The Ascendancy of Capital Over Nation-States in the International Legal Arena: A Historical-Materialist Perspective on Redefining Horizontality in International Law – International Journal of Law, Ethics, and Technology

-                                        Title
+                                        The Ascendancy of Capital Over Nation-States in the International Legal Arena: A Historical-Materialist Perspective on Redefining Horizontality in International Law
-                                        Author
+                                        Elliot Goodell Ugalde
-                                        Affiliation
+                                        McMaster University
-                                        Region/Country
+                                        Canada
-                                        Pages
+-44
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-                                        Permalink
-                                        DOI
-                                        Keywords
+                                        International Law; Legal Positivism; International Relations; Nation-State Consent;
Postcolonial Legal Theory; Primitive Accumulation; Historical Materialism; International Jurisprudence
-                                        Abstract
+                                        Orthodox international law (IL)—primarily legal positivism, assumes a horizontal legal order. In adopting a Hobbesian understanding of the international arena, legal positivists assert that no sovereign supersedes that of any individual nation state; therefore, states hold each other legally culpable in a horizontal manner and international legal institutions derive authority from state-consent. However, this document aims to challenge the adherence of orthodox IL to a horizontal legal order by demonstrating how capital effectively acts as a defacto sovereign in the international arena, imposing IL top-down onto states as subordinate legal actors. This claim is corroborated by Antony Anghie’s postcolonial legal assertion that IL has historically served as a Trojan horse for furthering colonial ambitions. Additionally, the Marxian concept of primitive accumulation, which situates colonialism within a larger project of capital accumulation, provides further theoretical backing for this perspective. Thus, this paper posits that the orthodox conception of IL as a horizontal system of equal sovereign states is inadequate, and instead proposes a paradigm in which capital acts as a de-facto sovereign, enforcing a vertical hierarchy undergirding international legal relations. This scholarly analysis will blend Marxian analysis with the empirical historical examples posited by Anghie, offering an in-depth examination of the manner in which colonialism dynamically influences and continually restructures the very fabric of IL. Ultimately, considering the implications of nation-states being subservient to the normative prescriptions of IL, coupled with the understanding that these laws are fundamentally influenced by a larger colonial project, and acknowledging that this colonial project is inherently embedded within a broader structure of capital acquisition as per the theory of primitive accumulation; it can be posited that nationstates, through their subservience to IL, are ultimately guided by capital, thus, do not operate in a horizontal, International arena.