Episode 24: The Third World: At the Centre of International Law?

Welcome to Egil, the podcast. The 1990s were bubbling with developments that energised the field of international law. For the first time since the Second World War, international criminal tribunals were created. States used force in the name of human rights, and a former head of state was the Ninety-Munity because he was accused of torture. Many of these developments have since seen a slowdown or outright backlash. Perhaps because Western leaders' vision of a new world order was in fact not globally shared. But one initiative of the 1990s has gone from strength to strength, perhaps precisely because it challenged this putative new world order. On the 7th and 8th of March 1997, scholars gathered for a conference to discuss how international law privileged European and North American voices and how the structures of international law reproduced relations of hierarchy and discrimination. That conference was the beginning of what has been come known as Twill, Third World Approaches to International Law. Twill has been so successful that it is now generally accepted as one approach to study international law alongside, for instance, doctrinal, feminist and critical approaches. The recent decision of the International Court of Justice to award provisional measures that South Africa had requested to protect the people of Gaza suggests that the Twill sensibility may also have begun to resonate in the highest judicial organ of the United Nations. In this episode of "Egeal the Podcast," we speak with one of Twill's founding fathers, Professor Anthony Engie, Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore and University of Utah. Welcome, Tony. Thanks, Sarah. Thank you for that very generous introduction. It's a great pleasure to have you with us. Tony has published many significant works, but the occasion for this podcast is his forward in the first issue of the European Journal of International Law in 2023, titled "Rethinking International Law, a Twill Retrospective." With us two are three scholars who wrote afterwards to his forward. Ratna Kapoor, Professor at Queen Mary University of London. Hey, Sarah. Great to be here. And Andreas Van Arnol, Professor at the University of Kiel. Hey, Sarah. It's great to join you. Wonderful. And finally, last but not least, Arnold Becker-Lorca, Professor at the European University Institute. Hi, Sarah. Hi, everyone. So, as you may have understood by now, my name is Sarah. Sarah, now and I'm an editor and chief of the European Journal of International Law. The forward and afterwards are too rich to summarize. We are using them here as a starting point for a conversation about Twill. It's strengths and some of the criticisms that have been leveled against it, including an prominent recent article by Nas Mordiersida. If this conversation wets your appetite, read the articles. They're freely accessible online. Tony, let's start ambitiously. Let's try to start with the essence. In your forward, you describe how Twill's scholarship has developed over the generations. And some people even speak of Twill 1, Twill 2, Twill 3, Twill 4. What connects Twill? What is the essence of Twill? Well, Sarah, I think we can point to a few assertions or propositions or hypotheses about international law, which I think run through all the different generations of Twill. So, the first would be that international law was profoundly shaped by the colonial encounter. Colonialism was not incidental to international law, as the conventional history would have it. Colonialism was central to the formation of international law. The second point might be that Twill's scholars are intent on rethinking international law from the perspective of the colonized. And there, you could say, the people who have followed, the people who are no longer the people of colonized countries, but developing countries. How would international law be rethought if we saw it from their perspective? The third question, and this relates very much to your comment about the South Africa versus Israel, decision, is the question of can international law be used by the people of the Third World to pursue the interests of the Third World? And that becomes a complicated issue if we consider the first point I made, which is that international law was shaped by the colonial encounter. And the fourth point would be that colonialism is something that is generally regarded as having ended, but Twill's scholars are suspicious about that claim, and Twill's scholars intend on identifying the different ways in which colonialism or imperialism might reproduce itself in a supposedly post-imperial world. So I would say those are some of the fundamental themes that unite the Twill's scholars of different generations. Yes, and as you show in your forward, is an incredibly rich literature now that shows those themes. And my question then becomes, now Twill has been so successful. How does it stay fresh? Because there's of course a risk that we kind of know so well now what Twill's preoccupations are, and that when a reader sees a Twill article, they think, okay, it's going to be imperialism, that's the problem. It's going to be neocolonialism, that's going to be the continued problem. So how can or what's your also advice for people who aim to continue in the Twill tradition? How can they make sure that their scholarship stays fresh? So I'd like to imagine that in my article, I also pointed to the work of the next generation of Twill's scholars who are looking at the show of imperialism, I think, in a much more sophisticated and refined way. So I think that's one point. Imperialism continues to be an important theme, and we need to understand how it operates and the ongoing legacy of imperialism, and how it is reproduced in the current setting. But there's another dimension of Twill, which is how do we think of alternatives? How do we construct alternative systems, better systems? And I do feel that those better systems are required in a