International Law and Universality

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.

Jean d’Aspremont, Isil Aral

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.