Judge Radhabinod Pal is a forgotten man in international law. Pal is best known as the author of an impassioned dissenting judgment in the Tokyo trials after World War II, finding each of the Japanese defendants not guilty. His severe castigation of American duplicity, in purporting to create a new international order for the rest of the world, while itself remaining outside its net, posed an existential question for the future of international law. At a time when international law has been put sternly to the test, both in Gaza and Ukraine, it is an opportune moment to revisit Pal’s historic dissent.
This book project is a full-length biography of the life and times of Radhabinod Pal. While the judgment can be studied in many ways, this book will locate it in the context of Pal’s life. Four dimensions of his life—as a nationalist, a professor in India, an original post-colonial thinker, and an Asianist—will be used as lenses to explain and emphasise the importance of his judgment. By bringing Pal back to the Indian and global mainstream, this book will demonstrate how international law was, and can be viewed from a distinctly Global South perspective.
