
into a European international law. This is the history I am examining, not with a view to
illuminates a minor and negligible aspect of sovereignty doctrine,
furthering it, but in an attempt to point to the ambivalences, contradictions, the use of force, and the
I depart from the

tendency, present even among writers such as Alexandrowicz who are
sympathetic to the injustices of colonialism, to focus on positivisms
triumphant suppression of the non-European world. The violence of positivist
language in relation to non-European peoples is hard to overlook. Positivists
developed an elaborate vocabulary for denigrating these peoples, presenting
them as suitable objects for conquest, and legitimizing the most extreme
violence against them, all in the furtherance of the civilizing missionthe
discharge of the white mans burden.13 Despite this, it is incorrect to see the colonial
tragedies and ironies that attend it.12 In attempting this sort of a history,
encounter as a series of problems that were effortlessly resolved by the simple application of the
I argue, positivists were engaged in

an ongoing struggle to define, subordinate, and exclude the uncivilized
native; my argument is that colonial problems posed a significant and
ultimately insuperable set of challenges to positivism and its pretensions to
develop a set of doctrines that could coherently account for native
formidable intellectual resources of positivism. Rather,
personality, a task that was crucial to the positivist self-image. The brutal
realities of conquest and dispossession can hardly be ameliorated by
asserting that the legal framework legitimizing this dispossession
was contradictory and incoherent. But it is perhaps by pointing to these inconsistencies
and ambiguities, by interrogating how it was that sovereignty became the exclusive preserve of Europe,
and by questioning this framework, even while describing how it came into being, that it might be possible
to open the way not only towards a different history of the discipline, but to a different understanding of
the workings and effects of colonialism itself.14 This in turn is part of a larger project that has been the
understand the relationship

between international law and colonialism in order to formulate
more adequately the potential of the discipline to remedy the
enduring inequities and imbalances that resulted from the colonial
confrontation.
preoccupation of many jurists of the non-European world: to
# - Violence
US international policy cloaked in mindset of superiority
leads to violence and destruction
Greenwald 13 (Glenn Greenwald, former columnist on civil liberties and US
national security issues for the Guardian, the Guardian, 2/18/13,
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/feb/18/americanexceptionalism-north-korea-nukes, accessed 7/28/14)
Last week, North Korea tested a nuclear weapon, and the US - the country
with the world's largest stockpile of that weapon and the only one in history
to use it - led the condemnation (US allies with large nuclear stockpiles, such
as Britain and Israel, vocally joined in). Responding to unnamed commentators who
apparently noted this contradiction, National Review's Charles Cooke voiced these two
assertions:Nobody can reasonably dispute that North Korea is governed by a monstrous regime and
that it would be better if they lacked a nuclear weapons capability. That isn't what interests
me about this. What interests me here is that highlighted claim: that the US
"is the greatest country in world history", and therefore is entitled to do that
which other countries are not. This declaration always genuinely fascinates me. Note how it's
insufficient to claim the mere mantle of Greatest Country on the Planet. It's way beyond that: the Greatest
Country Ever to Exist in All of Human History (why not The Greatest Ever in All of the Solar Systems?). The
But the
desire to believe it is so strong, the need to proclaim one's own
unprecedented superiority so compelling, that it's hardly controversial to say
it despite how nonsensical it is. The opposite is true: it has been vested with the status of
very notion that this distinction could be objectively or even meaningfully measured is absurd.
orthodoxy. What I'm always so curious about is the thought process behind this formulation. Depending on
how you count, there are 179 countries on the planet. The probability that you will happen to be born
into The Objectively Greatest One, to the extent there is such a thing, is less than 1%. As the US accounts
for roughly 5% of the world's population, the probability that you will be born into it is 1/20. Those are fairly
long odds for the happenstance of being born into the Greatest Country on Earth. But if you extend the
claim to the Greatest Country that Has Ever Existed in All of Human History, then the probability is minute:
that you will happen to be born not only into the greatest country on earth, but will be born at the precise
historical time when the greatest of all the countries ever to exist is thriving. It's similar to winning the
lottery: something so mathematically improbable that while our intense desire to believe it may lead us on
an emotional level wildly to overestimate its likelihood, our rational faculties should tell us that it is unlikely
in the extreme and therefore to doubt seriously that it will happen. Do people who wave the Greatest
Country in All of Human History flag engage that thought process at all? I'm asking this genuinely. Given
the sheer improbability that it is true, do they search for more likely explanations for why they believe this?
In particular, given that human beings' perceptions are shaped by the

