SUBALTERNITY AND INTERNATIONAL-LAW - THE PROBLEMS OF GLOBAL COMMUNITYAND THE INCOMMENSURABILITY OF DIFFERENCE

This article draws on the work of the Indian Subaltern Studies collect ive to explore the possibilities for imagining processes whereby non-d ominant, non-elite, subaltern individuals and groupings might particip ate as subjects of international law. It suggests that the decolonizat ion agenda of the UN Charter has repeated imperialism, albeit with a n ew legal and moral appearance, in the European production of the postc olonial nation-state. Parallels are drawn between the G77's strategy t o counter European hegemony through the promotion of a New World Econo mic Order and the struggle of the Indian nationalists for independence . In both endeavours, European knowledge systems were uncritically emb raced, and, as a result, subaltern experience incommensurable with the European imagination was silenced. It is suggested that the post-Cold War narratives of global democratization create new opportunities for contesting subaltern erasure, and some strategies for developing alte rnative practices, suggested by Subaltern Studies analyses, are canvas sed.