As part of the TWAILR symposium on the United Nations Centre for Transnational Corporations (UNCTC), Wanshu Cong reflects on UNCTC analysis of cross-border data flows and what it revealed about the structural asymmetries between global North and South.
Category Archive: TWAILR: Reflections
Guest editors André Dao and Shahd Hammouri introduce a special TWAILR symposium reflecting on the archive and legacy of the United Nations Centre for Transnational Corporations.
Drawing on the tradition of TWAIL engagement with the praxis, Daniel R. Quiroga-Villamarín traces how his liminal identities (between Europeanness and non-Europeanness) have shaped his scholarship as a Latin American researcher situated in Europe while working in the archives in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Veronica Kiang examines the rising demand for gold in technology and its disproportionate effects on West African nations in the Communauté Financière Africaine (CFA) franc zone. In unraveling how imperialism continues to manifest in the “Technocene”, she argues that racial capitalism and extractivist practices function to further entrench enduring colonial hierarchies, as the case of West Africa illustrates.
Hussein Badreddine réflechit à la légalité du blocus maritime de Gaza et l’arraisonnement des navires tentant d’acheminer de l’aide humanitaire au peuple Gazaoui. Badreddine examine la légalité de ces arraisonnements commis par les autorités Israéliennes à la lumière du droit international humanitaire, en considérant à la fois les conflits armés internationaux et les conflits armés non internationaux.
Jessica Elias tackles the gaps limiting the formal international courts in The Hague and explains how people’s tribunals can address them. Reflecting on the Gaza Tribunal, the author argues that this legal space offers a valuable comprehensive approach to the assault on the people of Gaza.
Adil Hasan Khan’s reflection celebrates Antony Anghie’s formative TWAIL text, drawing on Khan’s presentation at the ‘Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law: 20 Years On’ Conference organised by the Laureate Program on Global Corporations and International Law in Naarm/Melbourne on 7 and 8 August 2025.
Fia Hamid-Walker reflects on the transformation of the Balinese legal system under Dutch colonial rule, and argues that it was not merely a shift in legal form but a deliberate act of colonial legal violence, where legal narratives were deployed to undermine Indigenous authorities and impose political domination.
Mohamed Thahir Sulaiman explores how the Global South has challenged mainstream notions of what it means for a state to be specially affected when it comes to customary international law formation. Sulaiman argues that the doctrine of specially affected states can be used to counteract hegemonic international law and amplify the voices of the Global South in shaping customary international law.
Jake Okechukwu Effoduh and Miracle Okumu Mudeyi interrogate the coloniality of AI, the extractive political economy of data, and the structural inequalities embedded in […]