28 Oct Fourth Annual Symposium on Pop Culture and International Law: Jurisdiction in Star Wars Andor – TWAIL Perspectives and Current Lessons . . . for a galaxy NOT so far away . . .
[Ernesto Hernández-López, is a Professor of Law at the Dale E. Fowler School of Law, Chapman University, in California, United States. He writes about international trade, extraterritoriality, and law and culture. @ProfeErnesto1]
The Star Wars universe takes place “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…,” as it says in the opening screen of the movies. Since they began, the films use international law to emphasize conflict. The first released movie, A New Hope (1977), starts with a captain screaming we are “a consular ship” “on a diplomatic mission,” as he is choked by Darth Vader. The Phantom Menace (1999) explains that the saga begins with a trade dispute and a treaty imposed on the planet Naboo. Star Wars plotlines only make sense because the viewer recognizes some similarity in our own international system.
These stories present tensions intrinsic to imperial authority (Galactic Empire or First Order) and its resistance (Galactic Republic, Rebel Alliance, or New Republic). In this expansive setting, characters fall in love, find inspiration, scheme and repress, lose and grieve, form and break alliances, and confront supernatural and material interests. This fiction includes twelve films, eight animated series, and six live action series.
They offer legal lessons for our own international system now on Earth, not far away. Legal scholars have made this connection in terms of “guns for hire,” laws of war, authoritarianism, constitutional design, and the world, more generally.
This post argues that the Star Wars series Andor (2022) presents many of the critical contours that make up the international law of jurisdiction. Andor shows how the Empire governs and responds to brewing resistance. Imperial arrangements become the motivations for galactic conflict. International lawyers should take note. This post starts to do this by identifying similarities presently here on Earth.
In Andor’s first season, released on Disney+, the main character Cassian Andor joins rebel fighters, five years before the events in films Rogue One (2016) and A New Hope. Star Wars fans know that Cassian, played by Diego Luna, is eventually responsible for the Empire’s first defeat, the destruction of the Death Star. An event that sparks this entire popular mythology.
In simple terms, we watch Cassian’s journey through various star systems. We see distinct cultures, economic contexts, and imperial arrangements on different planets. This is rare. Most Star Wars movies are not about what happened during imperial rule. Andor shows why resistance is multi-system and why imperial objectives are galaxywide.
TWAIL Perspective on Jurisdiction
Andor illustrates how legal jurisdiction is a malleable concept. This post looks to B.S. Chimni’s analysis of the international law of jurisdiction, which focuses on the social and economic interests that shape jurisdiction. Chimni calls this a TWAIL perspective on jurisdiction, referring to the Third World Approaches to International Law movement. Citing Oppenheim, Brownlie, and others, he describes jurisdiction as the “judicial, legislative, and administrative competence” that public international law regulates.
This TWAIL perspective identifies how jurisdiction depends on “evolving material structures.” It contrasts the undertheorized, ahistorical, and asocial explanations, commonly provided by international legal scholarship. They emphasize concepts like territory, nationality, or universality to explain jurisdiction. They overlook too much.
Instead, Chimni proposes pinpointing the “particular substantive interests” that claims to authority promote. One example examines how: jurisdiction resolves the “tension or mismatch between” economic interests and territorial limitations. It does so with the concept of extraterritorial jurisdiction.
Chimni’s suggestions help disentangle three types of jurisdictions in Andor: corporate, in transition, and full imperial authority.
Corporate Authority
Corporate Tactical Forces are the Empire’s first line of defense.
And the best way to keep the blade sharp is to use it.
Andor begins in the Morlana star system run by the Pre-Ox Morlana Corporation (Pre-Ox). We see two planets: Morlana where the corporation is based and Ferrix where conflict brews. It’s suggested that the Empire outsources Pre-Ox to run this Outer-Rim system, i.e. the Empire’s periphery. Morlana is modern, clean, and rainy.
Ferrix is different, but technically an “affiliated planet” under Pre-Ox’s jurisdiction. It’s arid, dusty, and with desert features. The planet has a free trade sector, known as one of the best places to trade, fix, and find used starship parts. There is much commerce and black-market dealing. Pre-Ox police are not stationed here. Imperial stormtroopers are not on Ferrix or Morlana.
Cassian lives on Ferrix. A decade ago, his father was killed by the Empire and hung publicly as an example. Ferrix’s close-knit community remembers these intimidations. They protect the autonomy provided by an ambiguous jurisdiction.
If this was only a political story, Andor would be about the failure to serve a corporate warrant, Ferrix openly resisting Pre-Ox, and the consequential imposition of “permanent imperial authority.” But Star Wars is more complex. On Ferrix, resistance is an organic extension of the cultural practices, most obvious in repeated clanging of pots, pans, windows, and doors, by everyone when corporate police appear. It intimidates Pre-Ox and helps Cassian escape.
In the final episode, Cassian’s mother puts this jurisdiction into easy-to-comprehend terms. She says for too long Ferrix “kept trade lanes open,” the Empire left them alone, and they took the money. Now, they must rebel since the Empire is “here and not visiting anymore. It wants to stay.”
These planets offer lessons on how commercial needs fuel inexact autonomy. If threatened this quickly converts into increased exterritorial authority.
Transitional Occupation
. . . close to nothing and not very far away from everything.
It’s the perfect hub for distribution
if one were trying to take over the galaxy
Aldhani is under military occupation. Imperial presence increases on this green, desolate, and mountainous planet. A new air base is being built to supplement extensive storage and logistics infrastructure. Cassian relocates here to help a rebel group. They describe the dislocation suffered by residents, called Dhani. In just a decade, imperial troops cleared forty thousand Dhani from the Valley of Caves, their home for centuries. The Empire occupied it and dammed its river, both are sacred to the Dhani.
