Browsing by Author "McBain, Gordon Connor"

This thesis considers the question of international law’s fragmentation; specifically, it analyses two discursive responses to this phenomenon that have emerged within academic international legal studies - global constitutionalism and critical constitutionalism. In the introductory chapter, the thesis begins by outlining what the fragmentation of international law is, both in its discursive and non-discursive parameters. The thesis analyses global constitutionalism and critical constitutionalism using a form of ‘ideology critique’; the second chapter outlines the contours of this style. Chapter 3 is a framing exercise and briefly introduces Global Constitutionalism and Critical Constitutionalism as well as the distinctions between the two. In the fourth chapter, the form of ideology critique discussed in chapter 2 is applied to Global Constitutionalism. Specifically, this chapter discusses two subjects created within global constitutionalist discourse – the post-imperial subject and the market citizen subject – and why each is ideologically problematic. Chapter 5 considers the oeuvre of Martti Koskenniemi as an example of Critical Constitutionalism. It first sketches a brief intellectual history of Koskenniemi’s scholarly project before going on to analyse the critical subject created within his ‘Culture of Formalism’. The final chapter offers some concluding thoughts on fragmentation and the two discursive formations considered.