From without to within: Indian international law as modernizer

While the post-colonial legislator had tried to develop a robust set of norms suited to the political aspirations of the new Indian Republic in the form of an evolutionary constitutional project, this dynamic process has also been supported by a vibrant judiciary, which has had recourse to foreign and international laws for social modernization. On the basis of the Indian constitutional project understood as a path towards modernity, this contribution argues that this normative internationalization brings even more promises in emerging economies where foreign and international laws are not only domesticized, but also held as powerful instruments for empowering the national democratic process yet sometimes at the risk of being rejected as judicial hyper-activism. It shows that this dynamic and incomplete project is all but irreversible at a time of a form of revival of the past. As such, it may well be that Indian law is not quite modern yet already post-modern.