Twail and the Genealogy of Sovereignty: Rethinking Bodin, Westphalia and Bandung
Author(s): R.K. Singh & Parantak Yadav
Abstract: This paper re-examines the evolution of sovereignty through the lens of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), challenging its conventional European genealogy. From Jean Bodin’s sixteenth-century conception of absolute power to the Westphalian ideal of juridical equality, sovereignty has been portrayed as a universal legal principle. TWAIL scholarship exposes this narrative as deeply Eurocentric, demonstrating how the modern international legal order was constructed through colonial conquest and the denial of sovereignty to non-European peoples. The paper traces this transformation across three critical moments – Bodin’s absolutism, the Westphalian settlement, and the Bandung Conference of 1955 – showing how each redefined sovereignty’s meaning and reach. Bandung’s anti-imperial solidarity, in particular, marked a pivotal rearticulation of sovereignty as collective emancipation and epistemic justice rather than territorial control. The paper argues for a TWAIL-inspired model of relational sovereignty, grounded in mutual interdependence, peoples’ rights, and decolonial responsibility. By uncovering sovereignty’s imperial foundations and reimagining its emancipatory potential, the study contributes to ongoing efforts to de-centre Eurocentric legal thought and to envision an international order rooted in equality, solidarity, and global justice.
Keywords: TWAIL, Sovereignty, Decolonisation, Westphalia, Bandung, Imperialism
DOI: doi.org/10.65719/RC.3.2.2025.058
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