ABSTRACT
More and more scholars are looking beyond the mere fact of political ‘independence’ as well as the widely discussed neo-colonialism to the epistemological foundations of the colonial state and the interrogation of how international bodies such as the International Criminal Court perpetuate those philosophies. This chapter explores the emerging TWAIL discourses on post-colonialism and international law. Post-colonialism is an area of scholarship that explores the aftermath of European colonisation of other peoples and civilisations and it is employed to interrogate the processes and effects of, and reactions to, this colonisation which continues to date in the form of neo-colonialism. The very notion of development comes to mould perceptions of inadequacy and subalternity against the linear progress narrative that characterises the prevailing approach to development as a way to earn a place in the club of civilised nations.
