Antony Anghie

Antony Anghie is a Sri Lankan scholar of international law whose work integrates postcolonial theory, legal history, and international institutions to critique imperial legacies in United Kingdom, France, Spain, and Portugal colonialism and their effects on United Nations law, League of Nations, and contemporary World Bank regimes. His writings engage with figures such as Vittorio Emanuele Orlando, Woodrow Wilson, John Maynard Keynes, and jurists linked to the Permanent Court of International Justice, exploring intersections with International Monetary Fund, World Trade Organization, and International Criminal Court practices. Anghie's scholarship has influenced debates across faculties at institutions like Cambridge University, Harvard University, Yale University, and New York University.

Early life and education

Born in Sri Lanka during a period shaped by post-independence politics connected to leaders like D. S. Senanayake and events such as the Bandaranaike assassination, Anghie received his early schooling amid regional dynamics involving India and Pakistan. He undertook legal training informed by common law traditions tied to the Privy Council and studied law in contexts interacting with legal actors from Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Anghie later pursued advanced legal studies that positioned him in transnational academic networks including Oxford University, Cambridge University, and Columbia University, situating his education at the nexus of debates about the League of Nations mandates system and the emergence of the United Nations Charter.

Academic career and positions

Anghie's academic career has included appointments and visiting positions across prominent universities and research centers such as University of Cambridge, Cambridge Centre for International Law, University of Oxford, Yale Law School, Harvard Law School, Columbia Law School, New York University School of Law, Georgetown University Law Center, University of Chicago, London School of Economics, University of Melbourne, University of Sydney, National University of Singapore, Peking University, University of Hong Kong, Syracuse University, University of Toronto, McGill University, King's College London, SOAS University of London, University of Cape Town, University of Nairobi, University of Buenos Aires, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, University of São Paulo, University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Cornell University, Duke University, Princeton University, Stanford University, University of Pennsylvania, Indiana University Bloomington, Vanderbilt University, University of California, Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles, Rutgers University, Brown University, Michigan State University, Emory University and research institutes such as the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Institute for Advanced Study, and Brookings Institution. He has collaborated with scholars associated with Third World Approaches to International Law and networks including the Asian Society of International Law and the African Association of International Law.

Major works and contributions

Anghie is author of influential monographs and articles that engage with texts like the United Nations Charter, the Treaty of Westphalia, and the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice, the Permanent Court of International Justice, and the International Law Commission. His major book-length works address colonial legalities, empire, and development finance, dialoguing with theorists and figures such as Antonio Gramsci, Frantz Fanon, Edward Said, Homi K. Bhabha, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Michel Foucault, Karl Polanyi, Max Weber, John Locke, Jean Bodin, Immanuel Kant, Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Pufendorf, and jurists from the Privy Council era. Anghie's scholarship examines historical instruments like the Mandates System, the Treaty of Tordesillas, and legal doctrines underpinning colonial administration alongside modern instruments such as investment treaties, bilateral investment treaties, multilateral trade agreements, and structural adjustment policies promoted by International Monetary Fund and World Bank officials.

Legal scholarship and theories

Anghie advanced theoretical frameworks linking colonial histories to contemporary international legal structures via critiques of doctrines such as the doctrine of discovery, terra nullius, and notions of sovereignty deployed in contexts like the Scramble for Africa and the Berlin Conference (1884–85). His interventions intersect with scholarship by Martti Koskenniemi, James Crawford, B.S. Chimni, Jaye Ellis, Christine Chinkin, Duncan Kennedy, Mark Tushnet, Colin Warbrick, Jan Klabbers, Antonio Cassese, Rene Cassin, and John Dugard. Anghie analyzes the role of institutions like the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the European Court of Human Rights, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, and the African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights in adjudicating legacies of imperialism, while engaging with policy arenas involving the United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, World Health Organization, and Food and Agriculture Organization.

Awards and recognition

Anghie's contributions have been acknowledged through academic honors, citations, and invitations from institutions including the American Society of International Law, the British Academy, the Royal Society of Arts, the Academy of Social Sciences, and fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Study and the Max Planck Society. His work is cited in bibliographies alongside laureates and prizewinners such as Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Elinor Ostrom, Paul Krugman, Martha Nussbaum, Noam Chomsky, Seyla Benhabib, Jürgen Habermas, Judith Butler, Slavoj Žižek, and Gayatri Spivak, and his writings inform curricula at law faculties including Harvard Law School, Yale Law School, and New York University School of Law.

Category:Sri Lankan legal scholars Category:International law scholars