Kirby: Dismantling Tàíwò's Global Racial Empire Without Aid of a Human Rights System

Tàíwò, in his second chapter of Reconsidering Reparations, focuses on the colonial, neocolonial, and institutionally racist methods of “the currents of history,” which almost entirely inform the present status of modern global injustice. (24) He argues that the smaller-scale inequalities in localized communities operate on a much larger, transnational scale, which are a product of layers and layers of colonial abuses. He mentions international institutions such as The World Bank or IMF as continuing the taking advantage of those in the Global South. I would like to reiterate this point, but on the conduct of the United Nations and its system of “restoring justice” – particularly within the handling of seeking justice against wrongdoing by countries, or subset communities within those nations. 

It is worth discussing that the human rights reconciliation legal process is itself an exercise of neocolonialism, functioning off of the wealth and political power disparities between the Global North and South. I don’t posit that Tàíwò would disagree with this, but rather want to draw our attention to the unsettling notion that the very structures our world has in place for seeking justice are continuations of what Tàíwò calls “colonial capital accumulation.” (41) Oftentimes, the United Nations and related institutions of international humanitarian law perpetuate what they claim to fight against. Nations of the Global South, when seeking reconciliation and healing from strife, are treated as auctionable entities – and the legal proceedings are more so bandaids and shiny accolades than substantive methods for community recovery. It is troubling to think that the system in place today meant to protect human rights across our world is another method of neocolonialism. But if we take the arguments Tàíwò asserts about theft of land, social reorganization, and empire competition, we can see that both the formulation and application of the United Nations and related systems perpetuate history. The underlying question here then is, if we dismantle Tàíwò’s “Global Racial Empire,” where do we start? If the very global system that is supposed to provide remedy from and enlightenment about this empire’s abuses indeed perpetuates it, where do we turn? 

When discussing the methods of colonial power abuse, Tàíwò writes that land theft was a step in ensuring that “nearly every action of the economy ultimately fed into the channels of wealth flowing back to the colonizers.” (42) Land provides a paramount sense of autonomy, security, and identity for communities. Tàíwò mentions Indigenous American peoples, “many of whom take land to be intensely meaningful and an important basis for understanding and navigating other relationships.” (42) Indeed, we know from the philosophical cannon that being able to pursue one’s property – land being one – as they see fit is an articulation of one’s selfhood, their autonomy. Property, under the Lockean account, should be a government’s primary concern of protection for its citizens – free from encroachment, abuse, and insecurity. Transnational systems of justice and human rights often abuse the boundaries of property. Global South nations have less of a platform in deciding whether or not peacekeeping bodies are sent to a territory – peacekeeping bodies that have a history of abuses and inadequacies. They also lack the decision platform on enacting those methods of intervention. Tribunals are planted into cities where Global North countries have funneled in hundreds of millions of dollars to establish the proceedings, and depart once the trial wraps up. And the conflicts that rise as a consequence of colonial history were designed by the “savior nations” that dominate the global human rights institutions. 

The very human rights system itself is controlled by nations of wealth and political influence, though the structure was intended to be a communal, equitable space for all nations. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was formed “as a common standard of achievements for all peoples and all nations,” which “set(s) out, for the first time, fundamental human rights to be universally protected.” UN forces espouse these notions of fundamental, inalienable human rights, but fail to speak out or provide timely remedy when the vulnerable land is too dangerous – politically, physically, economically, or otherwise. Notions of a Global South culture that needs “renovating” or “modernizing” through treaties and declarations by these power states disregard the local connection between socialization and property. There is an overall lack of foundational respect for Global South land, and thus the social systems founded upon it. 

Furthermore, the UN and related bodies seem to echo what Tàíwò states about empire-based competition. In deciding which nations will send lawyers to handle UN trial proceedings, often the countries that provide the most funding send in their representatives. In a way, the Global North decides the crime, the punishment, and the healing of communities in the Global South. The basis of these conflicts oftentimes stem from the instability put in place by such colonizers: Tàíwò notes how once-colonially ruled nations experience a “lack of formal control over the fate of the exploited people,” and a sense of “‘power without responsibility’ for those in charge and ‘exploitation without redress’ for the ruled.” (56) I could continue, but I hope my point is clear. I must ask, then, if the stripping away of the “Global Racial Empire” must be done, but we cannot effectively turn to the system that, at least in formulation, was meant to provide justice and security, where do we go? More so, how does this dismantling begin if the colonizing nations control the agenda and the methods of peacekeeping, intervention, and truth?