Mr. Mothercountry: The Man Who Made the Rule of Law
Keally McBride
Abstract
European colonial powers delivered a system of law to their possessions; this book examines the legal legacies from this practice that remain intact today. Despite the claims that the white man’s burden included transfer of the rule of law to less-enlightened countries, the number of people who were involved in legal administration for the British Empire was small. In fact, the legal footprint of the British Empire was primarily made by one family. Sir James Stephen, known as Mr. Mothercountry, oversaw the British Empire’s colonial laws for thirty years. A committed abolitionist who believed t ... More
European colonial powers delivered a system of law to their possessions; this book examines the legal legacies from this practice that remain intact today. Despite the claims that the white man’s burden included transfer of the rule of law to less-enlightened countries, the number of people who were involved in legal administration for the British Empire was small. In fact, the legal footprint of the British Empire was primarily made by one family. Sir James Stephen, known as Mr. Mothercountry, oversaw the British Empire’s colonial laws for thirty years. A committed abolitionist who believed that the rule of law could be deployed for the protection of the most dispossessed subjects of the Crown, he fought a losing battle for a more robust interpretation of the rule of law in the context of colonialism. His son, Sir James Fitzjames Stephen would complete the codification of laws in India, and these were then circulated to British possessions around the world. With the passing of the mantle from father to son, the British embraced a more pragmatic view of the rule of law as an instrument of power as opposed to a beacon of justice. This book traces the emergence of the system of international law and power inequality that is in place today.
Keywords:
rule of law,
colonialism,
codification,
colonial legality,
postcolonial law,
James Stephen,
British Empire,
Mr. Mothercountry
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190252977 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: September 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190252977.001.0001 |
