Umut Özsu’s Completing Humanity and the Examination of International Law and Decolonization

Completing Humanity: The International Law of Decolonization, 1960-82 by Umut Özsu lends itself to a lengthy discussion regarding the history of decolonization and the status of international law before, during, and after the emancipation of the ex-colonies.The book is a critical contribution to the academic field.Igives a thorough analysis of the challenges and issues that Third World, newly independent countries faced in developing and furthering legal concepts such as self-determination and the right to permanent sovereignty over natural resources.Through its discussion of international law's structural issues, Özsu examines principles such as structural inequalities, jus cogens, human rights, and marketization, and analyzes how their conceptualization has shaped the status of international law.This review focuses on Chapters one and three, which examine the concept of self-determination in the 1970 Declaration on Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Cooperation among States and the attempts made to bridge the gap in economic development between the North and the South in the Declaration on New International Economic Order.Subsequently, the review will provide a critical discussion of the two chapters aiming to narrow down at specific legal concepts that were discussed inside the book itself.Specifically, the discussion will focus on the book's contribution to our understanding of the relationship between the state as an international actor and concepts such as trade and property which, in turn, shaped the formation of international law.