Jousting Over Jurisdiction: Sovereignty and International Law in Late Nineteeth-Century South Asia

Graduate Student Associate Seminar

Priyasha Saksena, SJD Candidate, Harvard Law School; SAI Graduate Student Associate

Chair: Samuel Moyn, Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

This talk focuses on jurisdictional disputes between the Indian princely states and the British Government in late nineteenth-century South Asia to flesh out both the role played by international law in the definition and contestation of the relationship between the princely states and the British Government, as well as the influence of such disputes on the development of international law ideas. In particular, the talk will examine the influence of the historical school of jurisprudence on the development of the idea of sovereignty. Focusing on jurisdictional disputes will enable us to understand that the rhetoric of inclusion-exclusion, along with the idea of legal evolution, was core to late nineteenth century international law.