Much of the existing scholarship on the universalization of nineteenth-century international law has framed it in terms of the imperial West＇s domination of non-Western societies. This article complicates and qualifi...Much of the existing scholarship on the universalization of nineteenth-century international law has framed it in terms of the imperial West＇s domination of non-Western societies. This article complicates and qualifies this conventional state-centric narrative by investigating the juridical, capitalist production of China as a ＂semi-civilized＂ international legal subject. It examines the foundational modern Sino-British/Western commercial and extraterritorial treaties, as well as the treatises of a new professional class of British international lawyers--James Lorimer （1818-90）, John Westlake （1828-1913）, William Edward Hall （1835-94）, T. E. Holland （1835-1926）, Thomas Lawrence （1849-1920）, and Lassa Oppenheim （1849-1920）. The juridical production of China as a ＂semi-civilized＂ legal subject throws into relief the dual capitalist nature and significance of the universalization of nineteenth-century international law. On the one hand, this ＂civilized＂ legal discourse underwrote a novel liberal conception of a universal international law （jus publicum universal） within which China was formally included as a quasi-legal subject. On the other hand, it also underwrote a particularistic, Euro-centric international law, which excluded China from its global domain and denied it basic sovereign rights. In this way also, ＂civilized＂ international law justified both formal equality in European- non-European treaty relations, as well as the real substantive inequality of these international exchanges of rights and obligations. Building on the critical theoretical work of Evgeny Pashukanis （1891-1937）, this article argues that a non-orthodox Marxist social theory of legal forms is best suited to explain the abstract, liberal universalism of nineteenth-century ＂civilized＂ international law and the contradictory forms of legal and jurisprudential discourse it made available and rendered normatively meaningful to international law practitioners. Through this Marxist theory, moreover, I shall relate said contradictory discourse to modern commodity exchange practices.展开更多
文摘Much of the existing scholarship on the universalization of nineteenth-century international law has framed it in terms of the imperial West＇s domination of non-Western societies. This article complicates and qualifies this conventional state-centric narrative by investigating the juridical, capitalist production of China as a ＂semi-civilized＂ international legal subject. It examines the foundational modern Sino-British/Western commercial and extraterritorial treaties, as well as the treatises of a new professional class of British international lawyers--James Lorimer （1818-90）, John Westlake （1828-1913）, William Edward Hall （1835-94）, T. E. Holland （1835-1926）, Thomas Lawrence （1849-1920）, and Lassa Oppenheim （1849-1920）. The juridical production of China as a ＂semi-civilized＂ legal subject throws into relief the dual capitalist nature and significance of the universalization of nineteenth-century international law. On the one hand, this ＂civilized＂ legal discourse underwrote a novel liberal conception of a universal international law （jus publicum universal） within which China was formally included as a quasi-legal subject. On the other hand, it also underwrote a particularistic, Euro-centric international law, which excluded China from its global domain and denied it basic sovereign rights. In this way also, ＂civilized＂ international law justified both formal equality in European- non-European treaty relations, as well as the real substantive inequality of these international exchanges of rights and obligations. Building on the critical theoretical work of Evgeny Pashukanis （1891-1937）, this article argues that a non-orthodox Marxist social theory of legal forms is best suited to explain the abstract, liberal universalism of nineteenth-century ＂civilized＂ international law and the contradictory forms of legal and jurisprudential discourse it made available and rendered normatively meaningful to international law practitioners. Through this Marxist theory, moreover, I shall relate said contradictory discourse to modern commodity exchange practices.
