Decolonise Law Open Meeting

What is decolonization?

Decolonization critiques the way that our existing courses of study fail to sufficiently address the imperial and colonial histories that undergird them. Specific to law, we want to see our curriculum decenter the status of European legal systems and to give the same moral and intellectual weight to BME and postcolonial legal ideologies and legal systems.

Why decolonize law?

Law Tripos highly values the study of legal history and the development of legal systems, evidenced by the number of papers offered on this subject such as Civil Law I & II, English Legal History, European Legal History, Comparative Law, EU Law, International Law and Conflicts of Law. However, each of these papers only looks at European or, in the case of International and Conflicts of Law, highly Eurocentric notions of law and legal developments. There is no mention of any colonial or non-Eurocentric notions of law or legal development. Most notably, given that Cambridge is a leading institution in the study of English Law, it is perplexing that Roman Law remains an obligatory paper whereas there is no institutional way to learn about how and why the British common law system is the operating system for many countries in the Global South.

What are we aiming to achieve?

1. Teach the relationship and implications between English law, (post-) colonial law/legal systems and the global development of the common law; and
2. Articulate how the English legal system’s role in legitimating and facilitating global and structural oppression is tied to its colonial history; and
3. Include more BME-centric and-specific, de/postcolonial, and critical theory academic articles on reading lists.

Join the decolonize law working group!