assumptions of their culture and thus have a natural inclination to view their
own culture as superior, isn't it infinitely more likely that people view their
society as objectively superior because they're inculcated from birth in all
sorts of overt and subtle ways to believe this rather than because it's
objectively true? It's akin to those who believe in their own great luck that they just happened to be
born into the single religion that is the One True One rather than suspecting that they believe this because
they were taught to from birth. At the very least, the tendency of the human brain to view the world from a
self-centered perspective should render suspect any beliefs that affirm the objective superiority of oneself
The "truths" we're taught to believe from birth whether nationalistic, religious, or cultural - should be the ones treated with
the greatest skepticism if we continue to embrace them in adulthood, precisely because the
and one's own group, tribe, nation, etc.
probability is so great that we've embraced them because we were trained to, or because our subjective
influences led us to them, and not because we've rationally assessed them to be true (or, as in the case of
the British Cooke, what we were taught to believe about western nations closely aligned to our own). That
doesn't mean that what we're taught to believe from childhood is wrong or should be presumed erroneous.
We may get lucky and be trained from the start to believe what is actually true. That's possible. But we
should at least regard those precepts with great suspicion, to subject them to particularly rigorous scrutiny,
especially when it comes to those that teach us to believe in our own objective superiority or that of the
group to which we belong. So potent is the subjective prism, especially when it's implanted in childhood,
that I'm always astounded at some people's certainty of their own objective superiority ("the greatest
country in world history"). It's certainly true that Americans are justifiably proud of certain nationalistic
attributes: class mobility, ethnic diversity, religious freedom, large immigrant populations, life-improving
technological discoveries, a commitment to some basic liberties such as free speech and press, historical
at this
point, greater quantity in numerous other countries. Add to that mix America's
progress in correcting some of its worst crimes. But all of those virtues are found in equal if not,
shameful attributes - its historic crimes of land theft, genocide, slavery and racism, its sprawling penal
state, the company it keeps on certain human rights abuses, the aggressive attack on Iraq, the
creation of a worldwide torture regime, its pervasive support for the world's worst tyrannies - and it
becomes not just untenable, but laughable, to lavish it with that title. This is more than just an intellectual
exercise. This belief in America's unparalleled greatness has immense impact. It is not hyperbole to say
that the sentiment expressed by Cooke is the overarching belief system of the US political and media
class, the primary premise shaping political discourse. Politicians of all types routinely recite the same
claim, and Cooke's tweet was quickly re-tweeted by a variety of commentators and self-proclaimed foreign
Note that Cooke did not merely declare

