Decolonising the Law Reading List

On this page, we compile the reading list suggested by our speakers. We hope that this space serves two purposes. First, it is a repository of the relevant readings on different aspects of decolonisation gathered in one place. Second, we hope that by putting this in the public domain, we hope that those who are working on issues of decolonisation find a public space to either start or enrich their research.

- Almas Shaikh, on behalf of the Decolonising the Law Discussion Group

 

Re-thinking EU Law: the value of a de-colonial approach (Prof. Iyiola Solanke)

  • Miranda Fricker Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (OUP 2007)
  • M. Jackson Sow (2022) ‘Ukrainian Refugees, Race and International Law’s Choice Between Order and Justice.’ American Journal of International Law, 116 (4) 698-709. DOI: 10.1017/ajil.2022.56.
  • Bhambra (2017) ‘The Current Crisis of Europe: Refugees, Colonialism, and the Limits of Cosmopolitanism’ European Law Journal Vol 23(6)
  • Hesselink, M. W. (2022) ‘EU private law injustices’, Yearbook of European Law, Volume 41, Pages 83–116, https://doi.org/10.1093/yel/yeac005
  • Kantola, J., Elomaaki, A., Gaweda, B., Miller, C., Ahrens, P., Berthet, V., (2023) “It’s Like Shouting to a Brick Wall”: Normative Whiteness and Racism in the European Parliament American Political Science Review 117, 1, 184–199
  • Jan Orbie, Antonio Salvador M. Alcazar III, Anissa Bougrea, Szilvia Nagy, Alvaro Oleart, Jonalyn C. Paz, Rahel W. Sebhatu, Tiffany G. Williams, Izabella Wódzka, 'Editorial: Decolonizing Rather than Decentring ‘Europe’', (2023), 28, European Foreign Affairs Review, Issue 1, pp. 1-8, https://kluwerlawonline.com/journalarticle/European+Foreign+Affairs+Review/28.1/EERR2023001
  • Jivraj, S ‘Towards anti-racist legal pedagogy: a resource’ (SLSA 2020) 37. Available at: https://research.kent.ac.uk/decolonising-law-schools/ (esp. p24 on core subjects) 

 

Decolonial theory and legal studies (Prof. Lena Salaymeh)

  • “Decolonial comparative law” (link – particularly the sections on decolonial theory and decolonial legal studies)
  • “Women and Islamic law: decolonizing colonialist feminism) (link)
  • “Comparing Islamic and international laws of war” (link)
  • “Decolonial translation” (link)

 

Decolonisation and Legal Knowledge: An Anthropocene Judgments Experiment (Prof. Folúkẹ́ Adébísí)

  • Adebisi, Foluke I. "The Sea Casts Its Net of Justice Wide: A Speculative Judgment for What Has Been Left to the Waters of Despair."  pp. 59-71 In Rogers, N. and Maloney, M. eds., 2023. The Anthropocene Judgments Project: Futureproofing the Common Law. Taylor & Francis.
  • Adebisi, Foluke, Decolonisation and Legal Knowledge: Reflections on Power and Possibility. BRISTOL University Press, 2023.  
  • Adebisi, Foluke. "Black/African Science Fiction and the Quest for Racial Justice through Legal Knowledge: How Can We Unsettle Euro-modern Time and Temporality in Our Teaching?." Law, Tech. & Hum. 4 (2022): 24.  
  • Cuestas-Caza, Javier. "Sumak Kawsay is not Buen Vivir." Alternautas 5(1) (2018): 49-63.
  • Humphreys, David. "Rights of Pachamama: The Emergence of an Earth Jurisprudence in the Americas." Journal of International Relations and Development 20(3) (2017): 459-484.  
  • Jenkins, Katy. "Unearthing Women's Anti‐Mining Activism in the Andes: Pachamama and the “Mad Old Women”." Antipode 47(2) (2015): 442-460. 

