Light Dragon

Also, steerpike, you have read more of Mieville's academic writings, so I was wondering as to your input on this. Wikipedia suggested he said this: "Law is structurally indeterminate as applied to particular cases, and so the interpretation which becomes official is always a matter of force; the stronger of the contesting parties in each legal dispute will ultimately obtain the sanction of law. Therefore, he states: "The attempt to replace war and inequality with law is not merely utopian but is precisely self-defeating. A world structured around international law cannot but be one of imperialist violence. The chaotic and bloody world around us is the rule of law." My question is, what then does he suggest to replace law with or to restructure the conflict?

Is he just a deconstructionist in his arguments or does he propose solutions?

I'd agree with his posits about what law is and how it is created and its effect, as his posits are presented in the above statement (e.g. law largely being the arbitrary creation of dominant interests), but I fail to see his conclusions as naturally emanating from those statements. E.g. his statements about law as being non-utopian and self-defeating. I suppose he may be saying it's self-defeating in that it does not inherently advance equality even though people think it is inherently neutral and equal., but I don't have enough information to go on based on the wikipedia statement.

I actually haven't read Mieville's work on international law, I'm rather embarrassed to admit (Between Equal Rights is on my to-read list - I'm not writing on Mieville for my dissertation, sad to say, so I haven't gotten to it yet).

I might hazard a guess that if Mieville was to offer an alternative it might be to work towards the dissolution of nations altogether - a very Marxist idea - while also working against the root causes of war itself. The answer isn't to try and "patch" imperialist politics and warfare with international law, it's to get rid of the imperialist politics. Easier said than done, of course. That would be my guess, though.

Ads

Light Dragon