The Filipina in the Shadows of International Law: A Case Study of Philippine Court Decisions
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
2024
Abstract
The international political order, sustained by international law, constitutes hierarchies and asymmetries of power between states and among identities. Embedded in this ordering logic is an economy of sexualised bodies and gendered relations: masculinised global power prevails upon the feminised, exploited resources of the post-colony. This chapter examines court cases in the Philippines surrounding the crimes of US military personnel against Filipinas. Largely aided by the invocation of international law, the courts, in performing their traditional function of judicial interpretation, implicitly materialise, and bear the continuing logics of colonisation. In queering some aspects of the Philippine practice of international law, the hope is to render visible the enduring and immeasurable consequence of the traditional international legal order on countless Filipina bodies and lives.
Recommended Citation
Tugade, R. (2024). The Filipina in the Shadows of International Law: A Case Study of Philippine Court Decisions. In Claerwen O'Hara, & Tamsin Phillipa Paige (Eds.), Queer Engagements with International Law: Times, Spaces, Imaginings (pp. 120-138). Taylor and Francis.
