International Law

In this essay, I argue for centering systemic racism in the study of international law. This is neither an original method nor argument when applied to legal education. Teaching law with a focus on context—systemic racism for example—has a long tradition.

In teaching and researching international law in Kenya, the key shift that could be considered is the incorporation of critical perspectives, the increase in publication of international law scholarship by African scholars and the shift to more effective teaching strategies.

This post is a dissection of the contents of and processes that culminated in my very first experience of teaching international law with a view to regulate cyberspace as a domain of conflict between States.

Implementing PBL as a teaching method has its advantages and disadvantages. Until now, this method is still used mainly for small classes and students who opted for specialized courses under international law. Also, due to the exceptional circumstances of the outbreak of COVID-19, there has been a modification of the delivery of the PBL using different teaching tools as noted above. The development of learning methods and learning facilities continues to be carried out from time to time with adjustments to existing conditions in society, including the development of information technology.

As the pandemic continues to take its toll resulting in the rising number of casualties, online teaching inevitably remains relevant. We, therefore, should start to (re-)identify issues of teaching international law with the new scenario in mind. In this rather short essay, I will quickly share my observation based on my experience of teaching Public International Law online during the Spring 2020 semester.

The result of combining international law and national law lecture materials by adopting legal issues at the local level turned out to be very interesting for Pattimura University students in their study of international law. This also motivated them to be more diligent in attending international law classes.

I believe that participating in additional trainings, such as Teaching and Researching International Law (TRILA) of the Centre for International Law (CIL) of the National University of Singapore, is helpful in learning and implementing the most effective teaching methods for international law.

As a preliminary matter, based on the research that has been done so far to address the primary question as to whether there is an Asian approach to international law that is distinct from international law that was derived from the West, it is too early at this point to make a substantive conclusion that there is a unique perspective to international law that emanates from Asia.

The three issues that I discussed here apropos teaching and researching international law are part of much bigger problems in Asia and Africa: statehood, sovereignty, resource management, knowledge production, to name a few. I believe, more specific examples of how these persistent problems shape (and also fail to shape) teaching and researching international law in these regions will emerge in course of this symposium.

If we are to take decolonization of international legal studies seriously, the production of literature, the history of International Law and especially methods of analysis must be destabilized