world that is deeply in crisis at a number of different levels. The other thing I'd like to say is that I don't feel that Twill is an ended itself. In other words, at least as far as I'm concerned, it is not a case of saying we have to somehow keep Twill going. My argument is if Twill analytical tools and perspectives no longer serve a purpose, then they should be dispensed with. And we must find something better. But you know, something like the current crisis in the Middle East, Israel and Palestine, for example, is a situation which can be viewed, I think, very insidefully through the lenses and perspectives developed by Twill. I think I agree with you, Tony. But I'd like to also add to that, I think Twill has been around for a while, but it's constantly been modified. It's constantly been moving in different directions and it's constantly also been fed by other critical theories, such as critical race theory or post-colonial feminism. And that makes it generative. And today, as you just mentioned in the context of the ongoing gaze of a plausible genocide in Gaza, is highly generative moment for Twill and Twill scholars. In two ways. One is, of course, that it's entering the institutions in a way in making themselves front and center, as we saw in the ICJ case. But also, it's a affording greater visibility to Twill and the fact that scholars from all over the world feel it's a safe umbrella under which to have debates and dialogue, where spaces are, in fact, closing down in other universities, in places in the global north, and also provides a space where we can have an inclusive and extremely dynamic dialogue about what's going on in the Middle East at the moment. Thank you, Rodna. So, Tony, in your description of what is the essence of Twill, there was both a kind of substantive aspect, animal, perspective, all aspect. So we have the substantive preoccupations, but also it's about this sensibility towards how the global south encounters international law. And Andreas, I was intrigued by your afterward in the sense that you were very, you really explicitly engaged with Tony's part of the forward that focuses on the question of reparations. And you explore then legal foundations for reparations for colonial expropriation by countering the main arguments that are often raised against demands for reparations from the global south. So you're a real ally, you say you want to make a contribution to a cost that you share with Twill, but you explicitly state, even in the abstract, I'm not a Twill scholar. And is this like supporting feminism without being a feminist? And what makes a Twill scholar in your eyes? When is somebody a Twill scholar? Is it an approach? Is it an identity? Does one need to have a membership card? Thank you so much, Sarah, for this thought-provoking question. I mean, my reason for writing that I'm not a, I don't consider myself a Tuea scholar. It was actually twofold. One is simply biographical. I mean, it was steeped on the German tradition of international law, so with constitutionalism, looming large and so on. And so biographically, I only later came into contact with critical approaches to international law in general and Tue in a particular. So I also attest in the, in my afterward, to that personal learning curve. And honestly, I don't know in this trajectory of mine where I'm standing at this moment. So that's one thing. But you may become one. I may become one. Might be, but this relates again to the, actually, the essence of your question. It's also kind of perhaps the question of identity. So Tuea, I mean, the A in Tuea is approaches. So basically, it should be about approaches only and whoever actually chooses an approach that comes within the broader canvas of Tuea should be considered a Tuea. But then there are those, of course, and I cannot ignore this, for whom this approach cannot be actually separated from a lived in experience. And this is what you pointed, actually, some 20 odd years ago, I wrote a piece in German on feminist theories of international law. And it was probably not a really good paper. But there was one kind of reaction to it, which said, a man doesn't have the lived in experience of a woman who should never actually write about feminist theories in international law. And so I have to respect these positions. And so I didn't want to also self-identify me in a way of a cultural appropriation. So I can't help but here I have to hear Rotna on this point. As for the well-known feminist scholar in our group. Well, the fact is there's no one feminist position. There are many feminist positions that one you've decided may be one, but it's not the position that you need to sort of listen to. There are many other positions which would never argue that you cannot speak on that because you're a man. You cannot speak on feminism because you're a man. And Tony, what is your view on identity, Tuea approaches, who belongs to Tuea and who hence out to membership cards? We made a point of not developing a membership system. And many of our colleagues who've done extraordinarily important Tuea work and who regard themselves as Tuea others are from the West. And that has historically also been the case. And so I think Andreas points to this. It is Third World Approach and it's the international law. Now certainly different people differently situated. I have their own ways of articulating their lived experiences. But I suppose from the point of view of Western scholars it's also a way of understanding how the West in a sense was created through its interaction with the non-Western world. And so I don't want this idea of a sort of pure Third World identity that we must all comply with somehow dictating who's inside and outside. And I'm really grateful to people like Andreas for the allies of Tuea. You know people who haven't really perhaps seen themselves as members of Tuea, but who've taken an interest in Tuea and have engaged with Tuea and have contributed towards Tuea. So yes, that's my rough position. So the big tent is