AFRICA IN THE CENTER OF THE CRISIS IN THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER: INTERNATIONAL LAW AND IMPERIALISM

Abstract

Abstract

This article analyzes contemporary forms of imperialism based on the experience of Guinea-Bissau, focusing on the articulation between international law, foreign aid, and the production of categories of state fragility. Through bibliographic and documentary research and critical analysis, it argues that classifications such as “Fragile State” and “Narco-State” do not merely describe the Guinean reality, but produce political and legal effects by legitimizing interventions, conditionalities, and forms of subordinate inclusion in the international system. Drawing on Marxist critiques of law, world-systems theory, and African anti-colonial thought, the article argues that these mechanisms reproduce relations of dependency and reconfigure the limits of state sovereignty in peripheral countries. The analysis thus reveals the persistence of a legal-political architecture of domination that articulates economics, law, security, and the production of representations of the Global South.

Keywords: Imperialism; International Law; Guinea-Bissau; Foreign Aid; Sovereignty; Neocolonialism.