Reckoning with Empire: Self-Determination in International Law

Miriam Bak McKenna, Ph.D, LL.M. University of Copenhagen is an Associate Professor of Law at the Institute of Social Science and Business, Roskilde University. Her work focusses on the theory and history of international law, drawing in particular on critical feminist and decolonial approaches to law.

Acknowledgements

Table of Cases



Introduction

 1Recovering Self-Determination’s History

 2An Aperture for Worldmaking

 3Organisation of the Book

 4Approach



1 Self-Determination: Between Hierarchy and Equality

 1Sovereignty and Empire

 2Popular Sovereignty and the Age of Revolution

 3National Self-Determination, Imperial Expansion and the Civilizing Mission



2 Renegotiating Sovereignty in the Interwar Period

 1Self-Determination as Political Strategy

 2Post WWI Resettlement and “The New International Law”

 3The Aaland Islands Dispute

 4 Quasi-Sovereigns: The Mandate and Trusteeship System



3 “One World” - Anticolonialism at the UN

 1Self-Determination and the New World Order

 2Contesting Empire at the UN

 3Anti-Colonial Activism

 4The Colonial Declaration

 5 The Boundaries of Independence



4 Remaking the World after Empire

 1A New International Law

 2Strengthening the Post-Colonial State

 3Economic Self-Determination and the New International Economic Order

 4The Human Rights Revolution and Self-Determination



5 Sovereignty and Self-Determination at the End of History

 1New and Old Claims

 2Adjudicating Secession

 3Human Rights, Democracy and the New Standards of Sovereignty

 4 Re-working Sovereignty: Minority and Indigenous Rights



Epilogue: Contesting Sovereignty

References

Index