America's superiority, but rather used it to affirm a principle: as a result of its
objective superiority, the US has the right to do things that other nations do
not. This self-affirming belief - I can do X because I'm Good and you are
barred from X because you are Bad - is the universally invoked justification
for all aggression. It's the crux of hypocrisy. And most significantly of all, it is the violent enemy of
law: the idea that everyone is bound by the same set of rules and restraints. This eagerness to
declare oneself exempt from the rules to which others are bound, on the
grounds of one's own objective superiority, is always the animating sentiment
behind nationalistic criminality. Here's what Orwell said about that in Notes on
Nationalism: "All nationalists have the power of not seeing resemblances between similar sets of facts.
policy experts from across the spectrum.
A British Tory will defend self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of
inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does
them, and there is almost no kind of outrage torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass
deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians which does not
change its moral colour when it is committed by 'our' side . . . The nationalist not only does not disapprove
of atrocities committed by his own side, but he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about
Preserving this warped morality, this nationalistic prerogative, is, far and
away, the primary objective of America's foreign policy community,
composed of its political offices, media outlets, and (especially) think tanks.
What Cooke expressed here - that the US, due to its objective superiority, is
not bound by the same rules as others - is the most cherished and
aggressively guarded principle in that circle. Conversely, the notion that the US should be
them."
bound by the same rules as everyone else is the most scorned and marginalized. Last week, the Princeton
denounced Presidents Nixon, Bush and Obama as "war criminals", saying that
but they're suspending
the law, very much like Wall Street criminals". West specifically cited Obama's
covert drone wars and killing of innocent people, including children. What West
professor Cornel West
"they have killed innocent people in the name of the struggle for freedom,
was doing there was rather straightforward: applying the same legal and moral rules to US aggression that
he has applied to other countries and which the US applies to non-friendly, disobedient regimes. In other
words, West did exactly that which is most scorned and taboo in DC policy circles. And thus he had to be
attacked, belittled and dismissed as irrelevant. Andrew Exum, the Afghanistan War advocate and Senior
Fellow at the Center for New American Security, eagerly volunteered for the task: Note that
there's no effort to engage Professor West's arguments. It's pure ad hominem (in the classic sense of the
logical fallacy): "who is "Cornell [sic] West" to think that anything he says should be even listened to by
"national security professionals"? It's a declaration of exclusion: West is not a member in good standing of
DC's Foreign Policy Community, and therefore his views can and should be ignored as Unserious and
inconsequential. Leave aside the inane honorific of "national security professional" (is there a licensing
agency for that?). Leave aside the noxious and pompous view that the views of non-national-securityprofessionals - whatever that means - should be ignored when it comes to militarism, US foreign policy and
war crimes. And also leave aside the fact that the vast majority of so-called "national security
professionals" have been disastrously wrong about virtually everything of significance over the last decade
at least, including when most of them used their platforms and influence not only to persuade others to
support the greatest crime of our generation - the aggressive attack on Iraq - but also to scorn war
opponents as too Unserious to merit attention. As Samantha Power put it in 2007: "It was
Washington's conventional wisdom that led us into the worst strategic blunder in the history of US foreign
policy. The rush to invade Iraq was a position advocated by not only the Bush Administration, but also by
editorial pages, the foreign policy establishment of both parties, and majorities in both houses of
Congress." Given that history, if one wants to employ ad hominems: one should be listened to more, not
less, if one is denied the title of "national security professional". The key point is what constitutes West's
transgression. His real crime is that he tacitly assumed that the US should be subjected to the same rules
and constraints as all other nations in the world, that he rejected the notion that America has the right to
do what others nations may not. And this is the premise - that there are any legal or moral constraints on
the US's right to use force in the world - that is the prime taboo thought in the circles of DC Seriousness.
That's why West, the Princeton professor, got mocked as someone too silly to
pay attention to: because he rejected that most cherished American license
that is grounded in the self-loving exceptionalism so purely distilled by Cooke.
West made a moral and legal argument, and US "national security professionals" simply do not recognize
morality or legality when it comes to US aggression. That's why our foreign policy discourse so rarely
includes any discussion of those considerations. A US president can be a "war criminal" only if legal and
moral rules apply to his actions on equal terms as all other world leaders, and that is precisely the idea
that is completely anathema to everything "national security professionals" believe (it also happens to be
the central principle the Nuremberg Tribunal sought to affirm: "while this law is first applied against
German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by
any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgment"). US foreign policy analysts are
permitted to question the tactics of the US government and military (will bombing these places succeed in
the goals?). They are permitted to argue that certain policies will not advance American interests (drones
may be ineffective in stopping Terrorism). But what they are absolutely barred from doing - upon pain of
being expelled from the circles of Seriousness - is to argue that there are any legal or moral rules that
restrict US aggression, and especially to argue that the US is bound by the same set of rules which it seeks
to impose on others (recall the intense attacks on Howard Dean , led by John Kerry, when Dean
suggested in 2003 that the US should support a system of universally applied rules because "we won't
always have the strongest military": the very idea that the US should think of itself as subject to the same
rules as the rest of the world is pure heresy). In 2009, Les Gelb - the former Pentagon and State
Department official and Chairman Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations: the ultimate "national
security professional" - wrote an extraordinary essay in the journal Democracy explaining why he
and so many others in his circle supported the attack on Iraq. This is what he blamed it on: unfortunate
tendencies within the foreign policy community, namely the disposition and incentives to support wars to
retain political and professional credibility." That someone like Les Gelb says that "national security
professionals" have career incentives to support US wars "to retain political and professional credibility" is
amazing, yet clearly true. When I interviewed Gelb in 2010 regarding that quote, he elaborated that DC
foreign policy experts - "national security professionals" - know that they can retain relevance in and
access to key government circles only if they affirm the unfettered right of the US to use force whenever
They can question tactics, but never the supreme

prerogative of the US, the unchallengeable truth of American exceptionalism.
and however it wants.
In sum, think tank "scholars" don't get invited to important meetings by "national security professionals" in
DC if they point out that the US is committing war crimes and that the US president is a war criminal. They
don't get invited to those meetings if they argue that the US should be bound by the same rules and laws
it imposes on others when it comes to the use of force. They don't get invited if they ask US political
officials to imagine how they would react if some other country were routinely bombing US soil with drones
and cruise missiles and assassinating whatever Americans they wanted to in secret and without trial. As
the reaction to Cornel West shows, making those arguments triggers nothing but ridicule and exclusion.
One gets invited to those meetings only if one blindly affirms the right of the US to do whatever it wants,
and then devotes oneself to the pragmatic question of how that unfettered license can best be exploited to
promote national interests. The culture of DC think tanks, "international relations" professionals, and
foreign policy commenters breeds allegiance to these American prerogatives and US power centers incentivizes reflexive defenses of US government actions - because, as Gelb says, that is the only way to
advance one's careerist goals as a "national security professional". If you see a 20-something aspiring
"foreign policy expert" or "international relations professional" in DC, what you'll view, with some rare
exceptions, is a mindlessly loyal defender of US force and prerogatives. It's what that culture, by design,
breeds and demands. In that crowd, Cooke's tweets aren't the slightest bit controversial. They're axioms,
This belief in the unfettered legal and moral right

