International Interdependence beyond the Family of Nations: Afterword to the Foreword by Susan Marks

Abstract This afterword takes up Susan Marks’ argument to take seriously the metaphorical uses of the idea of the family in international law and to renew the terms by which we understand global interconnection. Drawing on anti-colonial and post-colonial perspectives, the article seeks to reimagine concepts associated with the family such as dependence, care and inheritance. It does so by foregoing the familial emphasis on monogenesis and emphasizing the ways in which the history of slavery and colonialism have integrated the world in deeply hierarchical and unequal ways.