When European State Courts Face Post-Colonial Legality: A Private International Law Approach Inspired by Decolonial Theory

Authors

Sandrine Brachotte

Document Type

Article

Abstract

This Essay develops avenues for private international law (PIL) to deal with cases involving the interaction between Western state law and distinctive forms of law that citizens from post-colonial states, especially African states, bring with them to Europe. Laws of the second type, which I call “postcolonial legality,” incorporate both traditional forms of legality usually dubbed “religious” and “customary” law along with state law that originates from colonial law. Drawing on some lessons from decolonial theory, I try to apply to this particular context a “less colonial” PIL theory and subsequent PIL rules and reasoning. The argument builds on the Western scholarship that has shown PIL’s potential to deal with cultural diversity (according to the paradigm of cultural cosmopolitanism) and non-state norms (in the mode of legal pluralism), and identifies what pursuing a decolonial objective would add thereto.

Recommended Citation

Sandrine Brachotte, When European State Courts Face Post-Colonial Legality: A Private International Law Approach Inspired by Decolonial Theory, 72 Buff. L. Rev. (2024).
Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.buffalo.edu/buffalolawreview/vol72/iss5/9