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[ARTICLE_2017] The IL's Paradox (achived version).pdf (1.03 MB)

The paradox of international law as the law of nations: the (re)production of refugee and statelessness

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journal contribution
posted on 2023-06-21, 06:02 authored by Po-Han Lee
Considering the refugee crisis and statelessness around the world particularly in the Asian context, this article argues that, by interrogating the fundamental premise of international law as ‘the law of nations’, the repeated affirmation and representation of the relationship between a nation/state and its ‘people’ creates and self-justifies a series of relevant problematics. Drawing on a genealogy of the modern discourses with regard to ‘statehood’, on which one’s nationality and citizenship is established, the failure of contemporary international human rights and humanitarian legal regimes in addressing the rightless situations of refugees and stateless persons is, nonetheless, an intended product of the maintenance of the Westphalian style of sovereign equality. Beyond such a dystopian reading of the present, I consider – turning to Deleuzian nomadological ontology of ‘existence’ of sporadicalness, radicalness and contingency – the beings or becomings as refugees or stateless persons as resistance to the status quo of law, by transgressing the territorialisation of states and exposing the irresolution of post-Cold War liberal internationalism.

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Accepted version

Journal

Cultural Studies Quarterly

ISSN

2076-2755

Publisher

Cultural Studies Association of Taiwan

Volume

160

Page range

35-44

Department affiliated with

  • Law Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Sussex Rights and Justice Research Centre Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2018-01-16

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2018-01-16

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2018-01-15

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