- Table View
- List View
Law, War and the Penumbra of Uncertainty: Legal Cultures, Extra-legal Reasoning and the Use of Force
by Sam SelvaduraiThis book argues that lawyers must often rely on contestable ethical and strategic intuitions when dealing with legal and factual uncertainties in 'hard cases' of resort to force. This area of international law relies on multiple tests which can be interpreted in different ways, do not yield binary 'yes/no' answers, and together define 'paradigms' of lawful and unlawful force. Controversial cases of force differ from these paradigms, requiring lawyers to assess complex, incomplete factual evidence, and to forecast the immediate and long-term consequences of using and not using force. Legal rules cannot resolve such uncertainties; instead, techniques from legal risk management, strategic intelligence assessment and political forecasting may help. This study develops these arguments using the philosophy of knowledge, socio-legal, politico-strategic and ethical theory, structured interviews and a survey with 31 UK-based international lawyers, and systematic analysis of key International Court of Justice cases and scholarly assessments of US-led interventions.
Law, Wealth and Power in China: Commercial Law Reforms in Context (Routledge Contemporary China Series)
by John GarrickThis book examines the law reforms of contemporary China in light of the Party-state’s ideological transformation and the political economy that shapes these reforms. This involves analysing three interrelated domains: law reform, power and wealth. The contributors to this volume employ a variety of perspectives and analytical techniques in their discussion of key themes including: commercial law reform and its governance of wealth and regulation of economic activity; the influence and authority of the Party-state over China’s economic activity; and the influence of wealth and the wealthy in economic governance and legal reform. Utilizing an interdisciplinary approach, this book presents analytical perspectives of new work, or new lines of thinking about the new wealth, power and law reforms of China. As such, critical boundaries are explored between legal and financial reforms and what these reforms signify about deeper ideological, economic, social and cultural transformations in China. The book concludes by asking whether there is a ‘China model’ of development which will produce a unique variety of capitalism and indigenous variant of rule of law, and examining the ‘winners and losers’ in the transition from a centrally planned economy to a market economy. Law, Wealth and Power in China will be of interest to students and academics of comparative law, Asian law, Chinese economics and politics, Chinese Studies, as well as professionals in investment banking, finance and government.
Law without Force: The Function of Politics in International Law
by Gerhart Niemeyer Michael HenryLaw Without Force is a landmark in political and social philosophy. It proposes nothing less than a completely new basis for international law. As relevant today as when it was first published nearly sixty years ago, it commands the attention of all concerned with what the future may bring to the law of nations. The great scope of Niemeyer's undertaking draws respect even from those who disagree with his challenging analysis of the historical past and his suggestions for the future of international law. In his new introduction, Michael Henry observes that Law Without Force provides us with a foundation of Niemeyer's thinking. Published in 1941, when Hitler was swallowing up Europe, this volume shows how a first-rate mind grappled with a legal, historical, social, and ultimately metaphysical problem. It provides in detail the reasoning behind Niemeyer's rejection of a foreign policy based on morality and his distinction between authoritarian and totalitarian governments; and it provides us with the first stage of his lengthy and prodigious effort to understand "this terrible century." It is a book that no serious student of Niemeyer can afford to ignore. At the very heart of the author's vigorous discussion may be found his rejection of a moral basis for international law and his suggestion that a functional basis should be substituted for it. The book incisively reviews the relation between traditional international law and the changing structure of international politics concluding that the traditional system of law has operated as an agency of disharmony and conflict. After an investigation of the traditional legal system, the author then asks, "What type of law fits the social structure of this modern world?" The answers are presented in the last part of the book, as Neimeyer offers his case for a functional system of law, divorced from moral exhortations or appeals to shattered authority. Philosophy, sociology, and legal theory are brilliantly interwoven in this volume, which will engage serious readers interested in political and social theory.
Law Without Lawyers: A Comparative View Of Law In The United States And China
by Victor H. LiThe U.S. has 400,000 lawyers in a society of 200 million people. China, a country with four times that population, has a mere 3,500 lawyers. How do the Chinese achieve law without lawyers? Victor Li, one of the world's leading authorities on Chinese law, explores the way the Chinese and U.S. systems have historically viewed law (and still view it), and the way each system functions in everyday life to shape conduct and control deviance. In a straightforward and highly readable manner, the author examines how these highly divergent societies operate. He writes about historical forces and cultural values that are centuries old—and that are still critical influences in shaping life in modern America and China. In explaining the differences in the tradition and operation of law in these two cultures, Li gives us both an invaluable understanding of Chinese society today and his own appraisal of the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. law, lawyers, and courts.
