Methodology

Over the past few decades, the term ‘resource curse’ has entered the policy domain and has been used to describe how countries in Africa, and the Global South more generally, which are endowed with natural wealth, are unable to develop and cannot avoid declining into violent conflict. In the collective imaginary, wars in different African countries, such as Angola, Sierra Leone, Ivory Coast, and Liberia have been associated with brutal conflict waged by rebels driven by the lust for 'blood diamonds.'

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

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.

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (Hamburg) and the University of the Witwatersrand School of Law will host a one-day workshop on decolonial comparative law on 6 October 2020 at the University of Witwatersrand (Johannesburg).