Nation and Class Subjectivity in International Law and Its Institutions in the Middle East (1919-1939)
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Nation and Class Subjectivity in International Law and its Institutions in the Middle East (1919-1939) by Mai Taha A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Juridical Science (SJD) Faculty of Law University of Toronto © Copyright by Mai Taha 2015 Nation and Class Subjectivity in International Law and its Institutions in the Middle East (1919-1939) Mai Taha Doctor of Juridical Science Faculty of Law University of Toronto 2015 Abstract This dissertation makes visible the neglected economic dimensions of the interventions by interwar international institutions in three cases: the League of Nations’ intervention in the dispute between Turkey and the French Mandate for Syria and the Lebanon over the province of Alexandretta (1936), the dispute between Turkey and the British Mandate of Iraq over the province of Mosul (1925), and the technical assistance missions of the International Labour Organization (ILO) to Egypt (1931). To different degrees, international legal institutions were involved in nation-building projects in the interwar Middle East, over-determining “the problem of nationalities” at the expense of other factors. These three episodes problematize the absence of “class” as an analytical category in both critical international legal scholarship and the actual politics of international institutions, and similarly the inattention to the struggle over capital that operated beneath the legal mechanisms used by the League and the ILO. They show the specificities of the Arab semi-periphery that reflected the nationalist anger and revolutionary anti-colonialism of the periphery and yet served, at the same time, as ideal places for capital accumulation and foreign investments from the core countries. Therefore, the episodes presented in this dissertation illuminate the ways in which class society and capital accumulation together ii with national self-determination were constitutive of the new interwar global order imagined for the semi-periphery by international legal institutions. iii For Sohier Megahed and the memory of Amal Rabie iv Acknowledgments My utmost thanks go to my supervisor, Karen Knop, and members of the committee, Jens Hanssen and Kerry Rittich. Without the agonizing over the argument, the ideas, the structure, the organization and every detail of the dissertation with Karen, I would not have made it. I cannot thank her enough for her careful reading and detailed feedback on my work. My heartfelt thanks also go to Jens who supported me in every step of this process. His patience in reading draft after draft, insights and friendship were invaluable. And my sincerest thanks go to Kerry who always asked the hard questions and helped make this dissertation as astute as I could make of it. Her help and support were indispensible. I thank Nehal Bhuta who provided excellent guidance at the early stages of this project. I am indebted for my internal examiner, Patrick Macklem, and external examiner, Antony Anghie. I thank them for their careful and close reading of my dissertation. Their suggestions and ideas on how to take this project further were incredibly valuable. My deepest thanks also go to Peer Zumbansen. Peer created a collegial intellectual space in Toronto, which continued to be a source of inspiration and enjoyment throughout my doctoral years. I have learned tremendously from him. I have benefited from many conversations with colleagues and friends from the Faculty of Law at the University of Toronto, Osgoode Hall Law School and other fellow travelers. I thank Faisal Bhaba, Honor Brabazon, Irina Ceric, Michael Fakhri, Alejandro Lorite, Mazen Masri, Hélene Mayrand, Tanya Monforte, Claire Mumme, Michael Nesbitt, Obi Okafor, Akbar Rasulov, Owen Taylor, Sujith Xavier and Robert Wai. I thank in particular, Amar Bhatia, Robert Knox and Umut Özsu for their friendship and generosity in reading and commenting on my work throughout the years. My thanks also go to Abdelaziz Ezzelarab and Hani Sayed whom I continue to learn from. My warmest thanks and love go to my family: Amina Saleh, Amr Taha, Ahmed Taha and Sohier Megahed. I cannot thank them enough for their love and unconditional support throughout these past years. v This dissertation would have not been possible without the friendship and love of Dina El Ghandour, Niloofar Golkar, Dalia Ibrahim, Shourideh Molavi, Mohammad Mossallam, Heba Rabie and Ola El Shawarby. Many thanks go to Bahaa Ezzelarab who supported this project from the beginning. I also thank Yasmine Aly, Omar Cheta, Sarah El-Kazzaz, Alex Levant, Ladan Mehranvar and Rania Salem who were kindred spirits throughout this process. The primary materials used here were gathered with the help of the archivists at the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO) archives in Geneva. I thank Mr. Jacques Oberson for his invaluable assistance in finding all the materials on my topic from the League’s archive. I also thank Mr. Remo Becci for taking the time to answer all my questions about the history of the ILO and for his generous help in gathering the materials needed from the ILO archive. Finally, I thank Osgoode Hall Law School for providing me with a supportive intellectual home during my last year of the SJD. vi Table of Contents Acknowledgments ................................................................................................................................. v Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................ vii Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 1 1 The Three Cases ............................................................................................................................. 3 2 The Cases in Context: Treaties, Ruptures and Collapses .................................................. 5 3 Outline of the Arguments and Broader Intervention ........................................................ 7 3.1 Countering the Cultural Turn in Critical International Law: Incorporating Class and Capital ................................................................................................................................................................. 7 3.2 Emancipatory Legal Categories Don’t Emancipate: Nation and Class ................................ 9 3.3 Between Centre and Periphery: Exporting European Legal Technologies ...................... 9 4 Organization of the Dissertation ............................................................................................ 10 5 International Law’s Geneva Archive: Omissions, Additions and Fictions ................ 12 5.1 The Politics of Legal Archives: Exclusion and Resistance .................................................... 12 5.2 The Politics of Access ........................................................................................................................ 13 5.3 The Politics of Incompleteness and Translation ..................................................................... 14 Chapter 1 The Discontents of Critical International Law and the Creation Stories of the League of Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO) ....................... 16 1 Critical International Law Narrates Interwar Legal Technologies ............................. 17 1.1 The Critical Stream ............................................................................................................................ 18 1.1.1 Rousseauian Self-determination versus Hobbesian Self-determination .............................. 18 1.1.2 Nineteenth-Century Legal Positivism and the New Modernist International Law .......... 20 1.1.3 Self-Determination… Between the “Normal” and the “State of Exception” ......................... 22 1.1.4 “Impure” Sociology and “Pure” Law ..................................................................................................... 24 1.2 Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) ..................................................... 27 1.3 Summary ............................................................................................................................................... 35 2 International Legal Institutions and the Interwar Period ............................................. 37 2.1 The League of Nations ...................................................................................................................... 37 2.2 The International Labour Organization ..................................................................................... 43 vii 3 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................................... 50 Chapter 2 Projects of Nation-Building in the Sanjak of Alexandretta: The League of Nations’ National Confessional Program and the Search for “Authentic” Ethnicity .... 51 1 The Prelude: Managing “Ethnic” Difference in the Late Ottoman Empire ............... 55 2 Self-Determination for the “Semi-Periphery” as Nation-Building .............................. 57 3 Forging New National Identities: the Alexandretta File at the League of Nations . 62 3.1 The Negotiation Sessions ................................................................................................................ 67 3.2 Sessions of Nation-building in Geneva .......................................................................................