Kailash Srinivasan

Revision of General Plan of Dissertation

It has dawned on me while writing that the original plan of the dissertation would essentially
take three volumes to actually execute. I’ve narrowed it down given time-constraints based on
(a) what I can feasibly do (b) what I think would be the easiest to sell political scientists on. The
rest can be for the rest of my career.

PLAN:

The first three chapters need to be physically written down but at content-level are stable. But,
I do need to reorder sections

Chapter 1: The Puzzle and Premises

(1) the parts of Chapter 2 where I argue, following Pashukanis, that “the legal relation takes
precedent over the legal norm” should be in Chapter 1. It’s the very first assumption.
(2) I think but I’m not sure but I put the section I sent yesterday “What Should The Validity
Criterion Be Able To Explain?” in Chapter 1.
(3) The sections of Chapter 1 labelled “The Capital Theory of International Law” and
“International Law is the Political Form of Commodity-Exchange Society.” I think I’ve stated
my answer too quickly.

Chapter 2: The Literature Review

Nothing changes, just need to add the final two sections on ‘Marxism’ and ‘CLS’

Chapter 3: Capital and Subject: The Capital-Theory of International Law

This is what I’m working on now.

This is where I’m changing what I originally had planned. It was going to be obligation, custom,
jus cogens etc. but doing all that competently is going to take familiarity with multiple bodies of
law.

Chapter 4: International Legal-Form to International Legal Order

I will go from International Legal-Form to International Legal Order through immanent critique
of Carl Schmitt’s concept of Nomos.

Chapter 5: Fundamental Principles of the International Legal Order

These are the basic ordering principles that follow from the concept of ‘international legal
order’: private property, sovereignty, anarchy and sanction (in that order). Empirical
illustrations.

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Kailash Srinivasan

Chapter 6: Historical Evolution

I mention in Chapter 1. The premise is that international law at its very origins is not
synonymous with the capitalist mode of production but articulates the relationship between an
emerging capitalism (in early modern England) and non-capitalist modes of production. At it
origins, international law is based on two ‘exchange-principles’ one capitalist and the other
non-capitalist but the articulation is ‘biased’, it is the means through which capital comes to
colonize the rest. It draws heavily upon Arno Mayer’s The Persistence of the Ancien Regime:
Europe to the Great War and Wilhelm Grewe’s The Epochs of International Law.

Chapter 7: Case Studies

I was thinking either Universal Jurisdiction or one aspect of Laws of War.

Chapter 8: Conclusion

Sketch out what work would still need to be done but cannot within the space of the
dissertation. What kind of ‘empirical research program’ could be undertaken. What other
concepts still in need of derivation.

Appendix 1: Justification for Derivation

The justification of derivation and common criticisms is very technically Marxist and I want to
leave the substantial body of the dissertation as little ‘in the Marxist weeds’ as possible.