New Books In Latin American Studies

In his book The Hidden History of International Law in The Americas: Empires and Legal Networks (Oxford University Press, 2017), Juan Pablo Scarfi shows the central role of a coterie of elite Latin American jurists and intellectuals in constructing a Pan-American inflected conception of international law. In exploring the rise of so-called “American” international law, Scarfi’s monograph contributes to the now burgeoning literature on the rise of global governance, by showing how many of the legal ideas that came to serve as the foundation of organizations like the United Nations were first experimented with in Latin America. While much previous work on international law during the twentieth century has often left Latin America out of the picture or given it a peripheral role, this important monograph positions Latin America at the center of the development of modern ideas about international law and highlights the global legal networks that allowed for spirited exchanges between Latin American, North America