Southern Perspectives on International Law (SPIL)
The Southern Perspectives on International Law (SPIL) research program is situated within a global context increasingly marked by the contestation of the foundations, uses, and power structures of contemporary international law. Historically conceived, formulated, and institutionalized by actors from the Global North, international law is now subject to growing processes of appropriation, contestation, and redefinition by states and actors from the Global South—understood as those sharing historical experiences of marginalization within global governance systems.
Far from being passive recipients of international norms, these actors actively mobilize international law as a legitimate language of claim-making, protest, and political action. They engage with its institutions, dispute settlement mechanisms, and normative frameworks to assert their presence, defend their interests, and contribute to the reconfiguration of the international order established since the end of World War II.
In the economic and financial domains, neoliberal globalization has produced a dense normative framework shaping North–South relations through trade, investment, and market regulation. In response, Global South states are developing legal strategies aimed at reconciling integration into the international legal order with the assertion of economic sovereignty and the promotion of alternative regional models, particularly in Africa—such as the BRVM, ASEA, and the AfCFTA.
This program addresses a scientific and institutional need to develop a critical, situated, and interdisciplinary analysis of international law—one that is attentive to power dynamics, legal practices, and perspectives emerging from the peripheries of the global system. It fully aligns with the strategic orientations of the FGSES and AIRESS by promoting research grounded in Global South realities, open to interdisciplinarity, and oriented toward contemporary challenges in global governance.
Overall Objectives
- To explore the ways in which Global South states appropriate, contest, and redefine international law.
- To understand the practices and discourses that mobilize law as a tool of legitimacy, action, and transformation within the international system.
- To analyze international law as a field of power, norms, and social practices.
- To examine the reconfiguration of international economic law and regulation through regional initiatives and legal sovereignty strategies of the Global South.
- To contribute to a critical and situated understanding of international law, grounded in knowledge, experiences, and perspectives from the peripheries of the global system.
Research Topics
Axis 1: Theories and Practices of International Law from the Global South
Axis 2: Democracy and Human Rights
Axis 3: Environmental and Climate Justice
Axis 4: Economic and Financial Regulation
