Ressource pédagogique : Nina Keller-Kemmerer - The Mimicry of International Law: Andrés Bello’s “Principios de derecho internacional

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It was the creole intellectual Andrés Bello who first promoted the European doctrines of international law in Hispano-America. 1811 he went together with Simón Bolívar on a diplomatic mission to London to support the Hispano-American independence. During this time, international law became of great importance for his nation- and statebuilding-projects. When he returned to the southamerican continent in 1829, his “Principios de derecho de jentes” was the first book the “liberator intellectual” published. While in the former Spanish colonies Bello’s textbook was of great success European intellectuals criticized it for being a mere copy of the European ideas. And indeed, Bello’s textbook is, at first glance, an imitation and compilation of the main European principles of international law. Using postcolonial and poststructuralist approaches, however, the study reveals that this imitation of the European discourse of international law was not a pure passive and submissive act but a deeply ambivalent behaviour which opens a space of resistance, implies changes and is reminiscent of Homi K. Bhabha’s concept of mimicry. Furthermore, postcolonial and poststructuralist concepts of identity and subjectivity expose that non-European worlds formed an intrinsic part of European international law. They served to construct European identity and therefore became what Edward Sampson describes as the “serviceable other”.  

"Domaine(s)" et indice(s) Dewey

• Droit international (341)

Thème(s)