The Northern Bias in a “Third World” Movement

Third World Approaches to International Law – better known as TWAIL – began as a bold project to rethink international law from the perspective of the Global South. Ironically, however, the early institutional hubs of TWAIL were largely located in the Global North. The very first TWAIL gathering in 1997 took place at Harvard Law School – a prestigious Northern venue. In the decades that followed, TWAIL conferences and networks continued to be centered in North America and Europe.

It was not until 2015 that TWAIL scholars convened a major conference in the Global South (at the American University in Cairo. Prior to that Cairo meeting, TWAIL’s major conferences had been hosted in places like Canada, the United States, and Europe, reflecting strong ties to Western institutions.

This North-centric pattern emerged in part because many pioneering TWAIL thinkers were academics from the Global South who trained and worked in Northern universities. Over the years, many TWAIL scholars left their countries of origin to attend elite graduate programs in the Global North, where they often remained in academic positions. As TWAIL scholars themselves have acknowledged, this trajectory reflects deeper structural inequalities in global knowledge production. B.S. Chimni, for instance, notes that Third World intellectuals are frequently incorporated into Northern academic institutions, where their work is shaped by prevailing frameworks and expectations. Similarly, Makau Mutua has observed that critical voices from the Global South often gain visibility only when mediated through Western academic platforms, reinforcing existing hierarchies even within oppositional movements like TWAIL.

Northern universities and publishers dominate the discourse, shaping what is
considered important scholarship. Young scholars in Africa, Asia, or Latin Americ often learn which topics are worth doing and what is not – and even which scholars are deemed authoritative – based on Northern curricula and publications. Southern intellectual traditions and voices can be sidelined, even within TWAIL itself.

The consequences of keeping TWAIL’s hubs in the North are serious. It perpetuates the very hierarchy that TWAIL seeks to challenge. Scholars and students in the Global South may struggle to see their local histories and perspectives reflected in TWAIL scholarship if leadership and resources remain abroad.

This concern is echoed by international law scholars working within Global South
institutions. As highlighted in the Afronomicslaw symposium on teaching and
researching international law from global perspectives, contributors repeatedly
point to the persistence of Eurocentric curricula and epistemic hierarchies in legal
education. Many note that international law is still predominantly taught through
Western canons, with limited engagement with local histories, regional legal
traditions, or postcolonial critiques.

For example, contributors to the symposium emphasize that students in African
universities are often introduced to international law as a set of universal norms
derived from European experience, while Africa’s own contributions and legal
practices remain marginal. This, in turn, risks reproducing what some scholars
describe as a sense of intellectual dependency or inferiority, where local
perspectives are seen as secondary to Western authority.

A similar pattern can be observed in Latin America, where critical intellectual
traditions such as dependency theory and decolonial thought have historically
remained outside the mainstream of international legal education. As a result,
teaching continues to reproduce Eurocentric and US-centric visions of global order, limiting the transformative potential of both TWAIL and international law more broadly.

Why Shifting South Matters

Relocating TWAIL’s hubs to the Global South is not just symbolic; it is strategic and essential for the movement’s vitality. Bringing TWAIL “home” to the South can energize the scholarship with new voices, perspectives, and legitimacy. When events and institutions are based in the Global South, accessibility improves for scholars, practitioners, and students from developing countries. More researchers from Africa, Asia, and Latin America can participate without the financial and visa hurdles that often accompany travel to Northern conferences. This inclusivity broadens the range of issues discussed – from Latin American perspectives on investment law to African views on human rights – enriching TWAIL’s analysis of international law’s power structures.

Crucially, Southern-based hubs help amplify local and regional issues that might be overlooked in Northern forums. The 2015 Cairo conference illustrated this
potential. It explicitly aimed to highlight the work of young Arab and African
scholars and connect them with the global TWAIL network. By convening in North Africa amid ongoing regional transformations, the conference shone a light on Middle Eastern and African experiences with international law. Participants
explored how global legal rules intersect with post-colonial struggles in their own
backyards – conversations that might not occur with the same depth elsewhere.

