Beyond Color-Blind International Economic Law

Abstract

This essay makes three claims. First, that the central role of race in international economic law has been erased and much more needs to be done to recover its large footprints in the discipline as well as in the policies and practices that constitute it. Second, that rules of international economic law formally embed racially constructed hierarchies, such as those that subordinate the status of former and current colonies. Further, that this subordination is not merely of the former and current colonies, but also of large swaths of Black and Brown peoples around the world. Third, that international economic law in both the Global North and the Global South has played a key role in the cultural production of racist tropes that justify the continued servitude of the former and current colonies. This subordination ensures that returns to capital serve a small minority of wealthy individuals and corporate entities at the expense of large segments of humanity, particularly Black and Brown peoples.