Setting the Scene
Within the wake of the terrorist assault in Jammu and Kashmir in April 2025, the Authorities of India launched what it known as a “Political Mission” on the worldwide stage. On the centre of this initiative was the deployment of high-level all-party delegations to key capitals. This follow, referred to right here as delegation diplomacy, concerned briefing host governments on India’s account of the incident, the alleged position of The Resistance Entrance (TRF), and Pakistan’s purported complicity in cross-border terrorism. In keeping with official briefings, the intention was not restricted to strategic messaging. It was the projection of a authorized narrative designed to current India as a state underneath siege and to border Pakistan as a violator of worldwide norms.
This initiative exemplifies a broader phenomenon that this put up identifies as narrative setting in worldwide legislation. Narrative setting refers back to the structured effort by states to form the authorized character of occasions by figuring out how claims are framed, the place they’re voiced, and thru which establishments they’re obtained. It entails three interrelated dynamics: the projection of authorized identification, the collection of venues for narrative circulation, and invoking authorized classes comparable to aggression, terrorism, or state accountability. Inside this framework, worldwide legislation shouldn’t be solely written or adjudicated. Additionally it is carried out and curated.
India’s delegations didn’t merely relay information. They invoked authorized phrases comparable to attribution and state complicity with the intention to embed which means inside diplomatic efficiency. As Julia Otten argues, authorized narratives don’t merely describe. They confer authority and form the institutional reception of claims.
This technique finds resonance in different current geopolitical practices. Ukraine’s attraction to the Worldwide Court docket of Justice and the Worldwide Prison Court docket following Russia’s invasion in 2022, and Israel’s invocation of worldwide humanitarian legislation in response to criticism of its navy actions in Gaza, each illustrate how authorized storytelling operates throughout diplomatic and institutional contexts. As Alexandra Homolar and Oliver Turner observe, such “narrative alliances” consolidate specific interpretations of legislation whereas marginalising others.
These examples mark what this put up phrases a narrative flip in worldwide legislation. States are more and more crafting authorized tales, figuring out receptive audiences, and occupying institutional venues the place their claims can achieve traction and legitimacy. As Lucas Lixinski notes, worldwide legislation derives coherence not solely from guidelines and doctrines but in addition from the tales that give these guidelines reminiscence and normative route.
The evaluation that follows interrogates India’s technique inside this broader shift. It asks how authorized which means is constructed by way of narrative setting, who’s authorised to relate legality, and the way institutional buildings decide which voices are heard and that are silenced.
Authorized Narrativity as Follow: Between Efficiency and Persuasion
Worldwide legislation is commonly depicted as a rule-based system ruled by impartial procedures and formal norms. But this depiction obscures the central position of narrative in shaping how authorized claims are constructed, obtained, and institutionalised. As Mbengue and d’Aspremont observe, authorized which means is often produced by way of tales that body crises, set up identities, and find actors inside ethical and juridical hierarchies.
Authorized identification shouldn’t be derived solely from treaties or doctrines. It emerges from narrative arcs that hyperlink previous grievances with current claims and future aspirations. Whether or not within the courtroom or the diplomatic area, coherence and persuasiveness usually matter as a lot as formal authorized reasoning. As Steven Kay KC and Mark Kersten have highlighted, narrative shouldn’t be a rhetorical complement however a core logic of authorized discourse. Authorized actors don’t merely cite legislation; they reframe it, contest it, and challenge it into wider political narratives.
Crucially, this narrative house shouldn’t be equally accessible. As Windsor notes, authorized narration usually displays the pursuits and assumptions of dominant actors, whereas marginal voices wrestle for institutional traction. Diplomatic attain, media entry, and geopolitical alignment form whose authorized tales are heard and whose are disregarded.
Susan Marks reminds us that worldwide legislation’s claims to neutrality have to be weighed in opposition to this unequal distribution of narrative authority. The query shouldn’t be solely who formulates authorized arguments but in addition who can accomplish that with the authority to affect institutional response. These dynamics underscore the structural politics of narrative setting in worldwide legislation. They assist clarify why India’s post-attack diplomacy can’t be learn merely as communication or self-defence however have to be understood as a strategic intervention into the sector of authorized which means itself.
