Abstract:
This Article outlines six distinct visions of just world order reflected in recent academic and political discourse in India. These perspectives may be designated as establishment, left, Dalit, subaltern, anti-modernist, and spiritual. Each of these perspectives offers a certain understanding of the state, society, globalization, and international institutions. These different perspectives, in the absence of any systematic and concerted “new thinking” in the literature on international law and institutions, are germane to understanding the response of the Indian state and people to issues relating to globalization, international law, and international institutions. It is also important to turn to these perspectives because both the globalization process and the growing role of international law and institutions have compelled political forces and social thinkers to engage in discussion on issues such as sovereignty, trade, use of force, human rights, and the meaning of a just world order in general. Since these perspectives now address themes central to international law and institutions, they provide rich critical resources not only to think through alternative strategies to establish a just world order, but also to conceptualize its contours and content.
While five of the six perspectives are contemporary, the spiritual perspective of Sri Aurobindo was articulated primarily in the colonial period but has been included because it was among the first to deal with world-order issues and the creation of a world state. It has also been discussed to emphasize the need for ethical practices in any strategy of “complex internationalism” to create a just world order.