still open for many to join? As far as I'm concerned. So there's another site to this question. And that is one of the points on which Tuea has been challenged, including in this prominent recent article by Nas Mordell Yersida, is actually that Tuea is concerned with the Third World. But at most the most influential Tuea scholars have spoken from or still speak from in the sense that that's where they're based, the First World. And Estonia pointed out in his forward, ironically the conference that gave rise to Tuea was organized at Harvard and still very many Tuea events take place in the global North. So here we get to this point that Andreas mentioned about the lived experiences. Can one talk about lived experiences of people in the Third World if one is a scholar in the global North? I'm interested in everybody's view on this dilemma. Arnold, you've been quiet. May I invite you first? Let me briefly repeat the idea that if Tuea is an approach, it is the approach that recognizes, as Tony mentioned, the way in which colonial experiences and the colonial encounter shaped international law. And secondly, from that insight, understanding that a post-colonial international law has not resolved that question, that that question should be interrogated as we encounter new subjects in international law. So from that point of view, it's an approach open to everyone. It doesn't require a card or a geopolitical or geographical location. But what it requires is certain empathy with those experiences. And again, I think that is also open to everyone. Now, the more specific criticism of who is doing it based in the North or the South, I find that a very, very problematic critique because it does not understand the field in which international law operates as a field that is structured by power relations that actually recognize a core and a periphery or a West and a non-West. And historically, the most important figures in 12, 1234 have been either geopolitically or ideologically connected to the insight and have been interested in understanding colonial origins and legacies. But have been professionally always attached to, let's say, the South, but have professionally lived in the North from Bejavi to Alvarez to, I don't know, the indigenous leaders who in the 17, 16, 17th century went to Spain to present a claim to the king. So the fact that they are in the North, it only explains their awareness of where the power relations lies. So that's why I don't think we should give too much emphasis to professional geopolitical locations. Well, thanks for that, I found that very helpful. And just to go back to what I suggested in terms of some of the basic themes of 12, different people are situated in different places in relation to those themes. So we don't all necessarily have to focus on the lived experience of peoples of the Third World. We go into a critique of Western structures themselves. And I think this notion about the lived experience of people in the Third World is seed by trail more as a problem, an issue that needs to be engaged with because there is this overarching question of who speaks for international law. The other thing I think that needs to be taken into account in this whole situation is an understanding of the politics of legal scholarship and the places in which people's work acquires recognition and gets distributed. So there are so many prominent 12 scholars who worked in the Third World. Ape Anand spent pretty much a large part of his career in India. My friend, brilliant, wonderful scholar, B.S. Jimny, he spent his entire career in India. But the complication has been that his work was given, the significance it really deserved only in more recent times when it was disseminated in the West through the publishing, you could say, avenues and venues of the West. The other thing I would say is that, well, I'm speaking here from Singapore. I'm teaching in Asia and many of my projects actually involve Asian law schools and D.P. Engage with them. And what I find is that the people in those law schools instantly recognize 12 because 12 isn't a construction on the part of those people who were at Harvard at that conference. A creation which was then reintroduced to the Third World. It is already there in the Third World. But as Ratna said, the work we have done 12, because we were fortunate enough to get the exposure to these centers of power is that we've hopefully given those people the confidence to actually develop their ideas and feel that they belong to a tradition. And we've hopefully developed various ways in which their work can get the appreciation it deserves. And, you know, James Gatti is doing an astonishing job with the Afronomics, for example. So these are just some of the things I would say in response. Yes, I think I have only a couple of points to add to that, Tony. I think that you're absolutely right. Twill has become a magnet for scholars all over the world who feel that their scholarship and writing now have a place to be both presented, even published and discussed. And this is, and we have this vast repository of knowledge and experiences from the global south that finds space in Twill. And at the same time, and I think you make this point very clearly, Tony, in your perspective, is that it's impossible to understand now international law or human rights without a Twill perspective. And it provides students and scholars in the field a grounding and a more informed understanding of what actually is the work that international law and human rights have been doing in relation to the other and in relation to the global south. So we cannot do without it, and it is spreading. And I think the other point, which I just want to build on with Tony mentioned, is that it does offer space for intellectuals where they don't even have perhaps that space in their home in their own homes. For example, I'm thinking of even Gaza, where all the universities have been destroyed. There's a space now that's empathetic and compassionate to listen to this