Imperial ambitions are material. The caves provide concealed storage for imperial equipment. Aldhani is ideally located to distribute this hardware across the Galaxy. An Imperial Enterprise Zone in the lowlands provides factory jobs and housing for the Dhani.
Imperial arrogance stands out. Explaining plans for expansion, Commandant Jayhold says the Dhani are “vulnerable to manipulation,” can’t hold multiple ideas, and their “deeper problem is pride.”
With Aldhani we see a jurisdiction in transition, currently under occupation but on the path to full control. Occupation is technically temporary. Jayhold says they trade goat hides for a three-year lease of the Valley. The hide-trading will end soon, when the airbase is completed. Geopolitical and administrative interests bring the Empire. They define the objectives of extraterritorial authority.
Imperial Jurisdiction
Do you think the rebels care
about the lines we draw on maps?
Andor presents two kinds of planets where imperial jurisdiction appears complete: Coruscant and planets with specialized economic activity. As the imperial capital, Coruscant is modern, sophisticated, and with imposing Brutalist architecture. It is entirely urban. Residents obsess over fashion and entertainment trends.
The challenges of imperial rule playout in the Imperial Security Bureau (ISB), something like an intelligence agency. From Coruscant, the center, its goal is to secure the empire and stop resistance in the Middle and Outer-Rims. An agent explains: when conflicts diminish mining continues.
Responding to rebel activity is mostly about ISB agents following set procedures, chains of command, and sectorial divisions of responsibilities. When rebels succeed on Aldhani and Ferrix becomes unmanageable, ISB agents balance threats to imperial trade and the need for determined procedures. Think imperial committees about imperial meetings. Internal order is also challenging.
In Niamos and Narkina, we see what motivates imperial presence. It’s material. As a tourist destination Niamos is known for beaches, resorts, and pleasant climate. Here, Cassian is mistaken for a pickpocket and captured by a precision network of stormtroopers and droids. They were not looking for rebels. Bad luck or imperial design?
He is convicted of “civil disruption, anti-imperial speech, fleeing the scene of anti-imperial activity, and attempted damage to imperial property.” His instantaneous arrest and quick trial illustrate what imperial officials prioritize: order and security. It protects the tourism industry.
After being assessed as “labor-worthy,” Cassian is imprisoned on Narkina. The prison is a high-tech factory where inmates work under a rigid system. This includes movement control and productivity monitoring. With this, the Empire extracts human capital at the cheapest cost. Cassian explains why they are there “we are cheaper than droids, easier to replace.” The Empire is there to capitalize on isolation and labor costs. In sum, imperial jurisdiction protects material interests, in the center and in the periphery.
on Earth, not so far away . . .
What does a TWAIL perspective on jurisdiction suggest we do in our world? Short answer, identify: 1) what social and economic interests motivate claims of authority and 2) how this creates tensions. Regarding public international law, three types of situations point to likely mismatches between material objectives and territorial constraints to authority.
First is where colonial legal arrangements persist. The United Nations lists seventeen examples of Non-Self-Governing Territories. Similarly, the U.S. Department of State charts sixty-four Dependencies and Areas of Special Sovereignty around the world, including Hong Kong, “Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas),” and American examples like Guam and others. It’s conceivable that material and geopolitical interests motivate the administration of these islands and autonomous zones.
If international context changes, could they resemble Ferrix or Aldhani? Is their main industry tourism like on Niamos? Are inmates brought there like on Narkina?
Second are overseas military bases. There are many worldwide. European powers like the United Kingdom, France and Russia and regional powers like India, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates have more than one. China has one and is assumed to plan for more. But the United States takes the cake with over 700. No other power has even 100.
These locations are intentionally anomalous. I describe this regarding military detentions on Guantanamo. I emphasize the legal significance of indefinite American presence in Cuba for over a century. Now, two decades after detentions began, thirty detainees remain there indefinitely. For most overseas bases, jurisdiction issues are determined by a Status of Forces Agreement, which Guantanamo lacks given American influence over Cuba after the Treaty of Paris of 1898.
Extraterritorial motivations adapt. Initially Guantanamo’s purpose was to support a naval presence in the Caribbean. It served multiple American interventions nearby and deterred European threats to the new Panama Canal. This adapted. A century later, motivations extended to captives caught in Afghanistan and other far-off places. In 2017, the U.S. looked to jurisprudence on Guantanamo to authorize the indefinite detention of a U.S. citizen in Iraq. I described this as the Phantom Menace. Jurisdictional anomalies crept in Cuba, Afghanistan, and Iraq for over a decade.
Third, military occupations and their intrinsic controversies continue. The Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts (RULAC) database charts multiple occupations worldwide. International Humanitarian Law applies to territories under occupation, a question raised when Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. But legal expectations face the reality of military strength.
This past July, the International Court of Justice ruled against Israel, regarding its occupation of Palestinian Territory. The international community worries about the political justifications given by Israel to reject these rulings. Ntina Tzouvala explains how occupation is central to the genocide case against Israel. Like on Aldhani, occupation benefits from evading legal controls.
These are a small set, not an exhaustive list, of circumstances to more fully examine. Chimni’s insights on jurisdiction go beyond what this post mentions. They include legal harmonization between states and the “significant class, gender, race and caste effects” of jurisdiction.
Hopefully, international lawyers look at Star Wars not just as fiction that lacks contemporary and earthly relevance. But instead, appreciate the role legal instruments and legal arguments have in empire, “a galaxy far, far away” and currently here on Earth. Andor offers a great starting point to make this jump.
*Stay tuned for Andor season 2, like imperial jurisdictions its details remain vague but evident.
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