 

Colonial Realism: objects and statues, subjects and torts (Prof. Dan Hicks)

  • Dan Hicks 2020. The Brutish Museums: the Benin Bronzes, colonial violence and cultural restitution. London: Pluto Press.
  • Dan Hicks 2020. The UK government is trying to draw museums into a fake culture war. The Guardianhttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/oct/15/the-uk-government-is-trying-to-draw-museums-into-a-fake-culture-war
  • Dan Hicks 2021. Let’s Keep Colston Falling. Art Review. https://artreview.com/lets-keep-colston-falling/
  • Dan Hicks 2021. Glorious Memory. In H. Carr and S. Lipscombe (eds) What is History Now? London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson., pp. 114-128.
  • Dan Hicks 2021. Necrography: Death-Writing in the Colonial Museum. Journal of British Art Studies 19. https://doi.org/10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-19/conversation
  • Dan Hicks 2022. Can we imagine public art beyond ‘toxic monumentality’? Art Review. https://artreview.com/can-we-imagine-public-art-beyond-toxic-monumentality/
  • Dan Hicks 2023. Declining Whiteness. In Onyekachi Wambu (ed.) Empire Windrush: Reflections on 75 Years & More of the Black British Experience. London: Hachette.
  • Dan Hicks 2023. Are Museums Obsolete? Architectural Review https://www.architectural-review.com/essays/are-museums-obsolete
  • Hartman, Saidiya 1997. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford: OUP.
  • Hartman, Saidiya 2008. Venus in Two Acts. Small Axe, vol. 12(2): 1-14.
  • Hall, S. 1999. Unsettling ‘the heritage’, re-imagining the post-nation. Whose heritage?, Third Text 13(49): 3-13.
  • Mbembe, Achille 2024. Brutalism: theory in forms. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
  • Mirzoeff, Nicholas. 2023. White Sight. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Richards, T. 1993. The Imperial Archive: knowledge and the fantasy of Empire. London: Verso.
  • Rothberg, Michael 2019. The Implicated Subject: beyond victims and perpetrators. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
  • Sharpe, C. 2023. Ordinary Notes. London: Daunt
  • Wynter, S. 1994. ‘No Humans Involved’: an Open Letter to My Colleagues. Forum NHL 1(1): 42–71.

 

Strategies for decolonising legal education (Dr. Rishika Sahgal)

  • Folúkẹ́ Adébísí, ‘Decolonisation & the Law School: Initial thoughts’ (African Skies, 22 July 2019) <https://folukeafrica.com/decolonisation-the-law-school-initial-thoughts/>
  • Folúkẹ́ Adébísí, Decolonisation and Legal Knowledge: Reflections on Power and Possibility (Bristol University Press 2023)
  • Dave SP Thomas and Suhraiya Jivraj (eds), Towards Decolonising the University: A Kaleidoscope For Empowered Action (Counterpress 2020) <https://counterpress.org.uk/publications/towards-decolonising-the-university/>
  • Mohsen al Attar and Shaimaa Abdelkarim, ‘Decolonising the curriculum in international law: entrapments in praxis and critical thought’ (2023) 34 Law and Critique 41 <https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10978-021-09313-y>
  • Rishika Sahgal, ‘Decolonizing Criminal Law in India’ in Juan Tauri et al (eds), Routledge Handbook on Decolonizing Justice (Routledge 2023) <https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/oa-edit/10.4324/9781003176619-40/decolonizing-criminal-law-india-rishika-sahgal>

 

When Decolonisation is Hijacked (Prof. Alpa Shah)

  • Alpa Shah, When decolonisation is hijacked [LINK] .
  • Taiwo, Olufemi, and associated with work International African Institute. Against Decolonisation : Taking African Agency Seriously. London: Hurst & Company, 2022. Print.
  • Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2012). Decolonization is not a metaphor. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 1(1), 1–40. [LINK]

 

Decolonial Constitutionalism (Dr Ronnie Yearwood)

