Exclusive Interview with Dr. Mohammad Shahabuddin
A Conversation with Dr Muhammad Shahabuddin; Author of “Minorities and the Making of Postcolonial States in International Law” The conversation with Dr. Mohammad Shahabuddin,
hosted by Sumbul Yousuf, Associate Project Director at South Asia Research Institute for Minorities, presents a critical discussion on the groundbreaking work by Dr. Shahab, Minorities and the Making of Postcolonial States in International Law, Cambridge University Press, 2021.
Dr. Muhammad Shahabuddin teaches and researches in international law and human rights with special focus on the history and theory of international law, ethnicity and nationalism, and human rights. His teaching and research is informed by critical, postcolonial, and TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law) scholarship. He is the author of Ethnicity and International Law: Histories, Politics and Practices(Cambridge University Press, 2016) and Minorities and the Making of Postcolonial States in International Law (Cambridge University Press, 2021) and the editor of Bangladesh and International Law(Cambridge University Press, 2021). During the conversation Dr. Shahab explained his critical analysis of international law in terms of its role in creating the circumstances for minority repression in the postcolonial states. He has outlined three major aspects through which the construction of the postcolonial states as an ideology facilitates the marginalization of minorities, that is the postcolonial states as liberal, national and developmental states. He talked about the possibility of reforms in international law and the importance of becoming a part of the subaltern efforts to bring about reforms. He also highlighted the structural injustices imbibed in the international economic structures that too contribute to the marginalization of already disadvantaged groups. He explained his idea of FWAIL (the Fourth World Approaches to International Law) which aims at becoming a voice for those groups who are subject to colonization and injustice from the postcolonial state itself, as opposed to the TWAIL (Third World Approaches to International Law), which addresses the concerns of Third World countries regarding International Law.
Held on: Thursday, 20 October, 2022