voice, to receive the scholarship from the intellectuals say in Palestine, and ensure that in real time that their stories are not annihilated as has been the experience of the sub-ultron in the past. And I think that's invaluable. Could there be a tension between the two elements of the theme, Tony, that you began with, what holds twill together on the one hand, certain key insights. And we know those insights and these insights remain relevant for international law. And I've really shaped and changed how also international lawyers in the West see how international law was created. And on the other hand, the openness to, as Rodney referred to the sub-ultron voices, people who are currently in the periphery in particular situations, in the sense that for the openness to those voices and experiences, one has to be entirely open to what they are currently experiencing, with need not be always exactly what compatible with the insights we already had from twill. What interpretation of what you're saying is the voices may express ideas, principles, visions, which in many respects might be seen as undermining human dignity. And so that's something else I think I tried to address in my, in my early on my book and also my forward, which is that we cannot be, we cannot be accepting of visions which are themselves excluding and oppressive. And so that is why 12, 2 in particular, has been a point of criticizing the Third World State and doing so very fiercely. Because we don't feel that simply because it is the Third World State that we must just accept whatever it does, even though the Third World State is so important for the protection of human dignity. So you're quite right, Sarah, in that regard, there is a tension. And I'm not sure they can be resolved. There's no easy principle. It is like another great tension of twill, which is this question of can a international law forge out of imperialism be used by those Hoover victims of that law? And all I can say here is that, as a twill scholar, I live with those tensions. Just as, you know, for a Western scholar, a Western scholar would live with the tensions of his international law, really law. So I can see Andreas wanting to say something. So Andreas, please take over. Yeah, thank you. So I was wondering whether these tensions are not actually exactly that, what actually guarantees that a twale stays fresh, because we always have to adapt to the changing, the reproduction of means and methods of imperialism and semi-colonialism. And also these tensions between the Third World State and the people. And also the transformative process of using international law to overcome the inbuilt exclusionary forces of international law. So I think it's a process. And so this actually guarantees that dealing with this process helps trail staying fresh. Okay, so we embrace the tension. We recognize it's productive forces. And on that note, I wanted to go back to Ratna, because in her afterward or in your afterward Ratna, you engage with the aspect of Tony's forward that engages with human rights and twale. And you argue that twale doesn't, there's not only a very useful diagnostic instrument, but also always has had this revolutionary element. And one of the things that some people have argued, I find twale so useful to see all the problems of the world. I drill opens my eyes, but it doesn't tell me what to do next. And so I wondered Ratna, what is next? What is the revolution that you in your afterward propagate? Yes, so I think about revolution and not in terms of overthrow the West, nothing like that. I think about it. I think of twales' revolutionary project in two ways. First also, not only in terms of how it's provincialized and really destabilized, dominant, your centric accounts of history and international law, history of international law and human rights, as Tony has so clearly mapped out in both his book as well as in the twale perspectives that he's presented. But also, I see twale as an epistemological inquiry. So twale really does take seriously the foundational critique of international law and human rights and explores some of the revolutionary transformative possibilities that may be found in alternative, non-liberal registers or non-liberal epistemes. And I think it's really important or critical to attend to this in the aftermath of critiques. And we're not just hanging. Otherwise, there's a tendency, certainly even in some twale scholarship to really resubmit to some of the course of logics of human rights and the liberal script that it sustains and then re-embracing some kind of universalism, albeit one that's being restructured. So it is crucial to think about alternative, non-liberal epistemologies. That doesn't mean abandoning international law or human rights. You have to engage with both primarily, not because there aren't as of transformation or change, but primarily because they are re-nus of power. And so we can't afford to disengage with them. They must be engaged. But at the same time, there is a sort of now scholarship that engages with alternative epistemes, epistemes, and the futurity of international law and human rights in such arrangements. It's invisible in some of the work that's emerging, say, in environmental law, and indigenous consciousness, and the practices with nature and subsistence. The idea of a sub-altern consciousness, which is emerging in relation to the Palestinian amongst others, and an international legal sub-alternality. And there's also these alternative prescriptions of subjectivity and revolution that being articulated by post-colonial scholars in relation to the Islamic veil bands and mandates. But all of these true formulations really are infused with insights from critical projects, and that renders the twill project in fact dynamic and lends dynamism to twill, rather than it becoming just a recursive project. So Arnoff, in your afterward, you actually argued that twill has been so successful that it has become part of the mainstream, but it should now give rise to other