In 'Re-Situating Utopia' Matthew Nicholson argues that international law and international legal theory are dominated by a 'blueprint' utopianism that presents international law as the means of achieving a better global future. Contesting the dominance of this blueprintism, Nicholson argues that this approach makes international law into what philosopher Louis Marin describes as a "degenerate utopia"--a fantastical means of trapping thought and practice within contemporary social and political conditions, blocking any possibility that those conditions might be transcended. As an alternative, Nicholson argues for an iconoclastic international legal utopianism--Utopia not as a 'blueprint' for a better future, operating within the confines of existing social and political reality, but as a means of seeking to negate and exit from that reality--as the only way to maintain the idea that international law offers a path towards a truly better future.
Nicholson makes three interconnected arguments concerning utopian international legal thought. First, he argues that international law and international legal theory are dominated by a "blueprint" utopianism that presents international law as the means of achieving a better global future. Second, he argues that this blueprinting traps thought and practice within contemporary social and political conditions, blocking any possibility for transcending them. Third, he argues for an iconoclastic international legal utopianism as a way to negate and exit from existing reality and move toward a better one. Annotation ©2020 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)
In Re-Situating Utopia Matthew Nicholson challenges contemporary understandings of the place of utopianism in international law, promoting the value of an iconoclastic international legal utopianism that seeks to transcend the boundaries of contemporary reality.