Law Without Lawyers, Justice Without Courts: On Traditional Chinese Mediation
by Bee Chen GohThe Chinese have, since ancient times, professed a non-litigious outlook. Similarly, their preference for mediation has fascinated the West for centuries. Mediation has been popularized by the Chinese who subscribe to the Confucian notions of harmony and compromise. It has been perpetuated in the People's Republic of China and by the overseas Chinese communities elsewhere, such as in Malaysia and Taiwan. Seen as the chief contributing factor in their litigation-averse nature, as well as the reason behind the significant role given to traditional mediation, this compelling book traces the cultural tradition of the Chinese. It uses rural Chinese Malaysians as illustrative examples and offers new insights into the nature of mediation East and West. It is an important reference and essential resource for anyone keen to learn about traditional Chinese concepts of law, justice and dispute settlement. Equally, it makes a unique contribution to the existing ADR literature by undertaking a socio-legal study on traditional Chinese mediation.
Law without Nations?: Why Constitutional Government Requires Sovereign States
by Jeremy A. RabkinWhat authority does international law really have for the United States? When and to what extent should the United States participate in the international legal system? This forcefully argued book by legal scholar Jeremy Rabkin provides an insightful new look at this important and much-debated question. Americans have long asked whether the United States should join forces with institutions such as the International Criminal Court and sign on to agreements like the Kyoto Protocol. Rabkin argues that the value of international agreements in such circumstances must be weighed against the threat they pose to liberties protected by strong national authority and institutions. He maintains that the protection of these liberties could be fatally weakened if we go too far in ceding authority to international institutions that might not be zealous in protecting the rights Americans deem important. Similarly, any cessation of authority might leave Americans far less attached to the resulting hybrid legal system than they now are to laws they can regard as their own. Law without Nations? traces the traditional American wariness of international law to the basic principles of American thought and the broader traditions of liberal political thought on which the American Founders drew: only a sovereign state can make and enforce law in a reliable way, so only a sovereign state can reliably protect the rights of its citizens. It then contrasts the American experience with that of the European Union, showing the difficulties that can arise from efforts to merge national legal systems with supranational schemes. In practice, international human rights law generates a cloud of rhetoric that does little to secure human rights, and in fact, is at odds with American principles, Rabkin concludes. A challenging and important contribution to the current debates about the meaning of multilateralism and international law, Law without Nations? will appeal to a broad cross-section of scholars in both the legal and political science arenas.
Law without Nations
by Austin Sarat Lawrence Douglas Martha UmphreyAs the editors (all of Amherst College) explain in their introduction, how one conceptualizes the idea of "law without nations" depends very much on how one theorizes "the nation." A Hobbesian view of the nation as the state suggests that there can be no such thing as "law without nations." The development of doctrines of international crimes such as genocide suggests that law can exist above and beyond the nation, however defined. Understanding "the nation" either in the sense of the German concept of "das Volk" or as an expression of social solidarity (without, necessarily, the exclusivist connotations of "das Volk") can lead to an understanding of the law as embodying and expressing "matters of tradition, affect, belief, and ultimate values," and thus "law without nations" suggests either an impossibility or the imposition of artificial legality from the outside. Finally, in liberal legality, which sees law as the creator of social solidarity and the vehicle for promoting social justice, "law without nations" can be understood as the culmination of the liberal ideal. It is the tensions between these different ways of understanding "law without nations" that animate the six essays presented here, which explore such specific topics as the legal relationship between the nation-state and a globalized world as pertaining to the punishment of crime and the waging of war; issues of comparative constitutionalism (the US Supreme Court citing decisions of foreign domestic national courts, for instance); the conceptual development of Jewish law in the absence of a state for the nation; the recent development of Islamic Sharia Law as a form of supranational legality arising out of the void of failing states; international law as a facilitator of ethnic displacement and exclusion; and law within a liberal multinational empire. Annotation ©2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Law, Women Judges and the Gender Order: Lessons from the High Court of Australia
by Kcasey McLoughlinThis book seeks to understand how women judges are situated as legal knowers on the High Court of Australia by asking whether a near-equal gender balance on the High Court has disrupted the Court’s historically masculinist gender regime. This book examines how the High Court’s gender regime operates once there is more than one woman on the bench. It explores the following questions: How have the Court’s gender relations accommodated the presence women on the bench? How have the women themselves accommodated those pre-existing gender relations? How might legal judgments and reasoning change as a result of changing gender dynamics on the bench? To develop answers to these (and other) questions the book pursues a methodology that conceptualises the High Court as an institution with a particular gender regime shaped historically by the dominant gender order of the wider society. The intersection between the (gendered) individuals and the (gendered) institution in which they operate produces and reproduces that institution’s gender regime. Hence, the enquiry is not so much asking ‘have women judges made a difference?’ but rather is asking how should we understand women judges’ relationship with the law, a relationship that is shaped as much by the individual judge as by the institutional context in which they operate. Scholars, legal practitioners and researchers interested in judicial reasoning, gender diversity and the legal profession, gender and politics will be interested in this book because it breaks new ground as a case study of a Court’s gender regime at a particular time.
