{"id":62303,"date":"2025-04-08T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-04-08T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/?p=62303"},"modified":"2025-04-07T16:07:38","modified_gmt":"2025-04-07T15:07:38","slug":"the-epistemic-location-of-bandung","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/2025\/04\/08\/the-epistemic-location-of-bandung\/","title":{"rendered":"The Epistemic Location of Bandung"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

Encountering a counter question<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we think of international law, which city do we imagine?\u201d \u201cRome?\u201d \u201cOsnabr\u00fcck?\u201d \u201cVersailles?\u201d \u201cParis?\u201d \u201cThe Hague?\u201d \u201cNew York?\u201d \u201cWashington?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This question comes from my interviewing of a set of students studying international law, for a paper<\/a>. With my interview questions, while I was trying to understand the possible difficulties that students and teachers face, that often manifests in their dissonance with international law, a female student from the State of Rajasthan in India said something that haunts me even today. When asked whether she considered a career in international law, she had a counter question for me\u2014 \u201cI can think of a career in a field with which I can associate to or be exposed to. For association or exposure or both, I need to do an internship. If I have to intern at Mumbai [around 1700 kilometers away from her home city], my parents would not allow<\/em>, how can I even think of interning at any of the United Nations Head Offices?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I soul-searched my hollow and superficial frames of \u201cimportant\u201d \u201cscholarly\u201d questions on approaching international law teaching, I was engulfed in the depth of a profound, and organic halt of distance. I felt so small and shallow to be oblivious to not have factored distances and placement of cities of the map <\/em>and of our minds<\/em> in featuring international law. This question was not just a question of city but also of gender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Centering the decentered: Bandung<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With the participating newly independent Asian and African States, the 1955 Asian-African Conference<\/a>\u2014more popular as the Bandung conference\u2014was a foreground in promoting South-South cooperation and anti-imperial new world order. Bandung\u2019s emphasis on political, cultural, social and legal cooperation among Asian-African States reflects through its legacy including the Non-Alignment Movement (political), the 1956 Asian-African Legal Consultative Organization<\/a> (legal), the 1960 UNGA Declaration<\/a> (politico-legal), the 2005 New Asian-African Strategic Partnership<\/a> (politico-economic),  and others. Ever since then, Bandung has remained as political and historical highlight<\/a> in international law, and a crest in the global anti-imperial discourse. Besides its applauded legacies, it displayed an exceptional geo-political location for a conference\u2014an alternative to the Parises, Romes, Berlins, The Hagues<\/em>, and New Yorks<\/em> of the international law world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The choice of situating international institutions and their head offices, international courts, international bank, and international law deliberations and conferences, has been the Euro-American cities<\/a>. From the early Rome to the contemporary The Hague and Geneva, these cities have enveloped disproportionately higher episteme than the rest. Their geo-political relevance catapults their epistemic mileage, that also subtly ensures the debates in international law to be physically<\/em> placed there. Even the alternative approaches to international law, such as the Third World Approaches to International law ( TWAIL)\u2014one that aspires as anti-imperial and anti-hegemonic international society\u2014 is often seen through the 1997 Harvard<\/em> conference<\/a> as its indispensable highlight. From decolonial, anti-imperial, neo imperial to tribal discourse in international law, the scholars, scholarships and academic institutions often, while remaining in these Euro-American cities, adjust their postures <\/em>to zoom in into the Global South.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