India’s Technique in Context: Authorized Narrativity as State Follow
India’s resolution to dispatch all get together delegations overseas (UAE, Japan, Russia, Republic of Korea, Qatar, Bahrain, USA, Guyana, Maldives, Kuwait, Germany, Brussels, Egypt, Spain, Malaysia, UK, Algeria, Liberia, Ethiopia, Indonesia, Brazil, Denmark, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Latvia, Saudi Arabia, Italy, Greece, Colombia, France, DR Congo, Slovenia, Singapore, Panama) following the Jammu and Kashmir was greater than a diplomatic gesture. It constituted a deliberate authorized efficiency, choreographed to relate India’s worldwide authorized identification as a state underneath siege, performing throughout the legislation, and to solid Pakistan as a sponsor of proxy violence. Although introduced as a counter-terrorism measure, this initiative reveals a broader technique of state positioning by way of authorized discourse. It exemplifies how states use worldwide legislation not solely as a system of norms however as a story medium for setting up legitimacy, assigning blame, and asserting interpretive authority in contested geopolitical areas.
The idea of narrative on this context extends past media or coverage communication. India’s framing of The Resistance Entrance as a rebranding of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a bunch already designated underneath UN Safety Council Decision 1267, is an effort to invoke worldwide authorized obligations round counter-terrorism and sanctions. In doing so, India makes an attempt to shift the burden of response onto the worldwide group, implying that failure to behave would represent complicity or dereliction underneath current counter-terror regimes. It is a transfer to claim state accountability and recast the authorized subjectivity of TRF and Pakistan by way of affiliation and attribution.
This technique aligns with the performative insights of Gary Minda, who argues that the post-9/11 authorized panorama has enabled states to border home threats as world authorized crises, usually bypassing the rigorous thresholds that worldwide legislation historically calls for. By embedding the assault inside a broader world narrative of terrorism, India repositions its native grievance as a global authorized emergency, one which carries implications for state accountability, collective safety, and norm enforcement.
But this narrative, like others, rests on selective invocation. India’s emphasis on terrorism as a breach of worldwide order shouldn’t be matched by equal authorized openness to critique relating to its conduct in Kashmir, together with allegations of human rights abuses. This asymmetry shouldn’t be incidental. It displays a broader sample by which authorized narratives are constructed to focus on sure norms: safety, sovereignty, and self-defence. Whereas muting others, comparable to human rights, humanitarian safety, and self-determination.
This stress invitations a return to China Miéville’s materialist critique of worldwide legislation as a web site of wrestle, the place authorized which means is formed not solely by textual interpretation but in addition by structural inequalities and geopolitical energy. India’s strategy is thus not merely a nationwide response to terrorism, however a consultant expression of how states more and more instrumentalise worldwide authorized discourse to outline, not simply defend, their standing in world normative hierarchies. Comparable methods are seen within the practices of different states, the place the efficiency of legality consolidates authority and legitimacy.
Comparative Methods of Authorized Storytelling
The authorized methods adopted by Ukraine and Israel exhibit that narrative setting shouldn’t be confined to a single area or battle. States more and more craft authorized narratives to claim legitimacy, justify actions, and body the normative context inside which their claims are obtained. These practices are usually not incidental. They’re choreographed interventions that align authorized discourse with strategic and institutional goals.
Ukraine’s recourse to the Worldwide Court docket of Justice in 2022, alleging that Russia had distorted the Genocide Conference, was not merely procedural. It represented a discursive technique geared toward reframing Russia’s use of pressure as illegal and morally indefensible. Ukraine’s parallel engagements with the Worldwide Prison Court docket, the UN Common Meeting, and its requires a particular tribunal replicate a broader effort to align authorized identification with the values of worldwide legality. As Moshe Hirsch notes, this can be a technique of setting up collective reminiscence by way of authorized storytelling that hyperlinks previous violations to current claims and future entitlements. It additionally echoes Anna Studying’s work on reminiscence rights, which sees worldwide legislation as a medium for narrating contested histories and institutional belonging.
