Colonialism and the rule of law

The rule of law is a specific historical development of global significance, and one that is inextricable from colonial histories and postcolonial conditions. Proponents throughout the world, including Australia and the Asia-Pacific, point to it as a solution to an array of problems. Critics for their part lambast it as neocolonial and exploitative. In this course, we cover the ground between these poles by turning to the rule of law in its particulars, through study of its relationship to colonialism and post-colonialism in Asia, Australia and beyond. By bringing together extractive colonial and settler colonial cases we aim to identify similarities and differences in the experience of colonialism and the rule of law, and query both the idea of the rule of law as preeminent political ideal for our time as well as contrariwise positions that treat it as nothing other than a fig leaf for colonial domination and oppression. Importantly, we will also look at the continuing legacy of colonial legal and political histories, and the relationship of the rule of law to political and social crises in our time. By taking an historical and cultural approach to the rule of law, we will expand and deepen our understanding of these regions' pasts and present day conditions, as well as adopt an empirically informed perspective on how and why the rule of law is so pervasive. Students will gain new insights into legal history and colonial power in a wide variety of places, including but not limited to Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Singapore, as well as through regional organisations. They will also consider in detail how the interaction between colonialism and the rule of law in Australia is at once distinct from and similar to that of the country’s regional neighbours. This course is jointly taught in the College of Asia and the Pacific and the ANU College of Law. The Department of Political and Social Change is offering the course for students enrolled in the Bachelor of Asian Studies and in Bachelor of Arts in the College of Arts and Social Sciences, and in the ANU Law School for students enrolled in LLB and JD programs. The course will also be open to students in the Bachelor of Arts, and we expect interest from students doing the sociology, politics, development studies and human rights majors in particular. The course is deliberately interdisciplinary in its contents, modes of instruction and methods. It draws on a rich comparative socio-legal, anthropological, sociological and political scientific literature that in recent years has delivered an impressive range of studies on the rule of law in different colonial times and places, and work that ties the empirical contents of the course to overarching concepts of legality, authority and power.