Summary by Geopolist | Istanbul Center for Geopolitics:
Reflecting on historical erasure and modern political reality, the essay delivers a thorough critique of U.S. imperialism, settler colonialism, and the larger international legal order. It starts with a first-hand account of visiting Muir Woods National Monument in California, where important historical events are shown using the chronology of a tree. But the chronology erases Indigenous and enslaved people, therefore reflecting the legal fiction terra nullius—a justification for colonial land acquisitions by calling them “empty” despite current population count. According to the paper, such erasure is a systematic practice ingrained in American historical accounts and legal systems rather than accidental.
Historical Erasure and the Legacy of Colonialism
The author looks at how basic American myths remove enslaved Africans and Indigenous people from national memory and historical chronicles. Though they exclude Indigenous people who lived on the land for millennia and the enslaved Black people who created most of the riches of the country, the tree’s rings identify significant events such Columbus’ arrival, the Declaration of Independence, and other turning points of Western history. This exclusion captures the idea of social death—that whereby enslaved people were cut off from kin, homeland, and even historical recognition—that sociologist Orlando Patterson developed The lack of their contributions emphasizes how nonpersons are framed in the mainstream historical narrative.
Apart from historical forgetfulness, the paper emphasizes how American colonial aspirations endure. utterances on annexing Greenland, invading Gaza, and bringing Canada into the United States by former President Trump are presented not as separate utterances but rather as part of a larger imperial logic that has always underlined U.S. growth. The author contends that as American colonialism never really disappeared, these remarks should not be discounted as “making colonialism great again.” Rather, they mirror a continuous settler-colonial framework rather than only a historical occurrence.
The Role of Law in Imperialism and Social Control
The work then questions how legislation might be keeping this structure intact. Arguing instead that legal systems have historically been agents of oppression, therefore strengthening the authority of colonial and imperial players, the author questions the idea that law is neutral. Notwithstanding its claims to justice, the U.S. legal system has regularly kept the rich and strong underprivileged underprivileged under cover of law. The point of view of legal scholar Anthony Farley is used to contend that human actors control legal norms to further their own goals; they do not define their own application.
The datafied state is one instance of this, as social control and monitoring grow under the cover of legal power. Emphasizing that legal systems quietly defend the elite while presenting themselves as globally fair, the author notes the part billionaires like Elon Musk have in influencing governance. By means of economic and legal systems that seem to be neutral but actually support historical injustices, this legal framework helps to sustain the persecution of underprivileged populations.
The Rules-Based International Order: A Colonial Legacy
The paper then veers more broadly to criticize the rules-based international system, contending that it was never intended to defend the oppressed. Rather, it promoted transatlantic slavery, colonial partitioning of territory, and the exploitation of countries known as Global South. The author emphasizes the 1974 New International Economic Order (NIEO), a statement of decolonized nations demanding economic sovereignty and compensation for their past. This effort was never passed, though, which exposed the international legal system’s refusal to confront past injustices.
The United Nations’ 2023 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) highlight even more how failing global institutions are in closing economic inequalities. The analysis revealed that, in spite of initiatives aimed at reducing poverty and inequality, several important indices show the world regressing. Emphasizing that 26 people own the same amount of wealth as half of the world’s population, the author contends that this is not the result of resource constraint but rather of intentional maldistribution of riches.
Pax Americana and the U.S.’s Role in the Global Order
The debate then turns to the paradoxes inside Pax Americana, the U.S.-led world system. Although the United States sometimes claims to be the defender of international law, it selectively applies these rules to others while exempting itself. The study cites the International Criminal Court (ICC) as an example: Israeli forces allegedly extrajudically executed important Hamas officials while the ICC issued arrest warrants for both Hamas and Israeli leaders in 2024. Vice President Kamala Harris discounted this as “justice served,” running counter to the U.S. claimed dedication to the legal system.
The author contends that Pax Americana’s attitude to international law has always been about strategic engagement—making rules for others while neglecting them when inconvenient. American actions in Iraq and Afghanistan, its unilateral use of force, and its selective respect of international accords all help to illustrate this. Even historically, frequently hailed as a success of the rule of law, the Nuremberg Trials were mostly about punishing Nazi leaders while letting other imperial countries, notably the United States, to continue colonial control and war crimes free from penalty.
More lately, the way the U.S. handled the Palestinian problem revealed the inconsistencies in the rules-based system. While the Biden government kept supporting Israel militarily and financially, it also made remarks regarding safeguarding of civilian life. The United States also rejected many U.N. resolutions urging a ceasefire and disregarded decisions of the International Court of Justice. This selective interaction with international law exposes that international law is a weapon used to serve power rather than a system of universal guidelines.
The author also criticizes Trump’s foreign policies, pointing out that his government deliberately left the World Health Organization, the U.N. Human Rights Council, and the Paris Climate Agreement among other international organizations. Although Trump’s actions were presented as isolationist, the author contends that they merely made clear what was previously true: the United States interacts with international law solely in furthering its own objective.
The Call for Abolition
In the latter part, the author opposes reformist answers and advocates the elimination of both Pax Americana and the rules-based international order. These structures were created to support inequity and servitude, so they contend they cannot be corrected. Rather, they support an anti-subordinated, decolonized, reparations-based drastically changed global system.
One uses the abolitionist paradigm as a compass for reconsidering world affairs. The author advises us to picture a society without U.S. imperial supremacy and exploitative worldwide institutions, much as abolitionists see a world free of police or prisons. Legal expert Aziz Rana, who advocates decolonization, land return, reparations, and radical changes to world government so undermining U.S. dominance, is cited.
The article ends with using Haiti’s past as a case study of how colonial powers seize riches and stifle actual independence. Haiti was obliged to pay France reparations even after the Haitian Revolution effectively ousted French control, therefore taxing its economy for decades. Likewise, many decolonized countries were subjected to economic policies that maintained their subordination rather than payback for decades of abuse.
The author contends that instead of supporting the current global order, we should work to destroy it and substitute a system that gives justice top priority above empire. The present, in which the U.S. is becoming powerless to shape international narratives, offers a chance to envision and create a quite different world.
In conclusion
This essay is a broad critique of U.S. imperialism, legal hypocrisy, and the neglect of historical and continuous injustices by international organizations. Connecting the erasure of Indigenous and Black history to modern political reality helps one to see how historical myths support systems of injustice. The demand for abolitionist ideas forces us to reject little changes and instead create a future drastically unlike the oppressive systems of the past.
Read more here.