critical approaches. That shine light on third world experiences of international law. Why not stick to twill? Why do we need an alternative? So let me go back to something that Tony mentioned, or we were discussing at the very beginning. So the idea that maybe the insights are no longer helpful, and we should look for something different. I don't think that was my argument in the afterward, because I don't think that, so my point about twill is mainstream was a point not only in terms of recognizing the incredible rise of twill, but also recognizing the role that the insights are play and should play in contemporary international law. And in that sense, the argument is not about overcoming. It is, the argument is about the need of always recognizing and remembering that insight, as the starting point. So colonial origins and colonial legacies should be as important sources of international law or whatever your favorite doctrine is. And it's basically from that starting point that my idea was that if that is the starting point that should be shared by the profession, then that opens critical avenues that could go in other direction that we can decide if they're twill or beyond twill. But basically would, in my case, explore other lived experiences of the peoples of the Third World. which would be the experience like we have been discussed and Radna mentioned. What happens when the ICJ not only listens to the voice but also articulates the voice of peoples of the third world. And I think that there's a long history. So we may think that that is unprecedented. But if we focus on this other lived experience, so the lived experience of engagement and at sometimes resistance and moreover, at sometimes successful resistance, I think there's another parallel history to tell. And the relevance and I would go back to, of course, of determination, the weakening and replacement of the standard of civilization with a formal standard of statehood, etc. And the reason to remember this long, due day or longer history is that we might learn tactics and strategies that emerge from that history that then again should be part of the canon of every international lawyer. So the flip side of this story is perhaps referenced in Andreus' afterward. In the sense of your arguing, some voices of the global south have been heard in mainstream international law and have made a difference. And Andreus' argument is, yes, the mainstream argument of international law has often rejected claims to reparations, but there have always been voices in the global north that said that the mainstream argument was unjust and there should be there alternative ways of thinking about this. So neither the south, nor the global north is a monolith. Andreus, what does your argument mean for a movement such as twill? What are the implications? What I think is, and that's also stated in my article, what I think is it's understandable that if you really want to put out the challenge, you need an address for this challenge and so a point of using other techniques and generalisation are part of the struggle. But on the other hand, somehow, of course, if you always speak of the Western liberal tradition, you somehow strengthen a specific brand of Western legal thinking, which is from a German perspective, I would say it's Anglo-American liberalism, and this becomes a dominant narrative and the other voices, if that's brilliant, agile series of the European traditions, actually, in international law, with people as diverse as Georges-Sel, or about a Shooking, who's the namesake of Mainstitutes, who contributed differently to international law than focusing on, let's say, individualism and property. And taking up also these ideas of collectivity, solidarity, and common goods is something I think which can enrich the discussion and make new allies for twale. And I think we've come a long way already, as you pointed to the ICJ, provisional measures, and also what Anruf, I think, wrote in his afterward, it's kind of mainstream, and so the pressure is now on the apologists of power ever more than it was before. And so I think that's a great success and we should continue on that avenue. Thanks very much for the down years. So just a couple of comments, I feel somewhat disoriented by the fact that twale is now thought of as mainstream. I mean, I felt somehow comfortable in the margins, in some peculiar and perverse way. So the idea that twale is now the mainstream makes me feel just a little bit uncomfortable and I'm not sure that I'm adapted to this new condition very well. In terms of Andrews' comments, I agree and will agree completely and I certainly welcome that approach. And that has always been the case. I mean, if you look at twale scholars in the past, not only David Kennedy, the brilliant David Kennedy, but my teacher at Monash, Professor Christopher Wiedemann III, he was a master of the Western traditions. He was a master of civil law because there's Roma Dutch law and Sri Lanka. And he was a master of the common law as well. And so it was that full experience and the whole range of ideas that were available from thinkers from everywhere that really helps shape an intellectual personality and approach. So this is simply a long way of saying that I welcome and agree with what Andrews has said. So it also really resonates with, I think, one key argument of your forward. Namely, that twale should be seen as a cosmopolitan project. And may I quote you here, I would argue the legal technologies of dispossession that were developed and applied to the Third World are now globalized, that is, they now affect the lives of people in the West itself. And as such, contribute to the social dislocation in security and inequality affecting communities in the rich First World countries themselves. Twale cannot be considered to be purely about the Third World. It is twale that offers an alternative, universal vision of international law and justice. Unquote. So I think your statement here really shows the openness of twale. It's