Shari’a and international law: An exploration in legal praxis

Siddiqui, Nizamuddin Ahmad (2023) Shari’a and international law: An exploration in legal praxis. Doctoral thesis, O.P Jindal Global University.

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Abstract

The thesis argues for a plural imagination of international law. As such, it puts forth the case for a plurality of constitutive imagination, and from there derives the argument in favour of a Shari’a praxis in International Law. I have pursued this project in the following manner. I have first looked into the structural and foundational fallacies of the discipline. I base the first in the critical legal scholarship and the second in the projection of a European particular as the “universal” as it sprang from the works of Descartes, Grotius, Vitoria and Kant. I then proceed to explore the debates of the “self” as highlighted by Unger in his writings. This is where I engage with the works of G. H. Mead, whose writings on the nature of the “social self” I rely upon to create an argument in favour of the interactive discipline. I argue that it is through a constant engagement of the self with the other that the international legal argument becomes a reality. I also create a model to demonstrate how the praxis of international law could be explored through a combination of its argumentative forms and the agency of the self. To demonstrate how this model might work, I employ incidents’ method, as originally devised by Michael Reisman in his 1984 article. I demonstrate how using the model the Shari’a praxis in International Law can be explored. I look at the events surrounding the First Gulf War (1990-1991) and try to discuss them in terms of two separate debates – one occurring in the form of international diplomacy and at the corridors of the Arab League and the United Nations; and then, in the manner the events unfolded before the eyes of the Islamic scholars as they debated the validity of the intervention by the US upon invitation of Saudi Arabia. The debates between different stakeholders demonstrate how the legal norm of Muslim International Law was debated side by side as the world grappled with how to engage with the events in their usual fashion – employing the corpus of mainstream international law. I conclude the thesis by arguing that the plurality of constitutive imaginations in International Law does not challenge the legal process nor challenges the validity of the legal institutions, and as such its legal instruments. However, it does imply that International Law might work in different ways within different landscapes, and about which the legal scholarship must remain conscious.

Item Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Subjects: Social Sciences and humanities > Social Sciences > Social Sciences (General)
JGU School/Centre: Jindal Global Law School
Depositing User: Amees Mohammad
Date Deposited: 27 Oct 2023 11:33
Last Modified: 27 Oct 2023 11:33
URI: https://pure.jgu.edu.in/id/eprint/6821

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