of the US to use force anywhere in the world for any reason it wants is
sustained only by this belief in objective US superiority, this myth of
American exceptionalism. And the results are exactly what one would expect
from an approach grounded in a belief system so patently irrational. UPDATE
Cooke has a mostly thoughtful reply, here. I don't have time this afternoon to respond in detail, so I'll
from which all valid conclusions flow.
leave it to readers to decide if you think he's offered a satisfactory explanation for what he thinks. Just two
notes: (1) I explicitly said I was not contesting the view that North Korea's government is totalitarian and
horrific, and (2) I wasn't suggesting that Cooke himself believes that the US has the right to use force
anywhere it wants and for whatever reasons, only that the premise of American exceptionalism he
endorses is the necessary ingredient for that belief and is typically the animating principle behind it. I
quoted Cooke because, as he himself suggests, what he wrote is a pure distillation of a widely held view in
US political discourse. Related to all of this, Harvard professor Stephen Walt (is he a national security
professional or someone to whom such professionals should listen?) wrote a post on this topic in
late, 2011 entitled "The Myth of American Exceptionalism" (see, in particular, the numerous examples he
cites of people of influence espousing what Cooke wrote here).
ALTERNATIVES
2NC Framework/Alt
Sovereignty is maintained discursively the only ethical
response is to rethink international law and refuse
western modes of thought.
Vardy 11 (Mark, PhD Department of Sociology, Sovereignty as a Social
Issue: The Case of Inuit Nunangat 2011, 7/29/14,
http://www.rha.is/static/files/NRF/OpenAssemblies/Hveragerdi2011/proceedings/vardy
_final.pdf) mc
sea ice as a constitutive part of Inuit

everyday life, together with the fact that sea ice is melting, presents a set
of conditions that calls for ethical responses . The response I advocate here involves
questioning the ways territory, political authority and sovereignty have often been
thought together in Western political theory. As Shadian (2010) argues, Inuit forms of
governance create the space and opportunity to reconceptualise Western practices of
To my mind, the fact that Inuit Nunangat signifies
territory as experienced in
governance and the theories that support them. I want to further this effort by considering what an ethical
response is to the situation in which we find ourselves, which is that the material signified by Inuit
signifiers of territory is disappearing. It seems to me that if territory, in different ways, has been configured
if territory has
been conceived as fixed land to be bought , sold, mapped for military and
strategic purposes and subjected to legal and technical definitions (Elden 2010),
then an ethical response necessarily involves rethinking sovereignty without
premising it upon fixed territory land as a basis. The concept of I am arguing for here
does not treat sovereignty as a condition that preexists the constitution of societies, but rather as a
relational phenomena. That is, while sovereignty has a material component, and as such is in
the world in a concrete way, it is brought into being and enacted, materially and
discursively, by actors in the name of sovereignty (Agnew 2009: 1046). This view does
as the necessary precondition of sovereignty (Larkins 2010; Agnew 2005, 2009), and
not foreclose the potential actions and networks of assemblages through which Inuit groups can and are, in
concrete ways, advancing understandings and practices of sovereignty that are more beneficial to
themselves. This is an important point to note because constructivist critiques of modernist conceptions of
sovereignty run the risk of inadvertently consigning Inuit groups to a mode of politics that is irrevocably
local rather than seeing how existing structures and agencies could be used to exert Inuit self
determination. As Walker (2010) suggests, moving from configuring the world as sovereign nationstates
operating within a system of states to a reordering of inter and intra state actors may not be so easy as
sometimes presumed, even if it is acknowledged that different actors and entities in different scales are
The issue here is thinking about the

possibilities for politics that are both sustained and foreclosed by centering
an account of politics in terms of the dualism of the presence absence of the
modern state system and individual nation states (Walker 2010: 198). Rethinking
the territorial a priori as the spatial and temporal flux of sea ice, rather than
the rigid fixity of land, supports a vision of politics that is attuned to how
sovereignty, as a heterogeneous phenomenon, is invoked and implicated in
different ways in different contexts. In this way, it could potentially support both the
operating in complex heterogeneous fields.
argument that Inuvialuit should participate in decisions regarding Beaufort Sea fossil fuels and that the
interests of the Canadian state should not trump the vision expressed in A Circumpolar Inuit Declaration of
Sovereignty in the Arctic (Inuit Circumpolar Council 2009). Crucially, however, this would depend upon
reworking the broader cultural ethos through which individuals are implicated in sovereignty. It thus
extends the ethic of rethinking sovereignty, for example through the principle of reconciliation, to the
population of southern Canada, instead of leaving Inuit understandings of sovereignty as an issue that is
exclusive to local Arctic populations and their lived experiences. This follows Connollys (2007) argument
that: in democratic constitutionalism, sovereignty circulates uncertainly between the multitude, the
traditions it embodies, constitutionally sanctioned authorities, and, where operative, the written
constitution that the authorities interpret. The relative weight of each element can be specified more
closely, although never completely, according to need and context (Connolly 2007: 33). Although this
article is focused on sea ice reduction, there are other changes in the Arctic environment such as sea level
rise and permafrost thaw that have profound social and political implications across different temporal and
Rather than maintain a conception of social and political action

