The psychiatrisation of international law in James Lorimer’s The Institutes

Using the categories of normal and abnormal, James Lorimer’s The Institutes of the Law of Nations subjectivised the native as the abnormal in international relations, denying recognition of their independent communities and providing justification for their perpetual subjugation. This article deploys Foucault’s critique of psychiatry to contextualise the unexplored intersections of Lorimer’s ‘science’ of international law and positivist psychiatry in the 19th century. It rereads Lorimer’s work as a psychiatrisation of international law, thus throwing light on the category of the abnormal and its persistence in international legal discourse.