Bodies against the law: Abu Ghraib and the war on terror

2009 ◽  
Vol 42 (1) ◽  
pp. 63-80
Author(s):  
Kelly Oliver
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Abu Ghraib ◽  
The Law

The abyss of counterterrorism

2019 ◽  
pp. 154-175
Author(s):  
Marco Pinfari
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Law Of War ◽  
State Actors ◽  
The Law

This chapter engages with contemporary counterterrorist practices and discusses cases in which state actors either deal with “terrorists” according to the prescriptions inherent in the symbolic and metaphoric systems used to frame them in the first place, or impersonate the monster prototype (entirely or in some of its components) in their counterterrorist strategies. It first presents the so-called Dahiya Doctrine as an example of how the framing of an enemy as the paradigmatic, cosmic adversary of a people could help a state (Israel) justify violations of the law of war. The following paragraphs discuss the performative construction of the War on Terror as the war of monsters against monsters, focusing first on the impersonation of monstrosity as part of the condoning of unconventional interrogation and detention methods, and then on the move toward de-humanized, (allegedly) surgically effective, and automatized weapon platforms and surveillance systems.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-18
Author(s):  
Steven J. Barela ◽  
Jens David Ohlin
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Severe Pain ◽  
Customary Law ◽  
Pain And Suffering ◽  
The Law

Torture is illegal. Beyond the pure human torment that was inflicted in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the law against torture was another dreadful casualty in the “War on Terror.” Every knowledgeable reading of the codified and customary law recognizes the use of severe pain and suffering as a patently unlawful act for every nation today....

Interstitial rules and the contested application of human rights law and the laws of war in counterterrorism

2016 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-237 ◽  
Author(s):  
MICHAEL E. NEWELL
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
International Law ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
International Human Rights Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Laws Of War ◽  
Legal Norms ◽  
Drone Strikes ◽  
The Law

Abstract:The laws of war and international human rights law (IHRL) overlap, often with competing obligations. When two or more areas of the law overlap, political agents attempt to address these areas of ambiguity with interstitial rules. However, a lack of consensus on interstitial rules can destabilise the law, leading to increased contestation of legal norms and principles. Such is the case for international law in counterterrorism. Prior to the 11 September 2001 attacks (9/11), international agreements and US domestic practices placed counterterrorism within the framework of law enforcement. After 9/11, the Bush Administration replaced law enforcement with armed conflict and the laws of war as the dominant paradigm for counterterrorism, but this decision, among other legal justifications in the War on Terror, has been contested by the international legal community. As IHRL still applies in law enforcement operations, international law in counterterrorism now sits within a contested overlap of IHRL and the laws of war. The contestation of US policies in the War on Terror, including the use of drone strikes in particular, is a product of this unresolved overlap and the lack of clear interstitial rules. Lacking these rules, US counterterrorism policies risk undermining the rule of law.

scholarly journals Abu Ghraib, 2004: Doctrinal Confusion of American Military Police

2015 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shelby House
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Abu Ghraib ◽  
Military Doctrine ◽  
Military Police ◽  
American Military ◽  
War In Iraq ◽  
Abu Ghraib Prison ◽  
Prisoner Abuse

The Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004 was one of the worst and most widely talked-about cases of prisoner abuse by American forces during any war. This scandal had lasting implications for the War in Iraq and America's War on Terror as a whole. This essay examines what failures in military doctrine led to such egregious abuses and how those failures have or have not been remedied.

scholarly journals Risk before Justice: When the Law Contests Its Own Suspension

2008 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 847-861 ◽  
Author(s):  
LOUISE AMOORE
Keyword(s):  
Risk Management ◽  
War On Terror ◽  
Security Practices ◽  
Risk Practices ◽  
The Law ◽  
Uncertain Future ◽  
The One ◽  
The Relationship

AbstractContemporary security practices pose a particular paradox in the relationship between law and norm. On the one hand, the institution of risk practices in advance of, and in place of, juridical decisions appears to have become the technical resolution of choice to the politics of targeted security in the ‘war on terror’. The risk calculus makes possible an array of interventions – from detention, deportation, or ‘secondary’ security to asset freezing and ‘blacklisting’ – that operate in place of, and in advance of, the legal thresholds of evidence and decision. And yet, this article demonstrates, it is not the case that law recedes as risk advances, but rather that law potentially both authorizes and contests specific modes of risk management. As risk practices in the war on terror operate on and through a distinctive and novel terrain of the uncertain future, the capacity of juridical intervention to contest the exposure of people to dehumanizing technologies itself faces new potentials and limits.

scholarly journals Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror—a case against Donald Rumsfeld?

2008 ◽  
Vol 51 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 327-349 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alette Smeulers ◽  
Sander van Niekerk
Keyword(s):  
War On Terror ◽  
Abu Ghraib ◽  
Donald Rumsfeld
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