that remains irrevocably bound to concepts of sovereignty that maintain a
fixed basis, thinking the flux of sea ice as a basis for social and political life
might provide the basis to meet challenging conditions with care; it might
provide the basis for thinking sovereignty as a social issue .
spatial scales.
Alt Relational
We must make sovereignty a conceptual form of
territorializing the land
_final.pdf) mc
The concept of I am arguing for here does not treat sovereignty as a

condition that preexists the constitution of societies, but rather as a
relational phenomena. That is, while sovereignty has a material component,
and as such is in the world in a concrete way, it is brought into being and
enacted, materially and discursively, by actors in the name of sovereignty
(Agnew 2009: 1046). This view does not foreclose the potential actions and
networks of assemblages through which Inuit groups can and are, in concrete ways ,
advancing understandings and practices of sovereignty that are more
beneficial to themselves. This is an important point to note because
constructivist critiques of modernist conceptions of sovereignty run the risk of
inadvertently consigning Inuit groups to a mode of politics that is irrevocably local
rather than seeing how existing structures and agencies could be used to
exert Inuit self determination. As Walker (2010) suggests, moving from configuring
the world as sovereign nationstates operating within a system of states to a
reordering of inter and intra state actors may not be so easy as sometimes
presumed, even if it is acknowledged that different actors and entities in
different scales are operating in complex heterogeneous fields. The issue
here is thinking about the possibilities for politics that are both sustained and
foreclosed by centering an account of politics in terms of the dualism of the
presence absence of the modern state system and individual nation states
(Walker 2010: 198). Rethinking the territorial a priori as the spatial and temporal
flux of sea ice, rather than the rigid fixity of land, supports a vision of politics
that is attuned to how sovereignty, as a heterogeneous phenomenon, is
invoked and implicated in different ways in different contexts.
Alt Social Rethinking

Rethinking sovereignty as a social phenomenon solves.
_final.pdf) mc
Crucially, however, this would depend upon reworking the broader cultural
ethos through which individuals are implicated in sovereignty. It thus extends
the ethic of rethinking sovereignty , for example through the principle of reconciliation, to the
population of southern Canada, instead of leaving Inuit understandings of sovereignty as an issue that is
This follows Connollys (2007)

argument that: in democratic constitutionalism, sovereignty circulates
uncertainly between the multitude, the traditions it embodies, constitutionally
sanctioned authorities, and, where operative, the written constitution that the
authorities interpret. The relative weight of each element can be specified
more closely, although never completely, according to need and context
(Connolly 2007: 33). Although this article is focused on sea ice reduction, there are other changes
in the Arctic environment such as sea level rise and permafrost thaw that
have profound social and political implications across different temporal and
spatial scales. Rather than maintain a conception of social and political action
that remains irrevocably bound to concepts of sovereignty that maintain a
fixed basis, thinking the flux of sea ice as a basis for social and political life
might provide the basis to meet challenging conditions with care; it might
provide the basis for thinking sovereignty as a social issue.
exclusive to local Arctic populations and their lived experiences.
Sovereignty needs to be seen as a social connection

inability to do so can cause a structural social failure
_final.pdf) mc
At the outset of this paper, it appeared that different understandings of

