La question de la licéité des politiques coloniales au regard du principe du droit intertemporel en droit international public: Texte annoté d’une intervention prononcée le 4 juillet 2022 lors d’une audition devant la Commission spéciale « Passé colonial » de la Chambre des Représentants de Belgique

Delivered at a hearing of the Special Committee on Belgium's Colonial Past of the Belgian Chamber of Representatives, this speech challenges the alleged lawfulness of colonial policies under the intertemporal law principle in public international law based on two considerations. First, due to the development of the history of international law as a fully fledged discipline, we now have a more granular view of the law applicable to international relations in the past. More particularly, recent studies in the field of the history of international law have shown that many colonial policies (e.g. mass murder of colonized populations, "excessive" forced labour, or even the unilateral imposition of colonial rule) were actually illegal under positive late 19th century international law. Second, a simple mechanical application of the intertemporal law principle is now increasingly understood as impossible to reconcile with the universal character of today's international community, sparking increasing calls in favour of a "decolonization" of this principle in order to rid it of its inherently discriminatory nature.