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Hamzić, Vanja (2019) 'Pakistan's Cold War(s) and International Law.' In: Craven, Matthew, Pahuja, Sundhya and Gerry, Simpson, (eds.), International Law and the Cold War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 447-466.

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Abstract

Against a great deal of contemporary Cold War scholarship, this chapter argues that Pakistan’s complex relations with the United States—as well as with the Soviet Union, China, India and Afghanistan—place it firmly at the centre of global Cold War politics. What’s more, as a curious site of many a ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ regional war since its inception, including those occurring well after the supposed end of the global Cold War, Pakistan’s story to date is one of seemingly infinite warfare and political instability. This chapter contends that this story is a reflection of the state’s continuous internal class struggle as well as its early less-than-successful attempts to excel in Cold War international lawfare in which its neighbouring states and the two global superpowers have arguably been more successful. The chapter shows that often-idiosyncratic interventions of Pakistan’s diplomats and international lawyers form a distinct legal and political trajectory, which is at odds with arbitrary, yet ubiquitous, conceptual delineations between ‘cold’ and ‘warm’ wars, in particular in the Global South.

Item Type: Book Chapters
SOAS Departments & Centres: School Research Centres > Centre for the Study of Colonialism, Empire and International Law
School Research Centres > Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies
School Research Centres > Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law
Departments and Subunits > School of Law
Legacy Departments > Faculty of Law and Social Sciences
ISBN: 9781108499187
Copyright Statement: © Cambridge University Press 2020. This is the published version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions.
DOI (Digital Object Identifier): https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108615525.020
Date Deposited: 30 Sep 2017 19:03
URI: https://eprints.soas.ac.uk/id/eprint/24520
Related URLs: (Organisation URL)

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