Sinclair: A Shifting Field of Battle: The United Nations and the Struggle Over Postcolonial Statehood

Guy Fiti Sinclair (Victoria Univ. of Wellington - Law) has posted A Shifting Field of Battle: The United Nations and the Struggle Over Postcolonial Statehood (in The Battle for International Law in the Decolonization Era, Jochen von Bernstorff & Philipp Dann eds., forthcoming). Here's the abstract:

This draft chapter argues that decolonization effected a profound transformation in the legal structures and powers of the UN. The chapter traces a series of battles or struggles in the early UN, centred on the nature and functions of the postcolonial states, each of which resulted in innovations in the institutional framework and powers of the UN. In particular, the chapter focuses on three axes of struggle, in relation to the meaning of self-government, the values and practices of modern government, and the import of sovereign equality. These three axes of struggle eventually came together in the invention of a new institutional form, which has become the most visible ‘face’ of the UN today: the peacekeeping operation.