Monumentalities
| Author | Clement Tan |
Monumentalities
Clement Tan*
Theorisations of international law have evolved from functionalism, to
structuralism, and then to post-structuralism, contending at each phase
with the anxieties and opportunities faced by its contemporary thinkers.
This Article attempts to chart these developments in an imaginative way,
illustrating the intellectual parallels between international legal theorists’
conceptualisation of their work with the seemingly disparate field of
architectural theory. Inspiration is drawn from Barthes’ deconstruction of
the Eiffel Tower. His insights will be applied to structuralist and post-
structuralist readings of international law, and this Article culminates
with a confrontation of Koskenniemi’s conceptualisation of international
law as embodying an irreconcilable tension.
I. INTRODUCTION
The League of Nations, being indisputably a permanent contractual
union of independent States having for its principal object the
preservation of peace and protection against aggression, and
possessing a permanent organisation for the realisation of these ends,
is a confederation.
Corbett1
In order to satisfy this great oneiric function, which makes it into a
kind of total monument, the [Eiffel] Tower must escape reason. The
first condition of this victorio us flight is t hat the Tower be an utterly
useless monument.
Barthes2
* Clement Tan obtained h is BA (Law) from Queens’ College, U niversity of Cambridge, and his LLM
in Law, Culture and Society from SOAS, University of London. He wishes to thank his writing
group (Thomas Kemp, Lizzy Willmington, Rosy Mack, Emily Yael-Palmer and Isabella Mighetto)
for their patience, insight and companionship throughout the writing process for this Article.
1 Percy Ellwood Corbett, ‘What is the League of Nations’ (1924) 5 British Yearbo ok of International
Law 119, 147.
2 Roland Barthes, The Eiffel Tower and Other Mythologies (Richard Howard tr, Hill and Wang
1979) 5.
2 Monument alities
www.soaslawjournal.org
There is a tendency amongst international legal theorists to conceptualise
international law in architectural t erms, to visualise it as a concretised edifice in
physical space. Many theorists, when describing international law’s
organisation, even make reference to the existence of an actual ‘architecture of
international law’ itself.3
Gabriella Blum for example, desc ribes legal instit utions and regimes as
‘building blocks’,4 emphasising their relational existence as elemental
components of international law’s ‘overall architecture’.5 Graeme Dinwoodie
speaks of a ‘classical architecture’6 of international intellectual property law as
being built upon ‘basic conceptual and institutional pillars’.7 This architectural
articulation of international law has started to trickle into everyday discourse.
In the United Nations Global Compact’s publication in 2013, titled ‘Architects of
a Better World’, various ‘building blocks’8 necessary for its success were
prominently highlighted.
My intention in this Article is to take this metaphor seriously by examining the
ways in which architecture and international legal theory overlap. It is
contended that their analytical frameworks are not only broadly similar, but
that their developments over time also demonstrate stark parallels. Using Percy
Corbett’s article, ‘What is the League of Nations?’, and Roland Barthes’ essay,
‘The Eiffel Tower’, I aim to construct an overarching narrative within both
disciplines, one that traces an intellectual development away from
functionalism towards structuralism.9
By juxtaposing these developments, I hope to demonstrate how meaningful
insights can be gained about international legal theory, its intellectual history,
and its evolving relationship with the global order. At the end of this Article, I
3 Kal Raustiala, ‘The Architecture of International Cooperation: Transgovernmental Networks
and the Future of International Law’ (2002) 43(1) Virginia Journal of International Law 1;
Gabriella Blum, ‘Bilateralism, Multilateralism, and the Architecture of International Law’ (2008)
49(2) Harvard International Law Journal 323.
4 Blum (n 3) 324.
5 ibid 369.
6 Graeme B Dinwoodie, ‘The Architecture of the International Intellectual Property System’
(2002) 77 Chicago-Kent Law Review 993, 994.
7 ibid.
8 United Nations Global Compact, ‘Architects of a Better World: Building the Post-2015 Business
Engagement Architecture’ (United Nations Global Compact 2013) 1.
9 This Article seeks to chart the theoretical movements away from ‘use’ towards ‘meaning’, and
in this respect explicitly avoids the question as to which of these texts I found the most useful.
In a manner similar to that of structuralist analysis, I focus instead on deriving meaning from
their oppositional relationship.
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