‘Who’s Who’ in the histories we tell in international law textbooks

Ursula K Le Guin’s short story ‘She Unnames Them’ is a consideration of the power structures innate to naming. In it, Eve who is not named, asserts her agency and leaves the Garden; while doing so she seeks to Unname the animals that were given monikers by Adam, under power he gained from his father. Her Unnaming, and the animals’ reactions, reflections and engagement with the process, and their own assertion of agency highlighting the innate power of the imposition of identity through naming. Naming is shown to be a process of patriarchal and imperial control and power, suggesting that to remake our origin stories, names imposed must be shaken off. <br/>Textbooks are often the first site where students consciously interact with international law. While their lives are impacted by it, here is often the first place where the question of what international law is, is posed to them, and while a short pithy response is often given, the longer, formative response is often contained in the history section of that textbook. This chapter considers what English language textbooks tell us about what international law is. How textbooks frame that question is often through the histories they tell, which, in turn, frames how we see ourselves as ‘doers’ of international law, who did it in the past, while producing a conservative view of what we may be in the future. It also considers when history ‘stops’ and how that impacts on who is likely to be named.<br/>