The Imperial Architecture of International Law

An AA Action lecture at the Architectural Association delivered in 2021

The break between past and present is not clean. The many crises we are in could be understood instead as one, many-headed monster, born from centuries of division and resulting oppressions. From environmental destruction and depletion, abusive resource extraction, social injustice and disparities, international relations between the Global North and Global South are inherited from colonialism. But where does international law fit in to this? Given their imperial history, it is not clear that the extension of international institutions, and enforcement of international law are the best way to tackle the injustices of imperialism, and its ecological legacies. Far from being virtuous but weak, international law is powerful because of its role in making the world. Can it be redesigned in a register of decolonisation? This talk will experiment with thinking about the buildings which house the institutions of international law as a way into unpacking the social and ecological inheritance of empire transmitted by international law, and how we might reimagine those forms.