Israel’s strategy equally displays a strategic narrative calculus. Its authorized discourse has expanded from self-defence to incorporate worldwide humanitarian legislation, uneven warfare, and civilian threat mitigation. These themes seem in its responses to Worldwide Prison Court docket proceedings, UN resolutions on Gaza, and UNRWA. These efforts assemble a counternarrative that frames Israel’s actions as lawful, needed, and embedded in a context of existential menace. This type of authorized narration displays what Mark Kersten and Yasmin Naqvi describe because the structural circumstances of legislation’s efficiency. Israel’s technique positions its authorized claims inside worldwide establishments whereas concurrently contesting these establishments’ normative authority. The result’s a hybrid strategy that seeks not solely authorized defence, however normative management over how legality is interpreted and obtained.
These authorized performances, nonetheless, are by no means uncontested. Russia has superior its narrative of humanitarian necessity, safety of Russian-speaking populations, and the precise of self-defence underneath Article 51 of the UN Constitution. These claims have been articulated by way of official statements and authorized submissions, forming a controversial however coherent authorized identification that challenges dominant framings.
Palestinian actors, together with the Palestinian State and organisations comparable to Al-Haq, have additionally engaged in strategic authorized narration. Their appeals to the Worldwide Prison Court docket and the UN Human Rights Council body Israel’s actions as a chronic occupation marked by systematic violations of worldwide humanitarian legislation. These efforts intention to embed Palestinian claims inside authorized establishments and counter prevailing safety narratives.
Equally, Pakistan’s Ministry of Overseas Affairs has issued formal responses to India’s diplomatic outreach, denying involvement within the Jammu and Kashmir assault and framing India’s narrative as a deflection from its human rights document within the area. Pakistan’s interventions on the UN and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation invoke authorized rules comparable to self-determination and humanitarian accountability.
These examples illustrate that authorized storytelling is a discipline of structured contestation. Competing actors mobilise institutional boards and authorized vocabularies to justify conduct and outline how legality is known. As this narrative flip unfolds, it turns into essential to ask what sorts of authorized authority are being constructed, who’s authorised to relate, and whose accounts stay excluded.
The Limits and Risks of Authorized Narrativity
The rise of authorized narrativity as a instrument of statecraft brings with it vital dangers. These are usually not incidental issues however structural risks. As Homolar and Turner warning, narratives can harden into discursive regimes foreclosing different interpretations, silencing competing accounts, and marginalising dissenting authorized subjectivities. When worldwide legislation is harnessed as an instrument of narrative persuasion, it dangers being diminished to symbolic compliance, the place rhetorical alignment with authorized norms substitutes for substantive accountability.
This concern is especially acute when authorized establishments are politically, financially, or jurisdictionally constrained from adjudicating the claims superior inside dominant narratives. In such circumstances, as Kersten notes, the legality efficiency can obscure the unaddressed structural violence, turning legislation into theatre slightly than treatment.
Furthermore, the asymmetry of narrative energy should not be ignored. As Yasmin Naqvi has argued, even authorized ideas such because the “proper to reality” have been inconsistently utilized, usually reinforcing the narratives of highly effective states whereas leaving victims of marginalised or decolonised communities with out recourse. This narrative inequality reveals a deeper structural bias in how worldwide legislation is obtained, interpreted, and institutionalised.
Authorized narrativity, then, shouldn’t be inherently emancipatory. It may be used to problem domination, but in addition to entrench it. The duty for worldwide authorized students and practitioners is to not reject narrative altogether, however to interrogate its politics, to ask whose story is being advised, with what authorized assets, and to what institutional finish.
Conclusion: Talking Regulation, Claiming Authority
Narrative shouldn’t be a complement to authorized argument however its construction. States don’t merely adjust to or defy worldwide legislation; they carry out, contest, and reshape it by way of storytelling. Institutional entry, materials circumstances, and geopolitical positioning form these performances. Authorized narration, then, shouldn’t be impartial. It determines whose claims are heard, whose violence counts, and whose authority prevails. India’s flip to delegation diplomacy is a part of this broader shift, utilizing authorized language to craft identification and assert legitimacy. But whether or not such methods advance justice or reinforce world hierarchies will depend on whose tales are advised, with what authority, and by which boards. To take care of the authorized narrative is to hint its type and query its politics. For students and practitioners alike, the problem is to maneuver past the floor of authorized language and confront the facility it performs.
