BETWEEN SYMBOL AND STRUCTURE: THE ARAB WORLD AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

Author's Department

Law Department

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https://doi.org/10.1017/aju.2025.10027

All Authors

Thomas Skouteris

Document Type

Research Article

Publication Title

Ajil Unbound

Publication Date

10-20-2025

doi

10.1017/aju.2025.10027

Abstract

There are worlds we name, and worlds we summon into being. The Arab World has long inhabited both roles—invoked in international law as geopolitical reality, yet shaped by repetition, signification, and remembered alignments. It appears over the centuries not as a subject with agency, but as a revenant: referenced for its solidarity and unity, yet rarely allowed either coherence or consequence. What holds the “Arab World” together in international law, this essay argues, is not essence but performance, not institutional substance, but the staging of collectivity. Bandung (1955) made this dynamic briefly visible: nine Arab states, fragmented in voice and agenda, appeared united; Palestine, symbolically central, remained formally absent. The pattern endures, from the choreography of the Arab League to strategic posturing in relation to Gaza’s ongoing genocide by Israel. The “Arab World,” in this light, is not an unfulfilled project, but a legal and political arrangement, summoned, displayed, and sustained in a state of permanent deferral.

First Page

226

Last Page

230

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