International Law in the Pre-Bandung Era: The Law on the Fate of Colonized Peoples and Indonesia’s Independence, 1945-1955

The project intends to offer an alternative rendering of the history of international law’s imperial entanglement during the interregnum of 1945-1955 particularly in relation to Indonesia's struggle for independence. This period is chosen not only because this period constitutes one of the most tumultuous periods in international law but also because little is known about colonized peoples' attempts at influencing and affecting changes on the international plane in relation to the international law on the fate of colonized peoples. Investigation into this period is also important as it interrogates the changes in international law prior to the emergence of the Third World consolidation for decolonization in the 1955 Bandung Conference and the denunciation of colonialism in international law in 1960.

The project's aim is two folds, first is to determine the international law applicable to the fate of colonized peoples that prevailed prior to decolonization, specifically in 1945-1955. In this regard, the focus will be on the history of the formation of the Trusteeship regime prescribes in chapters XI-XIII of the UN Charter. The project argues that the UN Trusteeship regime was originally established as means to maintain and legitimize colonialism in post-WWII international law.

Second, the project aims to investigate and interrogate, how the early colonized peoples' struggles against the application of the international law on colonized peoples as it stood in 1945 led to the changes in the prevailing international law at that time toward the law of decolonization that we know today and foster Third World's resolve for the decolonization of all colonized peoples in 1955. The project argues that as it was in 1945, the UN Trusteeship regime was bound to fail in the face of colonized peoples’ nationalist uprising. In relation to the early colonized peoples' struggles against colonialism, the project is interested in the struggles for Indonesia's independence from 1945-1950 precisely because it represented perhaps the first challenge to the prevailing international law on the fate of colonized peoples and how its struggle lead it to become the convenor of the Third World solidarity movement for decolonization in international law in 1955.