Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

Colonial Law as Structural Injustice: Reactivating a Justice Agenda

2022; Oxford University Press; Volume: 25; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1093/isr/viad005

1521-9488

Jermaine Young,

Wildlife Conservation and Criminology Analyses

Ever since the controversial voyages of Christopher Columbus and the issuance of the papal bull, Inter Caetera, colonialism and law have been firmly connected at the hip. With that being said, there is a growing corpus of critical sociolegal studies scholarship seeking to attend to the nexus between colonialism and Western legal systems. Jennifer Balint, Julie Evans, Mark, and Nesam McMillan's Keeping Hold of Justice represents a timely interdisciplinary (weaving together criminology, history, and law) contribution to this scholarly puzzle, one that is worth recounting for upholding past and contemporary claims of justice against colonialism's structural injustices. Balint et al. explore the aforementioned connection between colonialism and law by underscoring its structural unjust nature (past and present), which is created and reproduced, on one side, while also exploring how this harmful relationship can paradoxically act as a key hinge for upholding and resuming justice. Therefore, the authors contend that “law is not only a site and source of colonial harm but also a potential means of keeping hold of justice” (4). Substantively, this aspect of the work not only allows for a critical exploration of colonial legality, but also strives for something practical––using law as a tool of reparatory justice in some sense. This, at least to me, sets it apart from other works that have tried to address this burning question and thus represents its key contribution.