sovereignty are being articulated by Inuit groups and the Government of
Canada. In the former articulation, sovereignty is seen as a way to ensure the
wellbeing of people and the environment upon which they depend. In the
latter, sovereignty is seen as a way to exert control over space. However, a
closer examination show that, in practice, this binary distinction between
control over space and betterment of social conditions breaks down into
multiple claims and practices. In the first example discussed above, domestic policies
regarding the language of instruction in public education have a direct
consequence on the legitimacy of claims made in an international context. This
could lend credence to the view that states only retain legitimate authority if they ensure their citizens are
well cared for, in which case there is no necessary reason why Inuit and Canadian Government
understandings of sovereignty should contradict one another: the beneficent sovereign could disperse
social goods education, and social security in the face of changing environmental conditions to subjects
while protecting them from hostile outsiders. However, this example also suggests that if subjects express
their dissatisfaction with social conditions, and if this expression of dissatisfaction is recognized by other
nationstates in the state system, then the ability of states to act with authority over geographic territory,
sovereignty
is not a static phenomenon but is socially contestable. However, it also
in this case Canada, can be threatened. At a minimum, then, this example shows that
appears that there is nothing essential to the claim sovereignty should include social and environmental
security that would prevent it from being enfolded within the argument that sovereignty is the exercise of
control over a certain space. The second example discussed above could be interpreted as a matter of
deciding how various legal instruments and agreements contravene or do not contravene one another.
However, as ManleyCasimir (2011: 38) argues, it is more fundamentally a question of interpreting how the
principle of reconciliation should be applied. The principle of reconciliation is important to note here not
only because it signals the possibility that the Canadian state can be made to consider different ethical
bases for action over time, but also because it indicates the importance of paying attention to the ways
social groups do or do not become deemed as legitimately codified actors in legal decisions and
agreements. After all, one of the issues at play in the second example involves historical agreements first
Sovereignty is not
automatically bestowed upon groups of people as soon as they meet a
universal set of criteria. Rather, sovereignty is a politically contestable and
changeable phenomenon. But does this mean that Inuit understandings of sovereignty are
signed between Britain and Russia before Canada itself became a nationstate.
different from those that have prevailed through western modernity, and if so, how? A more specific way of
asking this question is: should the Inuvialuit Final Agreement offer a route for the Inuvialuit to intervene in
UNCLOS, thereby increasing claims to selfdetermination in an international context, would the sovereignty
thus manifested be of a different character or kind than the form sovereignty that would promote the
Clearly, the
assumptions that one holds of sovereignty will change how one views the
possible answers to these issues. This gives rise to another question: what theoretical
assumptions need to be made of sovereignty not only to analyze the
contemporary situation but also allow it to exist as it does in the first place? As
social and environmental security highlighted by the Inuit Declaration of Sovereignty?
has been well documented, several competing theories of sovereignty exist. For example, Max Weber
defined sovereignty as the legitimate exercise of violence in a given geographic area, and Carl Schmidt
defined it, within the modern liberal nationstate, as the capacity of the executive to make the decision to
suspend the constitution and to impose the law by acting outside of the juridical order (Agnew 2009;
Despite the various ways sovereignty has been conceptualized,

however, territory has typically been configured as its necessary precondition
Walker 2010).
(Agnew 2009; Larkins 2010). Such territorial assumptions are made evident in claims made in the popular
press by politicians, including the Canadian prime minister, that appear to invoke a Schmitian logic of
sovereignty (the Canadian state declaring itself the decider of the law in the putative absence of juridical
order that the shrinking sea ice unveils), or a Weberian logic (the state as capable of deploying legitimate
violence in the form of the military and coast guard in the Arctic). The assumption that Canada could come
under military threat, which informs both of these narratives, has been cogently critiqued by (Lackenbauer
2008), who argues populist appeals to Arctic sovereignty made by politicians detract from an
understanding of the actual dynamics through which Canada and other Arctic nations are responding to
various issues. However, while Lackenbauer (2008) might be correct in his analysis, he doesnt treat
sovereignty itself as a mode of political thought. Such a critique is launched, however, from a point of view
Inuit declarations of
sovereignty can be used to rewrite the colonialist mental maps through
which the Arctic is often thought . Similarly, Vaninni et al. (2009) draw from Zygmunt Baumans
(2000) metaphor of modernity as liquid to argue that we need to reimagine the
Canadian Arctic archipelago as a flux of mobility, rather than think of it as a
rigid space that is an empty container waiting to be filled with the action of modernist politics imported
from southern Canada. These critiques, which assert that the difficulties of
responding to environmental changes in the Arctic through categories of
political thought bequeathed by colonialism should not be ignored , are taken up
that draws on constructivist insights. Broadhead (2010) argues
by Gerhardt et al. (2010) who argue that the limitations of making strict delineations between ocean and
land, as seen in modernist conceptions of sovereignty, are being demonstrated by the response to melting
sea ice. This, together with Inuit declarations of sovereignty, they argue, can lead to configuring the world
differently than dividing it between territoriallybased sovereign nationstates and international oceans;
the changing Arctic can be figured as a fluid space of crossings [in which]
new systems of governance can be employed that push the limits of the state
form and enable new possibilities for cooperation and inclusion within and
across state borders (Gerhardt et al. 2010: 999). Similarly, in their critique of Arctic geopolitics,
Dittmer et al. (2011) argue that both neorealist political discourses (which regard the Arctic as a site
inevitably decided upon by nationstates acting in their own self interest within an anarchic space) and
liberal discourses (which regard the Arctic as a region best governed by international cooperation between
nationstates, indigenous organizations, and established institutions and governance structures) are
beholden to the modern and masculine conceits that the nationstate and science are superior ways of
They argue instead for an Arctic politics that

emphasizes the perceptions and understandings of Arctic inhabitants (Dittmer et
al. 2011). It is this experience of territory, as a place experienced by Inuit that I
want to pursue as a way of refiguring the territorial a priori of sovereignty .
knowing and ordering space.
AFF
International law is only colonial when its exceptional
the plan reverses this and holds the US accountable.
Affirming international institutions is essential to
democracy and challenging Empire

