The Misery of International Law

“By resisting the artificial division between the political and the economic in the international legal order and insisting on an holistic analysis that faces up to international law’s long engagement with the projects of Western capitalism this excellent book breaks new ground in critical international law scholarship. Essential reading for scholars of international law and for everyone else who wants to understand the size and nature of the slippage between law and justice in the global order.” — Fiona Macmillan, Professor of Law, Birkbeck, University of London

“The Misery of International Law is a work for the ages. Aptly titled, this uniquely insightful and tremendously well researched book is the quintessential work of the intellect…They deftly, and convincingly, take down the fictions and contradictions of a scandalous international legal order. They show not only the inability of human rights to effectively confront economic powerlessness, but how instead it buttresses the same injustices. Their scholarship stands in the rarefied pantheon of the most illuminating international legal scholarship I have read to date. It complements the school of thought known as TWAIL, or Third World Approaches to International Law. I am confident that The Misery of International Law will become a standard by which critical international legal scholarship will be measured.”- Makau Mutua, SUNY Distinguished Professor, SUNY Buffalo Law School, The State University of New York

“This arresting book starts where many texts of international law leave off. It goes behind the rhetoric of rules-based systems and justice to study how power operates in the international economic system. The book shows how international law disguises and sustains the injustice of the international economic order. It is full of unsettling insights and uncomfortable observation, identifying and challenging the lawâs commitment to the private accumulation of transnational capital, including in the area of human rights. The Misery of International Law will change the terms of debates about international economic law.”- Professor Hilary Charlesworth AM, Melbourne Laureate Professor at Melbourne Law School, and Distinguished Professor at the Australian National University

“By resisting the artificial division between the political and the economic in the international legal order and insisting on an holistic analysis that faces up to international law’s long engagement with the projects of Western capitalism, this excellent book breaks new ground in critical international law scholarship. Essential reading for scholars of international law and for everyone else who wants to understand the size and nature of the slippage between law and justice in the global order.”- Fiona Macmillan, Professor of Law, Birkbeck, University of London

“A thoughtful, passionate and deeply engaging book that successfully unites radical and liberal critiques of international law into a powerful and unified call for economic justice. The authors pull no punches and deliver a sharply critical yet ultimately constructive account of international economic law, while embodying the kind of pluralist approach essential in any 21st century treatment of global justice. Linarelli, Salomon and Sornarajah help us understand just how far we have yet to go towards basic economic fairness on a global scale, and international laws complicity in this state of affairs. The authors paint a challenging and sobering picture, but if we are serious about working towards a better world, this is where we must begin. A necessary and welcome book.”- Frank J. Garcia, Professor and Deans Global Fund Scholar, Boston College Law School

“A searching critique of the ‘moral disorder of international economic law’ is here reinforced by the ‘pathologies’ of international law as whole, display versatile forms of highly ‘duplicitous normative forces’ at work. A more sustained philosophical and pragmatic critique of global capital is hard to come by; this work needs to be read by all to understand what alternatives look like, particularly in the advancing Anthropocene.”- Upendra Baxi, Emeritus Professor of Law, University of Warwick and Distinguished Professor of Law, NLUD, Delhi