Analysis

Africa's financial sector is expected to grow exponentially over the next few years; with projections, financial technology services, notably digital credit, are expected to expand to a USD 150 billion business by 2022. However, the rapid proliferation of financial services and products, notably micro-finance and digital credit, has led to a worrying trend of predatory lending practices over the past twenty years. This trend may negatively impact Africa's economic development objectives in the long run, while exploiting its most vulnerable.

The three issues that I discussed here apropos teaching and researching international law are part of much bigger problems in Asia and Africa: statehood, sovereignty, resource management, knowledge production, to name a few. I believe, more specific examples of how these persistent problems shape (and also fail to shape) teaching and researching international law in these regions will emerge in course of this symposium.

If we are to take decolonization of international legal studies seriously, the production of literature, the history of International Law and especially methods of analysis must be destabilized

My intervention here is premised on my experiences and my relationship to the teaching of CIL. Instead of directly engaging with the question—why teach critical international law—I offer two interconnected accounts of the teaching process. This unpacking takes place at the site of my identity as a pedagogue where these two strands of enquiry intersect—why did I choose to teach CIL and why did I choose to teach CIL. These enquiries are dynamic and through them, I hope to cover some ground on the teleological question.

As part of research, ILRSC introduced a booklet series on international law and Nepal in the beginning of 2020. The first booklet is on the significance of international law. Others are on Customary International Law, TWAIL, and Treaties. These are yet to be published. Student interns work as research assistants for these booklets. This is a small attempt to keep afloat the interest in PIL despite the paucity of resources.

Traditional international law (IL) teaching and research has reached an inflection point (TRILA Report, 24).  Content-wise it has long been monopolised by the usual suspects: sources of law, treaties, statehood, territory, jurisdiction and specific values such as universality and equality among states. The most conservative IL scholars will smirk at the thought of alternative ‘transnational’ or ‘Third World’ approaches to IL. To be fair to them, lawyers are fond of compartmentalising. We have those that do private law, public law, human rights, international economic law, law and development, business and human rights law, health law, dispute resolution law, to name a few. Yet as the current pandemic is showing this type of boxed thinking cannot provide the tools for meaningful teaching and research about today’s legal conundrums. We live in an uncertain world in which one issue can raise a myriad of legal problems that straddle multiple fields of law.

This short note has identified few concerns in the teaching and researching of international law from a systemic perspective as experienced within a Private Law School setting. It needs to be underlined here that these are based on personal experiences and it could differ from person to person and setting to setting. Addressing these issues would go a long way in terms of enabling the members of the international law teaching community to put their best legal foot forward.

In this discussion, I want to highlight and briefly discuss why research and expertise has to become an even more important feature of teaching and learning initiatives. This might sound uncontroversial, but in the past two decades, significant funding for Australian universities has come from international students’ fees. Arguably, the nexus between teaching and research during this time also shifted along with the availability of more funds for universities to invest in research as an important activity in and of itself. The university sector is potentially on a dangerous road if it does not establish a healthy approach to the teaching-research nexus.

While it may appear that most of the most prominent wildfires that have generated media attention are recorded in countries with climate denialism as their default climate strategy, climate change is fueling figurative and actual wildfires, and its effects are felt in different corners of the world. Developing countries—especially African countries—are, however, affected the most, despite contributing the least to global emissions. Unlike rich and insured countries, weak disaster management strategies will render developing countries unable to adapt lives and livelihoods to the impending devastation. Collective climate action at the global level must involve consistency in the mobilization of resources to facilitate urgent transition needs in the global South.

It is high time that pedagogical, methodological, ethical, and sociological challenges of this nature are discussed and addressed if IL is to be assessed for what it is without plummeting into the depths of myriad situated perspectives, colonialism, linguistic barriers, paucity of resources, and sheer divisions within the academic world.