  • Albert, Richard ‘Decolonial Constitutionalism’ (2025) 25(2) Chicago Journal of International Law
  • Barrow-Giles, Cynthia, and Ronnie Yearwood. 2023. “Mandatory Constitutional Referendums in Commonwealth Caribbean Constitutions: Placing ‘People’ at the Centre of the Constitution?” King’s Law Journal 34, no. 2: 215–37.
  • Beckles, Hilary McD. 2016. The First Black Slave Society: Britain’s “Barbarity Time” in Barbados, 1636–1876. University of the West Indies Press.
  • Collis-Buthelezi, Victoria and Aaron Kamugisha, eds., 2024. The Caribbean Race Reader: From Colonialism to Anticolonial Thought (Cambridge: Polity Press)
  • Fanon, Frantz. 1963. The Wretched of the Earth. Translated by Constance Farrington. Grove.
  • Fanon, Frantz. (1952) 1986. Black Skin, White Masks. Translated by Charles Lam Markmann. Pluto.
  • Maldonado-Torres, Nelson. 2007. “On the Coloniality of Being: Contributions to the Development of a Concept.” Cultural Studies 21, nos. 2–3, 240–70.
  • McIntosh, Simeon C. R. 1997. “Constitutional Reform and the Quest for a West Indian Hermeneutics.” Caribbean Law Review 7, no. 1: 1-160.
  • McIntosh, Simeon C. R. 2002. Caribbean Constitutional Reform: Rethinking the West Indian Polity. Caribbean Law.
  • McIntosh, Simeon C. R. 2005. Fundamental Rights and Democratic Governance: Essays in Caribbean Jurisprudence. (Caribbean Law).
  • Mills, Charles W. 1997b. “Smadditizin.” Caribbean Quarterly 43, no. 2: 54–68.
  • Mills, Charles W. 2010. “‘Smadditizin’: For Rex Nettleford.” In Radical Theory, Caribbean Reality: Race, Class, and Social Domination. University of the West Indies Press.
  • Yearwood, Ronnie. 2022. “Barbados’ Transition to a Republic: ‘Republic in Name First, Constitutional Reform After,’ ‘Stuff and Nonsense!’” Journal of Parliamentary and Political Law 16: 83-103.
  • Yearwood, Ronnie. 2025. “Constitutional Reform in Barbados: The Enduring Influence of Westminster?” ConstitutionNet, International Institute for Democracy, and Electoral Assistance (International IDEA), January 30. <https://constitutionnet.org/news/voices/constitutional-reform-barbados-enduring-influence-westminster>
  • Yearwood, Ronnie, and R. Augustin-Joseph. 2025. “Constitutional Reform in Barbados: A Failure to Dismantle Westminster.” UWI St. Augustine Law Journal 3, no. 1: 77-94
  • Yearwood, Ronnie. Presentation: “Whose Stories? Decolonial Constitutionalism and the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ) in Trinidad and Tobago”, at the
  • University of the West Indies, St Augustine, 2nd Caribbean Court of Justice Symposium: Advancing the Case for Regionalism and Indigenous Jurisprudence, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_pCzZ7GrL8> 16 May 2025

 

Constitutional Durability and Constraint in the Longue Duree of Decolonisation in the Caribbean (Prof. Tracy Robinson)

  • Erin F. Delaney, ‘Mapping Power: Constitutionalism and Its Colonial Legacy’ in Vicki C. Jackson and Madhav Khosla (eds), Redefining Comparative Constitutional Law (OUP 2025).
  • Tracy Robinson, ‘Dyadic Caribbean Constitutions’ in Elisabeth Perham, Maartje De Visser, Rosalind Dixon (eds), Small State Constitutionalism (Hart Publishing forthcoming 2026) 31.
  • Lauren Benton, and Adam Clulow, ‘Interpolity law and jurisdictional politics’ (2024) 42 Law and History Review 197.
    Martin Sybblis, ‘Corporate Law as Decolonization’ (2024) 71 UCLA L Rev 71 798.
  • Phillip Dann, ‘Southern turn, Northern implications: rethinking the meaning of colonial legacies for Comparative Constitutional Studies’ (2023) 1 Comparative Constitutional Studies 174.
  • Maggie Blackhawk, ‘Foreword: The Constitution of American Colonialism’ (2023)  137 Harv L Rev 137 1.
  • Hakeem Yusuf and Tanzil Chowdhury, ‘The Persistence of Colonial Constitutionalism in British Overseas Territories’ (2019) 8 Global Constitutionalism 157.
  • Ann Laura Stoler, Duress: Imperial Durabilities in our Times (Duke University Press 2016).
  • Tracy Robinson, ‘Gender, Nation and the Common Law Constitution’ (2008) 28 Oxford Journal of Legal Studies 735.
  • David Scott, ‘Introduction: on the archaeologies of black memory’ (2008) 12 small axe v.

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