| Liberal theories of the law define emancipatory struggles as aimed at including the colonized in the realm of universal humanity and the rule of law protecting it. These theories view subjects of cruelty as having metamorphosized into nonhumans following law's abandonment of them. But, what if colonialism, rather than resistance to it, is revealed to have constituted "universal humanity" as a governing force? What if the rule of law, not its breach, is found to have been an operative colonial force? Would this theory of the production of humanity negate the distinction between human and nonhuman? Would it indicate that there is nothing outside of law, not even exceptional cruelty?; The dissertation locates the production of "universal humanity" in the colonial expansion of the late-nineteenth century. By examining legal reform practices introduced into British-occupied Egypt (1882-1936), it investigates how the modern rule of law empowered itself to engender "humanity" and universalize its production. The dissertation finds the sociolegal meanings of juridically-constituted humanity homologous to nonhuman animality, and that "Juridical humanity" enabled economically productive forms of suffering and generated its ideals from physical violence. This humanity, it is argued, was far from emancipatory; it was a cornerstone of Egypt's colonization.; The dissertation also traces colonial law's promise of an "autonomous" juridical field, arguing that the emergent "autonomy" brought about a "juridical rupture" between the colonial and pre-colonial legal orders, and that a series of distinctions constituted this "rupture." They were distinctions between sovereign power and the rule of law, violence and humanity, nonhumans and humans, separation of powers and their mixing. The dissertation traces the constitution and proliferation of these distinctions and examines their colonial efficacy. Against the work of these distinctions, the dissertation recollects the proliferation of other "indefinite legalities," which defied the colonial view of a world split between inside and outside, humanity and inhumanity, rule of law and despotism. These "indefinite legalities," it is argued, were filtered from the juridical order endowed with the production of humanity in Egypt. As such, the suffering they produced left no mark on the juridical humanity of the Age of Empire. |