International law- relevant cities belong to Europe and America. The placement of international institutions (and \u2018reputed\u2019 academic institutions) in these cities cultivates academic access and corresponding organized circles of recognition, better exchange and the overall higher and dense (density in terms of cite-ability) visibility of scholars and scholarships. The locational advantages of the scholarships from these cities translate, in non-explicit ways, to their epistemic heights\u2014the \u201cstalwarts\u201d. Not much coincidentally, these stalwarts or the protagonists of international law, are the pool from where the \u201cmost highly qualified publicists\u201d are chosen. In (and against) this context, the symbolism of Bandung is noteworthy. While the world of international law gravitates to Paris, Rome, Berlin, Brussels, The Hague, Geneva, and New York, holding a conference that would later become a defining moment, and thereby shifting the limelight\u2014even momentarily\u2014 to any non-European city was bound to disturb many.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bandung \u2014an \u201cextra-Euro-American\u201d place\u2014 bespoke of the courageous locational choice of the \u201cweak\u201d newly independent States. The epistemic positioning of Bandung must enable us to look beyond the centers<\/em>\u2014not only beyond Rome and The Hague, but also beyond Delhi and Dhaka\u2014 because Bandung was not merely a non-European locational choice but also a non-capital choice. Delhi\u2019s and Dhaka\u2019s epistemic positioning within India and Bangladesh respectively as their national capitals is levered on their political relevance. Bandung was an exception even in this respect as it was not the national capital of Indonesia. This dual exceptionality of Bandung\u2019s epistemic positioning makes it a memoir of criticality amid the inabilities of the underrepresented groups pushed away from international law by its distances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Weights of disadvantages and distance<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though patriarchy is omnipresent\u2014 across societies and States in differing shapes and forms\u2014its presence in Asian and African societies is nuanced. This picture shapeshifts when the weight of distance (from international law) is exerted upon it. The constraints exerted by distance and location amplify when combined with the issues of one\u2019s gender. For the women of the third world, these economic and financial burdens (for instance, multiple travels to another city for visa process) that also transcend to political ones, are mutually reinforcing. \u201cWhether I can afford a travel to Lucknow for my visa application to attend a conference in Oxford\u201d is often outweighed by \u201cwhether there is a flight or train connectivity between my city of residence and Lucknow\u201d. The affordability <\/em>or the accessibility<\/em>\u2014 precocious and precursor questions \u2014 arise way before my affordability and accessibility of reaching the Oxford conference should arise, pushing the location of Oxford even further. The superimpositions\u2014of caste, indigeneity and poverty disadvantages\u2014on these affordability and accessibility question are further epistemically limiting in ways that are unexplainable. The digital divide and the resulting access to information add unimaginably multiplied foreclosures for the indigenous, poor, and other minority groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Locational inequalities epistemically limit women, marginalized and disadvantaged castes, tribal and poor scholars in blatant ways and push them even beyond the peripheries of international law. The locational inequalities and corresponding disadvantages when superimposed with issues of gender, indigeneity, caste, and poverty, have rarely been considered \u201cconcern\u201d of international law. It is imperative for the international law agents and actors to ask themselves: \u201cDisadvantages are omnipresent, is international law too<\/em> omnipresent?\u201d And, in that sense, Bandung is a reminder and a call to international law to have pre-emptive frames of structural inequalities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The political, legal and locational subversion of Bandung was revisited in 2023 during the 9th<\/sup> Biennial Conference of the Asian Society of International Law<\/a>. Although that may not be considered spectacular given Bandung\u2019s obviousness to the Asian locational choices\u2019 pool, what would be \u2018extra\u2019 ordinary is when Bandungs, Lucknows, Chittagongs, Jaffnas, <\/em>and Lahores<\/em> will enter the international law locational choices\u2019 pool.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Concluding remarks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Besides revealing and redressing the political, social, cultural, economic and epistemic injustices, international law (and its scholars) as an embodiment of emancipation, must advance decentering of centers and centering of peripheries locationally<\/em> too. The financial incurring of conferences for the Global South, women, and minority groups is seen in the glimpse at the backstage fee-waiver applications and can rarely crawl up to the center-stage of international law scholarships.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bandung, that had audience<\/a> across the seas, is a reminder to look beyond the Euro-American stasis of international law for locational choices. Bandung is a remembrance that the questions of equality and justice are often moored<\/em> to locations. Bandung\u2019s locational symbolism reveals the pretense of universality <\/em>of international law (and its agencies and actors) and calls for the subversion of the idealistic city status in international law.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"author<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\n

Swati Singh Parmar is an Assistant Professor in International Law at Dharmashastra National Law University, Jabalpur, India.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Read more about this and related topics in the\u00a0Asian Journal of International Law.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Encountering a counter question \u201cWhen we think of international law, which city do we imagine?\u201d \u201cRome?\u201d \u201cOsnabr\u00fcck?\u201d \u201cVersailles?\u201d \u201cParis?\u201d \u201cThe Hague?\u201d \u201cNew York?\u201d \u201cWashington?\u201d This question comes from my interviewing of a set of students studying international law, for a paper. With my interview questions, while I was trying to understand the possible difficulties that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":583,"featured_media":62306,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,7],"tags":[10184,10204],"coauthors":[11559],"class_list":["post-62303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law","category-social-sciences","tag-asian-journal-of-international-law","tag-asiansil-voices-asian-journal-of-international-law"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/583"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62303"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62303\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":62307,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62303\/revisions\/62307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62303"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cambridge.org\/core\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=62303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}