Uluslararası İnsan Hakları Hukukuna Postkolonyal Yaklaşımlar: TWAIL Örneği

Öz

2000’li yılların ilk yirmi yılında TWAIL (Uluslararası Hukuka Üçüncü Dünya Yaklaşımları) uluslararası hukuka eleştirel yaklaşımıyla akademik dünyada önemli ölçüde ilgi toplamıştır. TWAIL her ne kadar üyelerinin çeşitli eğilimleri sebebiyle heterojen bir oluşum olarak karakterize edilse de postkolonyal bir yaklaşımı üyelerini birleştiren ortak zemin olarak düşünmek mümkündür. TWAIL üyeleri kolonyalizmle ilişkisini vurgulayarak uluslararası hukukun tarafsızlığını ve evrenselliğini sorgulamışlardır. Kimi TWAIL üyeleri insan hakları hukukunu da postkolonyal perspektifler temelinde incelemiş, uluslararası insan hakları hukukunun Avrupa deneyimi ve tarihine dayalı belli normlar yoluyla Avrupa yapılarını evrenselleştirdiğini vurgulamışlardır. Öte yandan, bazı TWAIL üyelerinin analizlerini yapıbozumla sınırlamadığını ve postkolonyal perspektifleri gereği yeniden inşacı bir strateji de benimsediklerini belirtmek gerekir. Diğer bir deyişle, Avrupa deneyimini üstün kılan ve evrenselleştiren normların varlığının yanı sıra Avrupamerkezci taraflarından arınmış bir insan hakları korpusunun gerekliliğine de TWAIL yazınında işaret edilmektedir. Dahası, madunlar lehine özgürleştirici bir gündem kimi TWAIL üyelerini hakları bir özgürleşme dili ve devlet iktidarını sınırlayan bir mekanizma olarak düşünmeye sevk etmiş görünmektedir. Bu makale TWAIL üyelerinin insan hakları yaklaşımının yapıbozumcu eleştirinin ötesine geçerek hakları çeşitli perspektiflerle değerlendiren detaylı bir analiz ortaya koyduğunu ileri sürmektedir. Buradan hareketle, belirtilen yaklaşımın eleştirel bir tutumu yeniden inşacı bir vizyonla birleştiren postkolonyal karakterinin açığa çıkarılması hedeflenmektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Postkolonyalizm
• Uluslararası İnsan Hakları Hukuku
• Üçüncü Dünya
• Evrenselcilik
• Avrupamerkezcilik

Postcolonial Approaches to International Human Rights Law: The TWAIL Case

Öz

In the first two decades of the 2000s, TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law) attracted considerable attention in academia with its critical approach to international law. Although TWAIL is characterized as a heterogeneous construct due to the various orientations, a postcolonial approach could be considered as a common ground that promotes cooperation across its members. TWAIL scholars questioned the neutrality and universality of international law by emphasizing its association with colonialism. Certain members of TWAIL also investigated the international human rights law based on postcolonial perspectives, stressing that it universalized particular European constructs through certain norms based on European experiences and history. However, it should be noted that some TWAILers did not limit their analysis to deconstruction and, due to their postcolonial perspectives, they also adopted a reconstructionist strategy. In other words, in addition to the norms of human rights law that prioritize and universalize the European experience, the necessity of a human rights corpus free from Eurocentric dimensions is also addressed in TWAIL literature. Furthermore, the postcolonial emancipatory agenda in favour of subalterns seems to have led certain TWAIL members to consider rights as a language of emancipation and a set of limits imposed on state authority. The present article argues that the postcolonial approach of TWAIL members went beyond the deconstructive criticism and proposed a detailed analysis that investigated human rights law based on various perspectives. From this point of view, it aims to reveal the postcolonial character of the mentioned approach, which combines a critical stance with a reconstructive vision.

Anahtar Kelimeler

• Postcolonialism
• International Human Rights Law
• Third world
• Universalism
• Eurocentrism

Kaynakça

1. Anghie A, ‘Francisco de Vitoria and the Colonial Origins of International Law’ in Eve Darian-Smith and Peter Fitzpatrick (eds), Laws of the Postcolonial (University of Michigan Press 1999). google scholar
2. Anghie A, Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law, (Cambridge University Press 2005). google scholar
3. Anghie A, ‘The Evolution of International Law: Colonial and Postcolonial Realities’ (2006) 27(5) Third World Quarterly 739-753. google scholar
4. Bianchi A, International Law Theories: An Inquiry into Different Ways of Thinking (Oxford University Press 2016). google scholar
5. Chimni BS, ‘Third World Approaches to International Law: A Manifesto’ (2006) 8(1) International Community Law Review 3-27. google scholar
6. Chimni BS, ‘The World of TWAIL: Introduction to the Special Issue’ (2011) 3(1) Trade Law and Development 14 3-27. google scholar
7. Chimni BS, International Law and World Order: A Critique of Contemporary Approaches (2nd edn, Cambridge University Press 2017). google scholar
8. Eslava L and Pahuja S, ‘Between Resistance and Reform: TWAIL and the Universality of International Law’ (2011) 3(1) Trade, Law and Development 103-130. google scholar

9. Fagbongbe M, ‘The Future of Women’s Rights from a TWAIL Perspective’ (2008) 10(4) International Community Law Review 401-409. google scholar
10. Gathii JT, ‘TWAIL: A Brief History of its Origins, its Decentralized Network, and a Tentative Bibliography’ (2011) 3(1) Trade, Law and Development 26-64. google scholar
11. Moore-Gilbert B, Postcolonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics (Verso 1997). google scholar
12. Mutua M and Anghie A, ‘What is TWAIL?’ (2000) 94 Proceedings of the Annual Meeting 31-40. google scholar
13. Mutua M, ‘Savages, Victims, and Saviours: The Metaphor of Human Rights’ (2001) 42(1) Harvard International Law Journal 201-245. google scholar
14. Mutua M, Human Rights: A Political & Cultural Critique (University of Pennsylvania Press 2002). google scholar
15. Mutua M, ‘Standard Setting in Human Rights: Critique and Prognosis’ (2007) 29(3) Human Rights Quarterly 547-630. google scholar
16. Nesiah V, ‘The Rise and the Fall of Human Rights Empire’ (Foreign Policy in Focus, June 28 2012) https://fpif.org/the_rise_and_fall_of_the_human_rights_empire/ Date Accessed 10 October 2021. google scholar
17. Okafor OC, ‘Newness, Imperialism, and International Legal Reform in Our Time: A Twail Perspective’ (2005) 43 (1/2) Osgoode Hall Law Journal 171-191. google scholar
18. Otto D, ‘Rethinking Universals: Opening Transformative Possibilities in International Human Rights Law’ (1997) 18 Australian Year Book of International Law 1-36. google scholar
19. Pluckrose H and Lindsay J, Cynical Theories: How Activist Scholarship Made Everything about Race, Gender, and Identity-and Why This Harms Everybody (Pitchstone Publishing 2020). google scholar
20. Rajagopal B, International Law from Below: Development, Social Movements and Third World Resistance (Cambridge University Press 2003). google scholar