_res/id
The first project entails acknowledging the existence and value of a dualistic world
order whose core remains the international society of states embedded within
(suitably reformed) international institutions and international law, but that also
has important cosmopolitan elements and cosmopolitan legal principles (human rights norms) upon
which the discourse of transnationalism and governance relies , if inadequately. On
this approach (my own), legal cosmopolitanism is potentially linked to a project
radically distinct from empire and pure power politics namely, the
democratization of international relations and the updating of international
law. This requires the strengthening of supranational institutions, formal legal
reform, and the creation of a global rule of law that protects both the
sovereign equality of states based on a revised conception of sovereignty and
human rights. Much will depend on how the new, and its relation to what went before, is framed.
Unlike the theorists of cosmopolitan law and justice without state sovereignty, the paradox for which I want
the rearticulation and democratization of sovereignty

(internal and external), configured within a multilayered world order with
effective international institutions and an updated international law , is the sine
qua non for the emergence of a global rule of law and constitutes an important part of a
counterproject to empire. Without a global rule of law that protects
sovereignty as well as human rights, any talk of cosmopolitan right,
especially and above all the alleged right to intervene militarily to enforce
human rights, is inherently suspect. Cosmopolitan right can supplementbut not replace
to argue is that today
sovereignty-based public international law.
International law key to solve global problems.

Indeed, international human rights law has arguably become the only global
vision of social justice currently available.68 It has replaced all other isms and promises
a just world order. Mention may also be made of a rapidly evolving international criminal law with the
There are conventions that seek to address

the problems of organized crimes, including the trafficking and smuggling of
people, as also combating corruption.69 The rapid development of
international laws to combat international terrorism has further renewed faith
in international law. A dozen international treaties and a Counter Terrorism Committee (CTC)
International Criminal Court (ICC) at its heart.
established by the U.N. Security Council hold out the promise of effectively fighting international terrorism
through international cooperation.70 The need to develop an appropriate response to the current problem
The work of bodies like the

International Law Commission (ILC), United Nations Conference on
International Trade Law (UNCITRAL), and the Human Rights Council (HRC) also
give the impression of a constantly developing international law that plug
gaps in global law and facilitate international cooperation to address pressing
problems. International institutions also help renew faith in international law by co-opting critique in the
same way as capitalism does. The ability of international institutions to take critique
and turn it into an instrument of its own legitimacy and advancement is a
remarkable story. The World Bank is a good example of how critique is co-opted to strengthen the
of piracy further fortifies the spirit of international law.
institution. In order to deflect the censure it has faced over the years the Bank has adopted cosmetic
policy changes to represent itself today as being gender sensitive, green, and a friend of the poor.71 The
role of the community of international lawyers is also crucial in renewing the spirit of international law.
I law inevitable better to reform.

A narrative of progress informs much mainstream international law
scholarship helping reaffirm faith in international law. The fact that international law
has come to be addressed by key thinkers of our times, be it a John Rawls or a Jurgen Habermas, gives the
language of international law further salience. Capitalism, Imperialism, and International Law 39 in the
Twenty-First Century In sum, the language of international law constantly offers hope by giving the
In that way the new spirit of

international law legitimizes the new imperial social, economic and political
formation. It is not as if the renewal of the spirit of international law in the era of accelerated
globalization is altogether without substance. The world cannot do without international
law in dealing with global problems that confront humanity in the twenty-first
century. It is only through the international legal process that problems such as the global ecological
crises can be addressed. Yet international law also facilitates the imperial project . The double life of
international law thus parallels the double life of capitalism; the latter is also not
impression that it is addressing lags and filling gaps.
altogether without achievement. It accounts for why TWAIL advocates engagement with it. It stays away
from forms of critique that invite the charge of legal nihilism. But TWAIL needs to articulate and clarify the
goals and values to which it is committed and ways in which these can be embodied in contemporary
international law.
Holding the US accountable for international law can

challenge the worst forms of sovereignty.
_res/id
There is an alternative to the project of empire and to the restricted set of choices
Schmitt described. I believe that it is possible to strengthen international
institutions and develop international law in a way that protects state
sovereignty and human rights, supports popular sovereignty, and helps to
regulate the self-regulation of the new nonstate transnational powers while
fostering a global rule of law. This requires certain theoretical and practical steps. The
disassociation of the tight link between autonomy and exclusivity is the first
theoretical step toward such a project. The second is the abandonment of the
absolutist and decisionistic concept of sovereignty in favor of the relational
model described above. If these two ideas are linked together, then it is perfectly
conceivable that international law could penetrate the black box of the state
without undermining its sovereign autonomy or integrity . When states
agree to certain restrictions, when they delegate jurisdiction to supranational entities,
when they establish frameworks for cooperation that create binding rules,
they do not thereby lose or divide their sovereignty indeed, they may even
enhance it.
Democratization of law solves.