Lawfare: Waging War through Law
by Cristiano Zanin Martins Valeska Teixeira Martins Rafael ValimThis book examines one of the most emblematic cases of lawfare today: the criminal prosecution of former Brazilian President Lula. The authors argue that lawfare is not just a slogan or a game at the service of any one political ideology. Rather, it has to do with a complex, multifaceted phenomenon that should be carefully reflected upon in modern constitutional democracies, given that it is able to demolish majority rule and the rule of law. They contend it is the strategic use of the law with the purpose of delegitimizing, harming or annihilating an enemy. The literature specializing in the subject tends to alternate between analysis of only one aspect of the phenomenon or consists of extensive case studies. In order to fill this gap, this book revisits the subject and offers a sophisticated theoretical approach to lawfare, in an unprecedented combination of theory of war and theory of law. The book will be of interest to students, researchers and policy makers working in the areas of public law, international law, procedural law, anthropology of law and sociology of law, as well as political science and international relations.
Lawfare: New Trajectories in Law (New Trajectories in Law)
by Jaume Castan Pinos Mark Friis HauThis book develops a new conceptualisation of lawfare that recognises the polysemantic nature of the term. Drawing on theoretical developments from legal anthropology, international relations, and social theory, the book scrutinises the multiple dimensions of this phenomenon. It illustrates the multifaceted character of lawfare with a wide range of historical and contemporary cases from across the globe and analyses the implications of actors pursuing political objectives through legal means. This includes the use of lawfare by states as a legal instrument to accomplish geopolitical objectives, domestic lawfare, or the use of legal instruments to undermine internal opposition, and state lawfare used by governments to ‘protect’ the state from internal territorial-secessionist challenges. Finally, the book shows that lawfare is not exclusively a tool for hegemonic actors, as it can also be used by civil society actors that aim to uphold their rights through legal instruments in asymmetric lawfare. This book contributes to new developments in lawfare without shying away from controversy, acknowledging its sometimes-brutal efficacy as well as its potential pitfalls. The book will appeal to scholars and students of law, international relations, political science, anthropology, and sociology.
Lawfare and Judicial Legitimacy: The Judicialisation of Politics in the case of South Africa (Routledge Research in Public Law)
by Kate DentLawfare is a complex and evolving concept with many permutations. It is a term that is used to describe both a judicialisation of politics where the Constitutional Court is called upon to uphold constitutional responsibilities, compensating for institutional failures in the broader democratic space, and instances where there is abuse of the legal process to escape accountability. When the court is dragged into politics, it forces an examination of the legitimate scope of judicial review. This book explains how judicialisation of politics leads to the politicisation of adjudication and further weaponisation of the law. Exploring the judicial-political dynamics of South Africa from 2009 onwards, the work traces the consequences of the judicialisation of politics for institutional resilience and broader constitutional stability. Through an in-depth study of judicial legitimacy, the book seeks to provide an overarching theoretical justification for the dangers that inhere in lawfare. It analyses the potential costs of both judicial statesmanship and strategies of deference and avoidance when trying to navigate the Court safely through the era of lawfare. South Africa offers an interesting crucible within which to observe an unfolding global trend. Strengthened by its comparative focus, the implications of lawfare presented in this book transcend the South African context and are applicable to other jurisdictions in the world. The book will be of interest to researchers, academics and practitioners working in the areas of Constitutional Law and Politics.
Lawful by Design: Measuring Procedural Justice in Global Governance
by Isabel LischewskiIn recent years, the procedural rules of global governance institutions have come under scrutiny from scholars worldwide and have been conceptualized as akin to domestic administrative law. However, one question has so far not been addressed: who shapes this procedure and why? In the present work, Isabel Lischewski develops a simple matrix connecting procedure and state interest. When this matrix is applied to a sample of forty diverse institutions, fascinating patterns emerge, which are further explored through in-depth case studies. It is shown that states prefer to balance sovereignty preservation through procedure with the costs it entails. Thus, normative considerations are not the predominant basis on which this procedure is designed. The research provides original insights into the landscape of global governance procedure and cautions against a notion of “apolitical” administration law.
