What Should International Lawyers Learn from Karl Marx?

Abstract

International law and Marxian theory both emanate from nineteenth-century progressivism. Although Marx had no interest in international law, many aspects of his work are very relevant for it. Where (modern) international law became secular and focused on states and human rights, (early) Marxian theory would claim that its secularization did not go far enough. Instead, statehood and individual rights appear as forms of political theology. Today, deconstruction carries on some of the heritage of Marxian dialectics. The task, however, is to move from doctrinal critique to progressive practice. In this, the theory of hegemony provides the best available account of how that can be undertaken without losing the ambition of the law's universality.