This project investigates the entanglements between international law and spatial organization in Africa from the end of the First World War to the late twentieth century. It examines how historical transformations in the international legal status of specific territories, mediated by institutions such as the League of Nations and the United Nations, produced material effects on their spatial configurations.
Grounded in the premise that law is a spatial practice, the research explores how international law not only regulated territorial status in formal terms but also – directly or indirectly – shaped the physical and organizational structures of space, such as in technical assistance for building and planning. Focusing on case studies such as Ghana, Namibia, and Tanzania, which were subjected to distinct international legal statuses during the twentieth century, extensive archival research will be conducted, encompassing legal and institutional documents.
By adopting an interdisciplinary approach that combines international law, history, architecture, and urban studies, the research aims to illuminate how non-legal techniques such as architecture, urban planning, and infrastructure development contributed to shaping specific forms of statehood, sovereignty, and international legal personality. In doing so, it situates local processes of spatial transformation within broader global paradigms and highlights how international law has both reproduced and contested historical inequalities through its material engagement with space.
As part of the Research Training Group “Organizing Architectures,” this project bridges the history of international law and architectural history. By examining the overlapping communities engaged in the planning and organization of various territories, it aims to offer a more nuanced understanding of international law as embedded within broader structures of unequal power, authority, and resource distribution, which extend into tangible and material dimensions inscribed in space.
