The Rebirth of Territory

Gail Lythgoe challenges readers to reconsider the territoriality of the contemporary global order. This study sits at the intersection between international law, geography, and global governance, examining the spatial assumptions of legal practice and power and offering a new legal account of territory and geography for the global order.

The concept of territory is central in international law, but a detailed analysis of how the concept is used in both discourse and practice has been lacking until now. Rather than reproducing the established understanding of territoriality within the international legal order, this study suggests that the discipline of international law relies on an outmoded spatial paradigm. Gail Lythgoe argues for a complete update and overhaul of our understanding of territory and space, to engage more effectively with key processes, structures and actors relevant to contemporary global governance. In this new theoretical account of an essential aspect of public international law, she argues that territory is a dynamic social reality created by the exercise of power. Territories are constituted by the practices of a more diverse array of actors than is acknowledged. As a result, functions are re-assembling in territories constituted by state and non-state actors alike.