Lawfully Using Autonomous Weapon Technologies
by Jonathan KwikThis monograph provides a practical and operational perspective to the question of how to lawfully employ autonomous weapon systems (AWS) from the point-of-view of the technology's end-users: field commanders. While there is international consensus that targeting rules such as proportionality and precautions must be respected when using AWS, there is legal and practical ambiguity as to how to translate this normative commitment into practice. How are commanders in the field, when guns are already blazing, expected to exercise command-and-control when ordering AWS-attacks, and ensure that their targeting obligations remain fulfilled? The book discusses how commanders can use existing targeting frameworks to ensure that their use of AWS remains in compliance with the rules governing the conduct of hostilities. It invites the reader to step into the shoes of the military commander with all the operational pressure and uncertainty inherent to this position, and explores amongst others: - How to maintain control of AWS throughout a targeting cycle; - How to make informed and reasoned deployment decisions by analysing information related to the technical parameters of the AWS, the characteristics of the operational environment, and enemy countermeasures; - Under which circumstances AWS may not be used under targeting rules, such as indiscriminate attack, proportionality and the duty to cancel/suspend; - What extra precautionary measures unique to AWS technology can and should be employed; - When it is militarily desirable to employ AWS over other alternatives; and - Under what circumstances criminal liability may be attributed for AWS-related harm. It offers both academic and practical outputs: new legal and doctrinal insights on the technology that is useful for future legal developments, and workable recommendations and efficient flowcharts that can be adopted by commanders, military organisations or policymakers to ensure IHL-compliant deployment of AWS. Dr. Jonathan Kwik is a researcher at the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague specialised in artificial intelligence and targeting law, and is a member of the Board of Experts of the Asia-Pacific Journal of International Humanitarian Law.
Lawless: A Lawyer's Unrelenting Fight for Justice in a War Zone
by Kimberley MotleyIn the summer of 2008 Kimberley Motley quit her job as a public defender in Milwaukee to join a program that helped train lawyers in war-torn Afghanistan. She was 32 at the time, a mother of three who had never traveled outside the U.S. What she brought to Afghanistan was a toughness and resilience which came from growing up in one of the most dangerous cities in the country, a fundamental belief in everyone's right to justice, and an unconventional legal mind that has made her a legend in an archaic, misogynistic, and deeply conservative environment. Through sheer force of personality, ingenuity and perseverance, Kimberley became the first foreign lawyer to practice in Afghanistan and her work swiftly morphed into a mission—to bring "justness" to the defenseless and voiceless. She has established herself as an expert on its fledgling criminal justice system, able to pivot between the country's complex legislation and its religious laws in defense of her clients. Her radical approach has seen her successfully represent both Afghans and Westerners, overturning sentences for men and women who've been subject to often appalling miscarriages of justice. Inspiring and fascinating in equal measure, Lawless tells the story of a remarkable woman operating in one of the most dangerous countries in the world.
Lawless: The Secret Rules That Govern Our Digital Lives
by Nicolas P. SuzorRampant abuse, hate speech, censorship, bias, and disinformation - our Internet has problems. It is governed by technology companies - search engines, social media platforms, and infrastructure providers - whose hidden rules influence what we are allowed to see and say. In Lawless, Nicolas P. Suzor presents gripping examples of exactly how tech companies govern our digital environment and how they bend to pressure from governments and other powerful actors to censor and control the flow of information online. We are at a constitutional moment - an opportunity to rethink the basic rules of how the Internet is governed. Suzor offers a vision of a vibrant, diverse, and flourishing internet that can protect our fundamental rights from the lawless rule of tech. The culmination of more than ten years of original research, this groundbreaking work should be read by anyone who cares about the internet and the future of our shared social spaces.
Lawless Capitalism: The Subprime Crisis and the Case for an Economic Rule of Law
by Steven A. RamirezIn this innovative and exhaustive study, Steven A. Ramirez posits that the subprime mortgage crisis, as well as the global macroeconomic catastrophe it spawned, is traceable to a gross failure of law. The rule of law must appropriately channel and constrain the exercise of economic and political power. Used effectively, it ensures that economic opportunity isn't limited to a small group of elites that enjoy growth at the expense of many, particularly those in vulnerable economic situations. In Lawless Capitalism, Ramirez calls for the rule of law to displace crony capitalism. Only through the rule of law, he argues, can capitalism be reconstructed.
