The article examines investment treaty arbitration through the lens of coloniality, arguing that the regime remains deeply embedded in historical structures of colonial expansion and domination. Drawing on the concepts of the coloniality of power, being, and knowledge, it explores how investment treaty arbitration reproduces Eurocentric hierarchies in its institutional design, epistemic foundations, and decision-making practices. The analysis focuses on three interrelated dimensions: the hegemonic origins of investment treaties and investor-state dispute settlement, the racialized and Eurocentric structure of arbitral decision-making, and the marginalization of Indigenous peoples and non-Western epistemologies. Through selected arbitral awards, the article demonstrates how investment treaty arbitration privileges investor interests, reinforces North–South asymmetries, and renders alternative worldviews largely invisible. It argues that the regime not only reflects but also reproduces forms of colonial domination by defining who may participate, whose knowledge is recognized, and which interests merit protection. The article concludes by advocating a decolonial and pluriversal reorientation of investment treaty arbitration—one that embraces epistemic diversity, fosters greater inclusion of affected communities, and advances a more balanced conception of justice beyond the narrow imperatives of the capital code.
On 4 September 2022, the Chilean people rejected the new Constitution draft proposed by the Constitutional Convention. The constitutional provisions that dealt with water were an expression of the political project of many members within the Convention, who belonged to regional and territorial movements, and who were facing shortages and uncertainties regarding their access to water. The drafting of the Constitutional Convention thus became their site of resistance against the established system of privatized water governance, which they sought to eliminate. However, the modifications of this system faced the challenge of overcoming law’s aversion to transformative change, hindering the chances of emancipation. In this article, we argue that the very nature of a constituent body forces drafters to consider two sets of issues that are crucial for the implementation of such changes. These are issues of legal design (the scope and timing of legal change at hand) and issues of legal infrastructure (the ability of a constitutional reform to ‘fit’ within the complete set of legal rules which could be affected by the proposed reform). The paper shows that both sets of issues could be critical for the efficacy, acceptance, and legitimacy of a proposed constitutional reform.
The March 2025 detention of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte under an ICC arrest warrant marks an unprecedented legal rupture, yet its significance extends far beyond individual prosecution. The Duterte case exposes how global security infrastructures, instrumental sovereignty, and oligarchic legality co-produce authoritarian impunity. Using Duterte’s drug war as a paradigmatic case, the article develops four key arguments. First, violent narcotic governance in the Philippines was sustained by transnational counterterrorism alliances, legal security frameworks, and strategic silence from key partners. Second, Duterte’s sovereignty rhetoric functioned as political stagecraft that concealed dependence while resisting external scrutiny, preserving U.S. military ties and courting Chinese finance. Third, the ICC should be read not only as a tribunal but as a moral archive: a site that names atrocity, preserves counter-memory, and affirms victims’ and survivors’ dignity when domestic institutions failed to do so. Fourth, the article advances “radical accountability,” a survivor-centered approach that links truth-telling and recognition to reparations, institutional redesign, and redistribution. Acknowledging the Court’s selectivity, including the importance of consistent treatment in the case of Palestine, the article shows how archival naming can still be mobilized to disrupt impunity and to strengthen local justice claims. Framed at the intersection of critical legal theory, international relations, and postcolonial studies, the article reconceives accountability as an ongoing, emancipatory struggle against the systemic and transnational architecture that makes mass disposability appear lawful.
This article examines the 5-peso banknote of 1922 from the Bank of Guatemala, printed by Waterlow & Sons, as an iconographic anomaly that replaces a locomotive with a transatlantic steamship, breaking with the bank's designs. Through semiotic analysis (Lotman, 1990) and iconographic coding of 10 Guatemalan banknotes (1874-1945), it explores its postcolonial symbolism. Grounded in money theories (Helleiner, 2003) and postcoloniality (Mignolo, 2011), the study contrasts the banknote with other Guatemalan and regional designs, highlighting its transnational projection. The findings contribute to numismatics and economic history, illuminating tensions between the local and the global.
This article examines the military iconography of civic coinage from Aelia Capitolina and Caesarea Maritima (1st-3rd c. CE), exploring how coin imagery expressed imperial power and local identity in Roman Palestine. Drawing on 988 specimens from 168 archaeological sites in Israel, the study identifies patterns in military symbols-standards, eagles, ships, and militarised deities-to contextualise their meanings within broader political and historical frameworks. Caesarea's issues emphasised imperial legitimacy and loyalty through legionary emblems, while Aelia Capitolina's reaffirmed Roman control after the Jewish revolts. Coin distribution followed Roman roads and military centres, suggesting that circulation also conveyed ideology.