In short, Southern hubs can bring TWAIL closer to the lived realities of the Third
World that it champions.

Furthermore, moving hubs southward is vital for breaking the academic dependency on the North. It creates space for alternative models of knowledge creation and dissemination. For instance, when Southern institutions host conferences or publish journals, they are free to set their own agendas – focusing on topics like colonial reparations, Third World debt, or climate justice in vulnerable states, whether or not these are fashionable in Northern academia.

Rather than always sending talent abroad, countries can cultivate critical
international law expertise at home. This can have a ripple effect on legal education and policy in those countries, as local scholars incorporate TWAIL insights into teaching and advising governments.

How to Move TWAIL’s Center of Gravity to the Global South

Shifting TWAIL hubs from North to South will require concerted efforts and
innovative strategies. Fortunately, there are tangible steps and emerging examples
that point the way forward. Below are some key approaches to decentralize TWAIL
and strengthen its roots in the Global South:

1. Rotate Conferences and Academic Initiatives in the Global South:

A simple but impactful step is to ensure that major TWAIL conferences and
workshops are regularly held outside the Global North. After the landmark Cairo
meeting in 2015, this shift has gradually gained momentum with initiatives such as the TWAIL conference in Singapore in 2018, hosted by the National University of Singapore. More recently, the TWAILR Academy held in Bogotá in 2023 at Universidad de los Andes illustrates a further deepening of this trend. Unlike traditional conferences, the Bogotá Academy combined lectures, discussions, and writing workshops, explicitly aiming to support emerging scholars from the Global South and to advance the democratization of international law.
As recent reflections note, such initiatives provide spaces for engaging with “Third Worldist perspectives” grounded in histories of colonialism and imperialism, while also contributing to transforming legal pedagogy and knowledge production across the Global South.
This evolution—from one-off conferences to sustained academic platforms—demonstrates that relocating TWAIL hubs is not merely aspirational but already underway. Institutionalizing these efforts across regions would help consolidate a genuinely South-centered network of international legal scholarship.

2. Establish Southern Research Centers and Institutes:

Building institutional hubs for TWAIL scholarship in the Global South is crucial for sustained impact. Universities in the South with strong law programs can create dedicated centers or working groups on TWAIL and critical international law. For instance, India’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) – home to Professor B.S. Chimni, a TWAIL pioneer – could formally establish a TWAIL institute or host regular South Asian TWAIL workshops. In Africa, universities such as University of Nairobi, University of Cape Town, or the American University in Cairo (which hosted TWAIL 2015) are well-positioned to serve as regional anchors for TWAIL research. In Latin America UFRGS or USP can be used as well. These centers would cultivate local scholars, organize events, and publish working papers addressing regional international law challenges. Importantly, they can partner with one another across countries, creating a network of South-based TWAIL institutes that share knowledge and collaborate.

3. Leverage South–South Academic Alliances:

Global South powers have an opportunity to back TWAIL through existing alliances. A prime example is the BRICS coalition (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) – which collectively represents major non-Western voices. In 2015, leading universities from BRICS countries came together to launch the BRICS Law Institute, a cooperative research center spanning São Paulo, Ekaterinburg, Beijing, Jodhpur, and Pretoria. This Institute and the related BRICS Alliance of Law Schools demonstrate how Southern institutions can pool resources to support legal scholarship outside traditional Western circuits. Such platforms can be used to advance TWAIL goals by focusing on comparative studies of BRICS legal systems, development finance, and reforming global economic governance– all through a South-led lens.

4. Invest in Homegrown Talent and Networks:

Finally, moving TWAIL hubs south will require sustained investment in people. Governments and institutions in the Global South should create grants, fellowships, and faculty positions specifically for critical international law scholarship. Too often, resource constraints and heavy teaching loads in Southern universities hinder research. Reversing this trend means allocating funding for TWAIL conferences, sponsoring South-based scholars to lead projects, and ensuring that Southern academic networks have the infrastructure to thrive.

