Reading ‘Class’ in International Law
| Published date | 01 October 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663916643754 |
| Author | Mai Taha |
| Date | 01 October 2016 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Reading ‘Class’ in
International Law: The
Labor Question in
Interwar Egypt
Mai Taha
Harvard University, USA
Abstract
While critical histories of international law on the interwar period have focused pri-
marily on nationalism, early conceptions of the right to self-determination, and the
dynamic of cultural difference, this article brings to bear another dimension that shaped
interwar governmentality of legal institutions, namely class subjectivity. How did inter-
national institutions manage ‘class’ in a colonial context and at the height of the ‘self-
determination talk’ of the interwar period? Through this inquiry, I study the details of the
concrete practices of the International Labor Organization (ILO) in one of its earlier
missions sent to Egypt in the 1930s. The claimed success of the ILO’s intervention hinged
upon shaping a new politics of expertise through law that divided a fluid and hybrid
sphere of social activity into rigid and separate domains: the technical and the political.
Keywords
Class in International Law, Colonialism, Labour Law, International Labour Organization,
Egypt
I am afraid you will find it necessary to bring London clothes and top hats, and full evening
dress. If you have any decorations, you might bring them as well, in case you attend official
dinners. (Letter from Graves, 1931b)
Mr. R. M. Graves, the distinguished British colonial officer stationed in Cairo and
deputy at the British-run Department of the Egyptian Ministry of Interior, was the
Corresponding author:
Mai Taha, Harvard University, 1545 Massachusetts Avenue, Langdell 175, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA.
Email: mtaha@law.harvard.edu
Social & Legal Studies
2016, Vol. 25(5) 567–589
ªThe Author(s) 2016
Reprints and permission:
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663916643754
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main protagonist in the story of the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) tech-
nical assistance mission to Egypt in 1931. This is an extract from a letter sent by Mr.
Graves, writing as the director of the newly created Egyptian Labour Office, to
Stephen Lawford Childs, the second man in the Cabinet of the ILO’s Director Harold
Butler in the 1930s. It was part of a series of letters sent by Graves to prepare Butler
and Childs for their impending mission to Cairo. The mission was to be technical and
advisory and aimed at drafting a new labor code. While the spectacle of official
dinners of top hats and London clothes was part of the mission, the two ILO officials
would also follow any ‘riots or revolutions’, should they occur during their stay from
their balcony at the Continental Hotel overlooking the famous Opera Square, and
where T.E. Lawrence lodged during the Great War. But the political barometer at the
time registered as ‘set fair’ or ‘nothing doing’, the two ILO officials would probably
not witness ‘any sensation’ during their mission (Letter from Graves, 1931a). Butler
and Childs would come to Egypt, stay at a prime spot in downtown Cairo, attend
formal dinners with government officials and distinguished industrialists, and on
occasion meet with trade union leaders. They would write a report about the labor
conditions in the country, which would lay the groundwork for a new labor code. The
narrative in the files of the ILO’s archive in Geneva is as follows: the mission of the
two labor technicians was a complete success. Not only did the ILO’s intervention
lead to a new labor code, but it also ended with Egypt’s membership in the ILO as an
equal member in the new community of nations after the war. It also steered labor
politics toward the path of tripartism – the ILO’s novel system of representation where
a state’s delegation is comprised of representatives from the government, trade
unions, and employers’ associations.
Through tracing the networks of relationships that developed primarily through R.
M. Graves but also Prime Minister Sidqi Pasha, and Harold Butler, I study the micro
politics of the ILO’s intervention in 1930s Egypt. The claimed success of the inter-
vention hinged upon shaping a new politics of expertise through law that divided a
fluid and hybrid sphere of social activity into rigid and separate domains: the tech-
nical and the political. The ILO’s mission categorized labor politics in Egypt as an
area of technical expertise. This process of streamlining employer–labor relations
entailed both disciplining and oversight. It entailed law. It also entailed rights. In
fact, the ILO’s intervention helped establish the basis for fundamental labor rights,
such as workers’ compensation, limiting the hours of work, and the regulation of
child labor. It laid down the foundations for a new liberal legal system of basic
workers’ rights considered as central tenets of any modern and independent state.
The depoliticization of work organically developed with a new liberal legal system
that would function efficiently in a semicolonial context. In a sense, the ILO was
standing up to its initial postwar promise of social reform through law, while main-
taining oversight on class and labor politics. Its intervention in Egypt was one of the
ILO’s early experiments of the technicalization of crisis and what we call today
economic global governance. The success of the mission depended on creating a new
labor legal system that would not only please the industrialists by tempering labor
militancy but also be consistent with the ILO’s own policy of workers’ containment
in the early years of the red scare.
568 Social & Legal Studies 25(5)
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