Traces of the International
摘要
Inspired by Jacques Derrida, I do not intend in this book to unambiguously find, much less finally identify and capture, or definitively define and conceptualize the “international.” For me, the international is neither an ontic being, nor an ontological Being. Dis-jointly being and becoming articulated by countless and varied ontic, ontological, and hauntological (Derrida, 1994; Marchart, 2007) relations, the international is reimagined here aporetically (Doty, 1997), as a hauntological supplement (Derrida, 2016), an elusive problem and an exceptional, hegemonic, and imperial ontic-ontological formation (Bartelson, 2023; Fitzpatrick, 2001; Onuf, 1989, 2018; Walker, 2010). In this Chapter, then, I reposition my supplementary thinking of the politics of international law before traces of the international. Questioning (about) the international, I engage with traces echoing with-in the work of Anthea Roberts (2017). In my critical reading of her work, I displace attention not only toward the hegemonic formation of the international, but also, and most importantly, toward traces of the international’s assumptions about the world. Thus, I reposition this chapter before the ontopolitical boundaries and the logocentric politics of worldmaking accompanying the international. In so doing, I am particularly interested in traces of the uneasy and aporetic relationship between the international and the world.