Abstract

From Eastern Europe to Africa, Asia, and Latin America, socialist states and experts fundamentally shaped progressive ideas of international law: from anti-imperialism, to self-determination, to anti-racism and health as a human right. This introductory chapter argues for closer scrutiny of the role of global socialism in international law making and its role in contesting Eurocentric and liberal-focused approaches. It also invites for a nuanced analysis of the divisions that existed between socialisms from different world regions and across the North–South divide and which were crucial in undermining the creation of a unified global socialist vision of international law. Eastern European states often found it more productive to collaborate with the West while socialist states in the Global South had more in common with other postcolonial states regardless of ideology. Such scrutiny challenges two main meta-narratives of international law history: a Eurocentric canon of liberal progress and an anticolonial and anti-imperial account focusing solely on Third World contestations of the Western international order.