This book takes an unflinching look at the roles and functions played by the idea of universality in international legal discourses, as well as the narratives of progress that often accompany it. In doing so, it provides a critical appraisal of the mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion attendant to international law and its universalist discursive strategies. Universality is therefore not reduced to the question of the geographical outreach of international law but is instead understood in terms of boundaries. This entails examining how the idea of universality was developed in the dominant vernaculars of international law - primarily English and French - before being universalised and imposed upon international lawyers from all traditions. This analysis simultaneously offers an opportunity to revisit the ideologies that constitute the identity of international lawyers today, as well as the socialisation and legal educational processes that international lawyers undergo. With an emphasis on the binaries that arise from the invocation of the idea of universality in international legal discourses, this book sheds new light on the idea of universality as a fraught site of contestation in international legal discourses.
1: Isil Aral and Jean D'aspremont: Introduction The Idea of Universality 2: Gail C Lythgoe: The Spaces of the Universal and the Particular in International Law: Questioning Binaries and Uncovering Political Projects 3: Ekaterina Yahyaoui Krivenko: The Philosophical Problem of Universals and Universality Binaries in International Law: Hobbes and Leibniz Compared 4: Matthew Nicholson: Universalising the Particular; or, Hotel and Carrier Bag 5: Akbar Rasulov: International Legal Universalism: A Reactionary Ideology of Disciplinary Self-Aggrandizement The Invention of Universality 6: Onuma Yasuaki and Ishii Yurika: The Assumption, Not Invention, of Universality Is the Problem 7: Frédéric Mégret: L'Invention de l'Universalité du Droit International Universality and Rights 8: Mark Retter: Universal Human Rights within Social Particulars 9: Tilmann Altwicker: Human Rights Nationalism as Universality Challenge Universality and the Non-Human 10: Alejandro Lorite: Universalisms of Human Dominion 11: Régis Bismuth: The Universal Recognition of Animal Welfare and its Dark Sides Universality beyond Europe 12: Mohammad Shahabuddin: Regionalism, Hegemony, and Universality in the International Order of the Far East 13: Mashood Baderin: Universality in International Law Beyond the European: An Islamic Law Perspective 14: Kanad Bagchi and Milan Tahraoui: Beyond Co-option and Contestation: The Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and the Universality of International Law Universality and the Languages of International Law 15: Elisabeth Roy-Trudel: The Power of Images: Questioning the Universality of International Human Rights Law 16: Markus Beham: German 'Dogmatik' - An Untranslatable Concept if Ever There was One? Critique and Resistance to Universality 17: Maiko Meguro: The Retreat of the State in International Law? The Paris Agreement as a Case Study 18: Zinaida Miller: Oscillating Justice: Between Universal and Particular 19: Andreas Kulick: Conceptual Universality vs Pragmatic Particularity in International Adjudication
Isil Aral is an Assistant Professor of Public International Law at Koç University. Her research focuses on international legal theory, international organisations law and international human rights law. She received her LL.M. from the London School of Economics and Ph.D. from the University of Manchester. Her work has been published in the Journal on the Use of Force and International Law, Oxford Bibliographies in International Law and Oxford International Organizations (OXIO). Her monograph 'International Law as a Set of Narratives' will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2024. Jean d'Aspremont is a Professor of International Law at Sciences Po School of Law. He also holds a chair of Public International Law at the University of Manchester. He is General Editor of the Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law and Director of Oxford International Organizations (OXIO). He is a series editor of the Melland Schill Studies in International Law. On top of 10 research monographs and 10 edited books, he has published close to 180 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. Some of his articles and monographs have been translated in several languages including Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Japanese and Persian.
