New book examines 'rise of classical legal thought' through experience of South Asia, British Empire

Professor Chaudhry
UMass Law

Professor Faisal Chaudhry has published a book on history and the development of classical legal thought.

South Asia, the British Empire, and the Rise of Classical Legal Thought: Toward a Historical Ontology of Law (2024) is available now from Oxford University Press. Here is the publisher's description:

This book delves into the legal history of colonial governance in South Asia, spanning the period from 1757 to the early 20th century. It traces a notable shift in the way sovereignty, land control, and legal rectification were conceptualized, particularly after 1858. During the early phase of the rule of the East India Company, the focus was on 'the laws' that influenced the administration of justice rather than 'the law' as a comprehensive normative system. The Company's perspective emphasized absolute property rights, particularly concerning land rent, rather than physical control over land. This viewpoint was expressed through the obligation of revenue payment, with property existing somewhat outside the realm of law. This early colonial South Asian legal framework differed significantly from the Anglo-common law tradition, which had already developed a unified and physical concept of property rights as a distinct legal form by the late 18th century. It was only after the transfer of authority from the Company to the British Crown, along with other shifts in the imperial political economy, that the conditions were ripe for 'the law' to emerge as an autonomous and fundamental institutional concept. One of the contributing factors to this transformation was the emergence of classical legal thought. Under Crown rule, two distinct forms of discourse contributed to reshaping the legal ontology around the globalized notion of 'the law' as an independent concept. The book, adopting a historical approach to jurisprudence, categorizes these forms as doctrinal discourse, which could articulate propositions of the law with practical and administrative qualities, and ordinary language discourse, which conveyed ideas about the law, including in the public domain.

Professor Chaudhry is a valued colleague of mine. I admire his critical and historical approach to first-year property, with which he complements my social and economic emphases in teaching torts.

Russians travel in Asia despite, or because of, war

An Aeroflot plane awaits departure in Almaty, Kazakhstan,
earlier this month. EU and U.S. sanctions banned the airline in 2022.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

A joke, belatedly to honor Ukraine Independence Day, August 24.

This summer, traveling in the Caucasus and Central Asia, I crossed a lot of borders. Sometimes back and across again.

I also met a lot of Russians. Most often, we exchanged pleasantries, as if there were nothing going on in the wider world. I didn't want to ask, and they seemed content not to talk about it.

I did meet a number of Russian men who had fled conscription. One fellow, late 20s I estimate, in a craft-beer bar in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, was especially warm company. We never talked directly about Putin's position on Ukraine. But he made clear that he believed Russia's war adventure is socially and economically disastrous for ordinary Russians at home.

Anyway, my friends and I grew accustomed to the questions asked by immigration officials with limited English.

Usually, the border officer asked,

"Occupation?"

"No," a Russian traveler answered.

"Just visiting."

Chinese aid in foreign development, Taiwan's dwindling number of allies warrant Western concern

Honduras severed ties with Taiwan and doubled down on ties with China just days before House Speaker Kevin McCarthy met in California with the president of Taiwan.

The severing of diplomatic relations between Honduras and Taiwan is an important sign for global security, well beyond the bilateral significance. The People's Republic of China (PRC) has been executing a methodical campaign to isolate Taiwan from the world, a potential preliminary step to an assertion of control that would test the U.S. pledge to defend the disputed territory.

Chinese development policy is a fascinating subject; I take it up each year in one hour with my Comparative Law class.  Evidence abounds to support disparate theories on what the PRC means to achieve with its foreign aid packages. From well meaning humanitarian goals to Machiavellian world domination: it's anybody's guess what's being said in the highest levels of Beijing briefings. I'll paste below the reading list my class used this year to get a handle on this wide-ranging sub-subject. The discussion always is the best of the course.

Around the world, I have seen the vast reach of renminbi. The infrastructure projects alone are simply stunning. Chinese flags boast of telecommunication investment in distant and dusty towns in West Africa and South America. Bridges soar in Croatia and Montenegro; dams in Thailand and Sudan. Glassy government buildings adorn capitals such as Windhoek and Harare. And then there are the ports, from Togo to Sri Lanka to Peru. That's just a sampling of what I've seen with my own eyes.

A Dutch friend working in the aid sector in the Middle East was puzzled when I first asked for his appraisal of Chinese objectives. It's obvious, he opined. They just don't say it.

He and I were in the remote Indian Ocean island nation of the Maldives in March, where I witnessed Chinese-funded projects: a shining national museum, a bridge connecting the capital to the airport island across open ocean, and a massive new airport under construction. 

The Sinamalé Bridge, or China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, links capital Malé to Hulhulé Island.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Velana International Airport at left; the new Maldives airport under construction at right.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The Maldives National Museum, Malé, opened in 2010.
RJ Peltz-Steele CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

The list of countries that have severed ties with Taiwan upon PRC quid pro quo has grown so long that it's difficult to track, and countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are well represented. I was in Paraguay last year not long after it asked Taiwan for $1bn to remain friends. Typically of countries in the mix, Paraguay is trying to play both sides for the best deal, which, in the end, probably means just using Taiwan as leverage to get the best deal from the PRC. Heritage reported in late February that Paraguay was one of only 14 remaining countries, then, still maintaining ties with Taiwan. 

