Introduction

1.‘International law has become important’

2. Materialism and dialectics

3. The structure of the book

Chapter One:‘The Vanishing Point of Jurisprudence’：International Law in Mainstream Theory

1. Beyond definition

2. Classic writers and debates

2.1. Disentangling denial

2.1.1. The will of the sovereign：Austin

2.1.2. The triumph of politics：Morgenthau

2.1.3. A third way？ Carl Schmitt

2.2. Monism，dualism，positivism，naturalism

2.3. The high point of formalism：Kelsen

2.4. From rules to process：McDougal-Lasswell

Chapter Two：Dissident Theories：Critical Legal Studies and Historical Materialism

1. Beyond pragmatism

2. Koskenniemi and the contradictions of liberalism

3. Marxism and international law

3.1. The inadequacies of Soviet theory

3.2. Radicalism with rules：B.S.Chimni

Chapter Three：For Pashukanis：An Exposition and Defence of the Commodity-Form Theory of Law

1. The rise and fall of Pashukanis

2. The General Theory of Law and Marxism

2.1. Marxist method and the failure of alternative theories

2.1.1. Law as ideology

2.1.2. Law as iniquitous content

2.2. From the commodity form to the legal form

2.2.1. A note on history and logic

2.3. The withering away of law

3.Critiques and reconstructions

4.The relevance for international legal scholarship

Chapter Four：Coercion and the Legal Form：Politics，（International） Law and the State

1.The problem of politics

2.Pashukanis and state-derivation theory

3.（International） Law and the contingency of the state

4.（International） Law，politics and violence

4.1.Form，content，economics and politics in international law

4.2.The unlikely marriage of Pashukanis and McDougal

5.Problems

6.The violence of the legal form

Chapter Five：States，Markets and the Sea：Issues in the History of International Law

1.The invisibility of history

2.Origins and prehistory：an eternity of international law？

2.1.Pre-colonial theory：the non-Western birth of international law？

3.Colonialism and international law：the birth of a new order

3.1.Amity lines：colonialism beyond law’s boundaries

4.The development of sovereignty：from politics to abstraction

4.1.Absolute ownership and Roman law

5.From maritime law to international law

5.1.Early codes：the mercantile maritime roots of international law

5.2.Lineages of the mercantilist state

5.2.1.The Navigation Acts

5.2.2.The East India Companies

5.2.3.The freedom of the seas：a dissident interpretation

5.3.Excursus：mercantilism and the transition to capitalism

5.4.Categories and dialectics

Chapter Six：Imperialism，Sovereignty and International Law

1.The nature of the relation

1.1.Specificity versus breadth

2.The crisis of mercantile colonialism

2.1.The imperialism of recognition

3.Ad-hoc legality in the nineteenth century

3.1.Positivism and its sources

3.2.‘Civilisation’：a counterintuitive materialist analysis

3.3.Into Africa

4.The Berlin Conference and the ’scramble for Africa’

4.1.Mandates，colonies and sovereignty：tendencies and countertendencies

5.The empire of sovereignty

5.1.The international law of freedom？

6.New world order

6.1.Excursus：the Gulf War

6.2.The limits of legalistic opposition

7.The universality of legalism

7.1.Politics and the end of the rule

7.2.Force and law

8.Serving two masters：the imperialism of international law

Conclusion：Against the Rule of Law

1.Ideas，ideology and contestation

2.The rule of law’s new advocates

2.1.From war to policing？

3.Against the rule of law

4.The future of the theory

Appendix：Pashukanis on International Law

Bibliography

Index