_res/id
the articulation of sovereignty within a community of states that
decides to consider one another as equals is the political precondition for
feasible and effective international law. In other words, international law has to be based on
a set of political relationships between states to which sovereignty is ascribed within a
common framework, based on shared political norms, involving mutual
recognition, balance, and institutionalized cooperation . Moreover, formal equality has
to be linked to some degree of material equality among the states. In an institutionalized
structure of power and counterpowers, no single sovereign state should be
able to prevail over all the others and impose its will as law . This does not exclude a
Accordingly,
guarantor of international right and international law that is, a state powerful enough to ensure that
ascription of sovereignty to states by

an international community by virtue of which they become members and
equals is thus a way of limiting as well as empowering those states . Without this,
others play by the rules to which it also subscribes. The
an opponent becomes nothing more than an object of violent measures, while law becomes mere window
dressing. I see no reason why this conception cannot be generalized to all states construed as equal
members of the international community along the lines of the UN Charter. Equality need not be construed
as a substantive principle of homogeneity based on a friend/enemy conception of the political. It is enough
that the general principles of the international ordersovereign equality and human rightsare accepted
in principle (as they are by any state that has joined the UN), and allowed to develop into a shared culture
democratization of external
sovereignty backed up by international law is thus the third step in the project.
of mutual respect of rights and accountability. The

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International Law K

Gardner 10 [David, Graduate student at San Diego State University, The

is a practice of domination, which involves the subjugation of

Historians may argue that law was developed at a

One of the most influential of Greek concepts taken up by the Romans

human intelligence, he maintained that such rules could not be restricted to

Where national self-interest demands action contrary to

They maintain that if

interest and politics. If we accept colonialism as a practice of domination,

b. The Law of the Sea is an integral part of this colonial

Shift in Construction of Ocean Space as Social Space, Feb 12 2010, 7/28/14,

Western juridical ideas (Grotius 1608, Seldan 1617) have

The physical, chemical and biological complexity of ocean space was

c. Vote negative Continued reliance on international law

struggling against an uncivilized enemy; and, the nation has an obligation to

emphasizes the unvarnished racism, greed, and brutality

the European powers shed their colonial holdings, the

confront the centuries-old colonialism behind international law

every nation, not just

the superiority of Western civilization is

the liberatory potential of alternative systems of world order (p.245)

traditional zones of domestic and foreign

In the era of global imperialism entirely new branches of international law

Modern international law is still inherently colonial and

an exclusive focus on this framework cannot provide an

It is true that international

Still, this movement towards the decolonization of

The civilized/non-civilized distinction featured in the

purpose, it is inverted by way of a reconstructed jurisprudence in which

Positivism and the nineteenth century are an

Equally important, it must be

Eurocentric.[iii]This narrative of the expansion of political

through trade, armies and the like.

International law locks in the sovereign world order and is

Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. He earned an S.J.D. from Harvard

this is an attempt to examine how positivism sought to account for

Positivist jurisprudence is premised on the notion of the

from a political point of view as its operation resulted in the universalization

how the colonized peoples

The forty-eight states of the continental USA have an EEZ of 2.45

The massacre of Native Americans at Wounded

By the 1890s, the

Colonialism turns the case exclusive economic zones in

However, the Wests own experience in managing resources

Seals were killed mainly for their valuable

The impact on human populations was on a

numerous conflicts occurred between the Western colonists and

Aborigines were continually hunted and

tracked down like fallow deer,

and, once captured, are deported, singly or in parties, to the

The spread of disease had an even more serious impact

sexual attacks on indigenous women. A combination of venereal disease,

L Nation State Focus

representations that reinforce state power relations

Rather than use such maps in negotiations between

L South China Sea Advantage

By the end of the

The Wests preoccupation with Beijings

It is as though the Western media have

Shift in Construction of Ocean Space as Social Space, Feb 12 2010, 7/28/14,

production of space is homogenous, fractured, hierarchized.

Mainstream IR seems content to naturalize what it could

international law lacks an effective enforcement mechanism. Moreover,

To counter the claims and judgments pertaining to