{"id":4535,"date":"2015-07-01T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2015-07-01T07:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.voelkerrechtsblog.org\/articles\/you-cant-be-neutral-on-a-moving-train\/"},"modified":"2020-12-09T13:46:12","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T12:46:12","slug":"you-cant-be-neutral-on-a-moving-train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/you-cant-be-neutral-on-a-moving-train\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cYou can\u2019t be neutral on a moving train\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Conference symposium “Rule of law goes global”<\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cThe rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern blacks did, as antiwar protesters did\u201d. In his autobiography \u201cYou can\u2019t be neutral on a moving train<\/a>\u201d, American historian and activist Howard Zinn confronts\u00a0us with this\u00a0scathing\u00a0critique of one of the great legal and political ideas of our time.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Zinn, a protagonist of the \u201chistory from below\u201d movement and author of the widely read \u201cPeople\u2019s History of the United States<\/a>\u201d, mainstream accounts of the rule of law as a neutral system of rules do not adequately reflect subaltern experiences of the law. Likewise, the detached and objectified position implicit in many invocations of the rule of law is not his personal stance: Once the train starts moving on the journey of life in which events take fatal routes, you can\u2019t be neutral because that means submitting to\u00a0your fate.<\/p>\n

Still, for better or worse, the rule of law, Rechtsstaat, Etat de droit, has become a key language and driver of legal globalization. National legal systems around the world recognize it as a general principle; it has become a mantra in international diplomacy and nourishes a whole industry promoting \u201crule of law reforms\u201d; and it is routinely invoked as a principle governing international relations and international institutions. The rule of international<\/em> law<\/em> is thus part of a global discourse that transcends legal orders and levels of governance.<\/p>\n

Rule of Law goes global \u2013 the conference and symposium <\/strong><\/p>\n

This global approach to rule of law is at the heart of this week\u2019s online symposium and conference \u201cRule of law goes global\u201d. The conference is organized by our cooperation partner, the journal \u201cLaw and Politics in Asia, Africa and Latin America<\/a>\u201d, which holds its annual gathering from 3-4 July in Potsdam. The journal has a longstanding tradition of reflecting on the rule of law in the Global South, both in national and international law. This week\u2019s conference will address the rule of law in national legal systems in Latin America and India; bilateral rule of law promotion in Bangladesh and Africa; the rule of human rights law in development; and rule of law in international institutions like the UN and the World Bank. The full program can be accessed here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Our online symposium will take some of these discussions to the blogosphere. Conference speakers will present their arguments on this blog in the coming days, and we encourage our readers to join the virtual debate. Posts in this series can be accessed here<\/a>.<\/a><\/strong><\/em>\u00a0Likewise, readers\u00a0are welcome to join the discussion in Potsdam, including the keynote lecture\u00a0\u201cLaw as relay in Latin America\u201d<\/a> on Friday evening. In this way, our symposium attempts to capture the spirit of some of the rule of law debates in and between the North and the South.<\/p>\n

In these global rule of law debates, Howard Zinn\u2019s critique will spark controversy among international lawyers, too. As\u00a0the South is rising<\/a>, does the rule of law maintain things as they are? Do new powers like India, China and Brazil, or new social movements in the South, invoke arguments along Zinn\u2019s line to bring about change in international law, too? Can we hear the subaltern speak in the rule of law discourse? And how neutral can the rule of law be in a postcolonial world? As lawyers grapple with these questions, rapper Vinnie Paz has already given\u00a0Zinn a\u00a0(post)colonial spin: Since Columbus \u201cdiscovered\u201d America,\u00a0\u201cyou can\u2019t be neutral on a moving train<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michael Riegner<\/a>, Humboldt University Berlin and editorial board V\u00f6lkerrechtsblog.<\/em><\/p>\n

This post kicks off our conference symposium \u201cRule of law goes global\u201d. The other posts in this series can be accessed here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

Cite as: Michael Riegner, \u201c’You can\u2019t be neutral on a moving train’\u201d,\u00a0V\u00f6lkerrechtsblog<\/span><\/em>,\u00a01 July 2015, doi:10.17176\/20170919-175150.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Conference symposium “Rule of law goes global” \u201cThe rule of law maintains things as they are. Therefore, to begin the process of change, to stop a war, to establish justice, it may be necessary to break the law, to commit acts of civil disobedience, as Southern blacks did, as antiwar protesters did\u201d. In his autobiography […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6639],"tags":[],"authors":[3574],"article-categories":[3572],"doi":[3918],"class_list":["post-4535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","authors-michael-riegner","article-categories-symposium","doi-10-17176-20170919-175150"],"acf":{"subline":""},"meta_box":{"doi":"10.17176\/20170919-175150"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4535"},{"taxonomy":"authors","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/authors?post=4535"},{"taxonomy":"article-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/article-categories?post=4535"},{"taxonomy":"doi","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/doi?post=4535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}