the big embrace of an empathy with all those suffering from injustice. But one question that arises is, you know, are the boundaries still clear with, for instance, the concerns of critical approaches or Marxist approaches, or doesn't it actually matter? Is it okay if all these flow in one big concern about human suffering? But just to paraphrase Hannah Arendt, there may be a risk that if everything becomes twale, nothing is clearly twale anymore. Okay, I'd like to deal with. So the first point, I mean, I find it very interesting if we look at current developments in foreign investment law, how the critiques of foreign investment law that were initially articulated by the South are now exactly the critiques that are being articulated by people in the North. And so that's what I mean when I say that many of the technologies developed in the South are now being experienced in the North as well, giving rise to different forms of marginalization and so forth. The whole question of whether everything becomes twale. So here, and perhaps this is very unsatisfactory. Here I would say that I am not in favor of some kind of idea of a pure theory. I see twale as a set of technologies, a set of tools that are available to people who are studying these large themes of injustice or poverty or marginalization. And they should feel able to select whatever tools they feel would assist them in their particular project. When I say that twale is a cosmopolitan project, in a way I'm referring to exactly what Andreas has pointed out, which is that the whole idea of cosmopolitanism after all is how we achieve global justice. And if that is the case, then we have to take into account the insights of twale in terms of the ways in which the efforts to create global justice have been impeded by imperialism. Now I feel very reluctant to talk about cosmopolitanism because after all that is the great German invention after the Greeks. It's one of Germany's great export industries. It's a bit like BMW perhaps. So I'll refer to Andreas' expertise on that. But that's what I mean by cosmopolitanism. How can we all unite from wherever we are to actually make good on this goal, which is supposed to inspire international law, the goal of bringing about global justice, a problematic term, but what else can we use? I would like to comment on some continuity between Andreas and Tony's. So the idea would be that someone like cell or sugar would be closer to the idea that there is a universal or global justice in Tony's terms to which we could aspire regardless of these being part of the European tradition and others from the global self being from other traditions. So I think that I would agree with that from a logical point of view of you one or conceptual point of view, but I think the real question is historically how that has operated. So when cell thinks that he's idea of the cosmopolitan, I was just by chance reading cell yesterday and a very obscure piece on compensation of extropeation of land in Romania. And he was making the kills for unequal treatment because if foreign investors are subject to the same rules that national but those rules are inferior to the minimum standard international law protects them. So that sounds very, very hot topic today, but my point using that example is that it turns out, and again this is on the page of approach rather than identity. I think the challenge is to look for the approach that is articulating certain interests and then we can say who's benefiting and who is being harmed by these arguments and and I think there I still would go beyond Tony now now in the sense that most of the time the language of cosmopolitanism global justice as articulated from the North is captured by the North South division because as myself example is in the cosmopolitan argument there was benefiting the foreign investor who was expropriated in Romania. So and this goes back to Bejawi if we went to L1 the idea that be careful of common heritage of humankind because it is great invocation of the universal but then when it's translated into a concrete mechanism we see that what is what is shared is an interest of the North and what is subject to sovereignty is again in the interest of the North and the detriment of the South. For me I think that Twil is not striving to be either mainstream or becoming another meta theory or providing you know in its counter narratives providing a sort of a sort of a stable narrative counter narrative of the history of international law nor is it one of many international law projects. I think the purpose of Twil and it's significant is what can say the European Society of International Law or the American Society of International Law or other international legal projects learn from Twil and really learn something that they didn't know before they started the conversation and be changed by it in the process. And I think I use the example of you know something like racial capitalism as I imperialism for example the bearbone's definition of imperialism is racial capitalism. So what have these other mainstream dominant international law projects actually learned from Twil's analysis on racial capitalism and its relationship with imperialism. Thank you Rodna I think that's a very inspiring note to end on because I hope that this podcast has contributed to that aim and at least opening the world and opening the thinking of Twil and enticing everybody to go to the website type in Tony Angi forward in Google eGil forward and you'll find forward and then type in afterwards and you will find three magnificent afterwards to Tony's Tony Angi's magnificent forward. So thank you Tony Rodna Arnolf and Andreas for this conversation. Thank you listener for joining us. Thank you Jamie Morris for taking care of the technical side of this recording and to the phenomenal Annie Brenner for managing to get us all together for this podcast which is not an easy task with all the different time zones involved. For more eGil podcasts visit eGilTold.org and eGil.org.