5. Mentorship networks:

Pairing senior TWAIL scholars (many of whom are diaspora in the North) with emerging researchers in the South – can also help transfer skills and build capacity locally. Young legal minds in Asia, Africa, and Latin America will see that they need not go to Harvard or Oxford to engage in cutting-edge debates – the hubs of critical international law will be right there in Nairobi, New Delhi, São Paulo, or Beijing.

Limits and Paradoxes of “Shifting TWAIL South”

While the case for relocating TWAIL’s institutional hubs to the Global South is
compelling, it is important to acknowledge the limits and structural challenges of
such a shift. The North-centric character of TWAIL is not merely an accident of
geography, but is deeply tied to the political economy of knowledge production in
international law.

Indeed, TWAIL itself emerged partly because scholars from the Global South were
positioned within elite institutions in the Global North, where they could critically
engage with dominant legal doctrines “from within.” This raises an important
paradox: relocating TWAIL entirely to the South may risk weakening the very
North–South tension that has historically animated the movement. The critical
force of TWAIL has often depended on its ability to confront mainstream international law at its epistemic centers.

Moreover, the reception of TWAIL within the Global South is uneven. In some
contexts, such as Brazil, TWAIL remains relatively weak as a self-identified
movement. Many international lawyers do not explicitly engage with TWAIL, and
academic events hosted in leading institutions—such as the University of São Paulo (USP) or the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)—are often framed in more conventional terms, such as “international law” or “regional international law,” rather than as TWAIL-oriented spaces. Paradoxically, intellectual environments in parts of the Global South may at times be more doctrinal or conservative than elite institutions in the North, and therefore less receptive to critical approaches.

Additionally, the idea of “shifting TWAIL south” may overestimate the degree of
institutional cohesion within the movement. Historically, TWAIL has functioned as a diffuse and network-based intellectual project, rather than a centralized or
formally organized structure. Its development has relied heavily on individual
scholars and informal collaborations. While initiatives such as the TWAIL Review signal a move toward institutionalization, the resources and coordination required to sustain stable research centers or academic hubs in the Global South remain substantial.

Finally, a meaningful reconfiguration of TWAIL’s geography requires attention to
differentiated responsibilities within the movement itself. Scholars based in
Northern institutions often have greater access to funding, publishing platforms,
and institutional visibility. Rather than viewing “shifting south” as a purely spatial relocation, it may be more productive to conceptualize it as a collaborative process in which Northern-based TWAIL scholars strategically use their positional advantages to support Southern-led initiatives—through funding, partnerships, mentorship, and the amplification of Global South scholarship.

In this sense, the future of TWAIL may lie not in abandoning the North, but in rebalancing relationships across spaces, ensuring that intellectual authority and agenda-setting power are no longer disproportionately concentrated.

A New Geography for International Law

Realigning TWAIL’s geography from North to South is about fulfilling the
movement’s original promise. TWAIL arose to challenge an international law
system built on colonial hierarchy and bias. If its scholarly hubs remain centered in the old metropoles, TWAIL risks reproducing the very inequalities it critiques. The shift is already underway: from Cairo to Singapore, from new academic networks in Latin America to law school alliances across BRICS, the Global South is asserting its place in reimagining international law.

Ultimately, moving TWAIL hubs southward is about democratizing global knowledge production. It creates a world where a conference on international law in Nairobi or Rio de Janeiro is as norm-setting as one in London or New York. It means the next generation of jurists from the Third World can shape the debates on war, trade, or human rights from their own perspectives, without always having to channel through a Northern paradigm. A South-centered TWAIL is not a rejection of engaging the North – it’s a re-balancing. The journey from Harvard to Cairo and beyond is showing us that by moving its hubs to the Global South, TWAIL can continue to reinvent international law in the pursuit of a more just and inclusive world.