AbstractThis article examines the debate on the use of force `from the periphery', both in the geographical sense and outside the mainstream discourse. It offers an alternative reading of the evolution of the law on the use of force, starting not with the end of the Cold War, but with the process of decolonization. My argument is that this reading is missing from the debate framed as an opposition between a restrictivist and an expansionist camp. Yet it is crucial if one wants to understand the normative pull that is left of legal concepts such as non-intervention, aggression, and self-determination.