Last week, Honduras renounced that club. NPR contextualized the move:

Honduras had asked Taiwan for billions of dollars of aid and compared its proposals with China's, Wu said. About two weeks ago, the Honduran government sought $2.45 billion from Taiwan to build a hospital and a dam, and to write off debts, he added....

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen said her government would not "engage in a meaningless contest of dollar diplomacy with China." ....

For decades China has funneled billions of dollars into investment and infrastructure projects across Latin America. That investment has translated to rising power for China and a growing number of allies.

In Honduras, it has come in the form of construction of a hydroelectric dam project in central Honduras built by the Chinese company SINOHYDRO with about $300 million in Chinese government financing.

Honduras is the ninth diplomatic ally that Taipei has lost to Beijing since the pro-independence Tsai first took office in May 2016.

Taiwan still has ties with Belize, Paraguay and Guatemala in Latin America, and Vatican City. Most of its remaining partners are island nations in the Caribbean and South Pacific, along with Eswatini in southern Africa.

As Reuters put it in a headline yesterday, "US, Taiwan seen powerless to stem island's diplomatic losses in Latin America."

When Taiwan President Tsai Ing-wen met with McCarthy in California, she was on her way back from visiting Belize and Guatemala. Media reports tended to spin the meeting as a show of tough-on-China Republican policy. I rather assumed the view I heard from one commentator, that meeting in California was a way not to meet in Taiwan, thus, not to poke the dragon as Nancy Pelosi did.

Schooled on 1970s détente, I'm not much of an American imperialist, and these days, I'm not much of an American exceptionalist. But I do worry that we will one day wake up to find ourselves a quirky outpost of remnant democracy in a world of purported harmony under authoritarian paternity.

Here's your Comparative Law homework for two hours on law and development, including a discussion of the PRC.

Historical and theoretical:

• John Henry Merryman, Comparative Law and Social Change: On the Origins, Style, Decline & Revival of the Law and Development Movement, 25 Am. J. Comp. L. 457 (1977).

• Jedidiah Kroncke, Law and Development as Anti-Comparative Law, 45 Vand. J. Transnat'l L. 477 (2012).

Policy:

• Nic Cheeseman, Why There's a Case for Giving Foreign Aid to Authoritarian Regimes, The Conversation (Jan. 14, 2019).

Cheeseman here summarizes his remarks at a University of Birmingham debate in 2019. The whole debate is on video on YouTube, so you can watch it if you like (cued to Cheeseman, who spoke first).

PRC:

• Stephen Paduano, China's Investments in Rwanda Raise Familiar Questions About Debt, The Atlantic (Aug. 3, 2019)Deborah Brautigam & Meg Rithmire, The Chinese "Debt Trap" Is a Myth, The Atlantic (Feb. 6, 2021).

• Keith Bradsher, In Global Slowdown, China Holds Sway Over Countries' Fates, N.Y. Times, (Oct. 7, 2022).James McBride, Noah Berman, & Andrew Chatzky, China's Massive Belt and Road Initiative, Council on Foreign Relations (last updated Feb. 2, 2023).

If you'd like to dig into the numbers of Chinese development aid, have a look at the Global China Initiative at Boston University, especially its recent (Jan. 2023) policy brief.

The older BRI exists alongside more recent, if less extravagant, Chinese policies in the Global Security Initiative (GSI) and the Global Development Initiative (GDI).  The GSI and GDI raise analogous questions. If you would like comparable overviews, I recommend Michael Schuman for The Atlantic (July 13, 2022) on the GSI; Joseph Lemoine and Yomna Gaafar for New Atlanticist (Aug. 18, 2022) on the GDI (pro-Western perspective); and Professor Amitrajeet A. Batabyal for The Conversation (Aug. 4, 2022) on the GDI.

If you would like to learn more about the Chinese debt cancellations in Africa mentioned in the N.Y. Times article, there's a good and fairly even-handed article from Voice of America News (Aug. 25, 2022). One thing I have not given you here is any of the abundant statements from Chinese authorities and state-sponsored media defending Chinese policy; you can find them readily online yourself if you wish to get a flavor.

Conclusion:

Engage with this compelling perspective piece authored by a Harvard law student in 2018. Attorney Sabrina Singh is now an associate in the ESG group at Latham & Watkins in New York City.

• Sabrina Singh, Development Versus Anti-Development: Your Choice Matters, Harv. L. & Int'l Dev. Soc'y (May. 13, 2018).
  

A thanks to my Dutch friend (whom I'm not naming for security) for joining the class from the Middle East via Teams to discuss the delivery of humanitarian aid in conflict zones.