Author Description

Arbitrating Empire Offers A New History Of The Emergence Of The United States As A Global Power-one Shaped As Much By Attempts To Insulate The Us Justice System From International Scrutiny As It Was By Efforts To Project Influence Across The Globe. Drawing On Extensive Archival Research In The United States, Mexico, Panama, And The United Kingdom, Allison Powers Traces How Thousands Of Dispossessed Residents Of Us-annexed Territories Petitioned International Claims Commissions Between The 1870s And The 1930s To Hold The United States Accountable For Myriad Forms Of State Violence. Through Attention To Their Unexpected Claims, The Book Demonstrates How Colonial Subjects, Refugees From Slavery, And Migrant Workers Transformed A Series Of Tribunals Designed To Establish The Legality Of United States Intervention Into Sites Through Which To Challenge The Legitimacy Of The Us Justice System Itself. Moving Between The Stories Of Claimants Who Challenged Racialized Violence And Economic Dispossession In Arizona Copper Mines, Texas Cotton Fields, Samoan Port Cities, Cuban Sugar Plantations, The Locks And Stops Of The Panama Canal Zone, And The Tribunals Convened In Metropolitan Capitals To Which They Turned For Redress, The Book Uncovers How Everyday People Used International Law To Hold The United States Accountable For State-sanctioned Violence During The First Decades Of The Twentieth Century-and Why The State Department's Attempts To Mitigate This Exposure Remade International Law-- Provided By Publisher.