Biography

Dr Abou Jeng is a Human Rights Lawyer and Associate Research Fellow at the Centre for Human Rights in Practice, University of Warwick, UK. He obtained his undergraduate law degree in 2004 from the University of Wales, UK; Master of Laws degree in International Development Law and Human Rights in 2006, and PhD in International Law in 2010, both from the University of Warwick. He is the author of Peacebuilding in the African Union: Law, Philosophy and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 2012). His current research interests focus on human rights and disaster risk management, human trafficking, humanitarian law and globalization as well as rule of law and governance in postcolonial societies.

Article Title

More Than a Whimper, Less Than a Roar: International Law, Self-determination and the Caribbean

Abstract

In the past two centuries or so, the geographic appellation of the Caribbean has gone through varying phases of political and social struggles. The struggles have been particularly poignant in the quest for self-governance and independence, culminating in intense decolonisation endeavours. Yet, despite the decolonisation initiatives and the progress made thereto, a number of entities such as the British Overseas Territories are yet to achieve full independence, remaining for the most part as dependent territories locked up in some kind of consensually ordered or circumstantially prescribed post-colonial arrangements. Whilst the motivations to remain under these arrangements are many and varied, considerations for stability, security, survival, economic and social wellbeing are perhaps major factors. The lack of full independence amongst the BOTs has led to recurrent questions as to the utility of international law in providing the outlet through which self-determination could be framed and pursued. The principal argument of this paper is that although international law remains a useful outlet in the process of the BOTs’ self-determination, it is not so helpful in the decolonisation of their social spaces. This is because international law, as a discipline and operative mechanism, has been a fundamental part of the independence conundrum currently faced by the BOTs. The paper contends that for self-determination of the BOTs to be fully actualised, decolonisation of social spaces is imperative so as to disentangle the perception of the residues of the colonial as agents of progress. One possible outlet to do so is through the prism of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL).