Between Islam and International Law: Quest for Common Ground and the Human Dignity Alternative

This paper seeks to find common ground between Islamic legalism and international law and develop a framework for accommodating the diverse heritage of Islamic legal thought within modern rule-of-law systems. Extrapolating from textual references, treaty norms, state practices as well as opinions of jurists and publicists across the Islamic and international law divide, this paper identifies human dignity as a critical area of common ground between these traditions, to stimulate a pragmatic debate that can nurture critical responses across traditions. While recognising that human dignity remains an area of international human rights law engendering robust debates and sometimes controversy about its content and application, this paper nonetheless argues that an opportunity exists for members of both Muslim and non-Muslim societies to come together as one global community to identify specific rights and obligations where Islamic law and international law can be reconciled and appropriately applied. The principle underpinning this paper’s approach is to adopt a reorientation in curriculum and pedagogical approaches that facilitates the exploration of shared values between two complex and highly nuanced legal traditions in a pragmatic way that deconstructs the narrow confines within which international law has been understood.