McMahon on The Origins of Modern International Law: A Vocabulary for Justifying White Supremacist Colonialism

Thomas McMahon has published The Origins of Modern International Law: A Vocabulary for Justifying White Supremacist Colonialism. Here is the abstract.

What is "modern" international law? This paper reviews the history of the development of modern international law, usually intended to mean the break between the leadership of role of the Roman Catholic popes into an international law decided by states without reference to the popes. In other words, papal bulls of discovery, enslavement and other topics stopped having influence. "Modern" international law was especially important to ensure that countries such as England, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Italy could compete to steal the lands and resources of the rest of the world for themselves. In other words, modern international law was invented to give a legal vocabulary and justification for white supremacist colonialism without ever using the words "white supremacy."

Download the paper from SSRN at the link.