Lawless v Ireland: An International Miscarriage of Justice? (Routledge Revivals)
by Brian DoolanThis title was first published in 2001. The case of Lawless v Ireland is a landmark in the development of human rights jurisprudence. Stemming from the introduction of detention without trial by the Irish government in response to the resurgence of political violence, much of the material relevant to the case brought before the European Court of Human Rights, has remained closed to public scrutiny. This book is the first to provide a detailed documentary of the case, assessing the adequacy of the investigatory processes provided under the European Convention and questioning whether the factual conclusions reached by the European Commission on Human Rights were correct. In what will be an essential reference for academics and students of human rights, the book raises doubts as to whether the Strasbourg institutions, established to rectify national breaches of human rights, might in fact have perpetrated an international miscarriage of justice.
Lawmaking under Pressure: International Humanitarian Law and Internal Armed Conflict
by Giovanni MantillaIn Lawmaking under Pressure, Giovanni Mantilla analyzes the origins and development of the international humanitarian treaty rules that now exist to regulate internal armed conflict. Until well into the twentieth century, states allowed atrocious violence as an acceptable product of internal conflict. Why have states created international laws to control internal armed conflict? Why did states compromise their national security by accepting these international humanitarian constraints? Why did they create these rules at improbable moments, as European empires cracked, freedom fighters emerged, and fears of communist rebellion spread? Mantilla explores the global politics and diplomatic dynamics that led to the creation of such laws in 1949 and in the 1970s.By the 1949 Diplomatic Conference that revised the Geneva Conventions, most countries supported legislation committing states and rebels to humane principles of wartime behavior and to the avoidance of abhorrent atrocities, including torture and the murder of non-combatants. However, for decades, states had long refused to codify similar regulations concerning violence within their own borders. Diplomatic conferences in Geneva twice channeled humanitarian attitudes alongside Cold War and decolonization politics, even compelling reluctant European empires Britain and France to accept them. Lawmaking under Pressure documents the tense politics behind the making of humanitarian laws that have become touchstones of the contemporary international normative order.Mantilla not only explains the pressures that resulted in constraints on national sovereignty but also uncovers the fascinating international politics of shame, status, and hypocrisy that helped to produce the humanitarian rules now governing internal conflict.
Law’s Abnegation
by Adrian VermeuleAdrian Vermeule argues that the arc of law has bent steadily toward deference to the administrative state, which has greater democratic legitimacy and technical competence to confront issues such as climate change, terrorism, and biotechnology. The state did not shove lawyers and judges out of the way; they moved freely to the margins of power.
Laws and Policies on Surrogacy: Comparative Insights from India
by Harleen KaurThis book is an essential guide on surrogacy, discussing various legal issues that arise in surrogacy cases. It provides a comprehensive coverage to various issues pertaining to surrogacy arrangements due to failure to meet the needs of those involved in surrogacy, be it the intended parents or the surrogate mother, with special emphasis on the most vulnerable party -- the surrogate child. In the wake of this existing imbalance, the call to reform the practice of surrogacy has also increased. The book provides a comprehensive coverage to various laws and policy regulations in existence dealing with surrogacy, and unravels the latest trends and developments happening around the world as surrogacy gains importance. The international perspectives highlight policies and practices being adopted and followed by various nations with regard to surrogacy regulation and associated parenthood rules. This book also analyses some of the significant cross-border disputes revolving around surrogacy, and explores briefly the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights on matters of parentage and citizenship for children born of trans-national surrogacy with special reference to the prospects of a convention on international surrogacy currently being studied by The Hague Conference on Private International Law. Further, it highlights the issues and questions relating to surrogacy arrangements that are so far unresolved and unanswered and suggests measures for improvements to the existing proposed surrogacy legislation in India and need for uniform international regulation. The book is a great resource for legal practitioners, academics, students, policy-makers, infertility clinics, and charitable organizations working on this issue.
Laws and Regulations in Global Financial Markets
by Roy GirasaThe major financial scandals of the past decade, which have been discussed exhaustively in corporate offices by corporate attorneys, and in accounting firms, have led to the passage of massive Congressional enactments in the United States that impact the world of finance. The enactment of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act in 2002, with its significant provisions of 20-year imprisonment for certain offenses, and the conviction of Enron's CEO and other senior executives, finally caught the attention of corporate executives. Laws and Regulations in Global Financial Markets presents students, researchers, and practitioners with an in-depth global analysis of the legal and regulative aspects of corporate financial markets. Readers are introduced to international developments concerning rules and regulations impacting investment advisers and broker-dealers, bankruptcy law, important legal changes influencing banks and credit ratings organizations, real estate regulations, and insurance law. The book concludes with a discussion of personal finance, financial literacy, and federal statutes centered around the subject matter.
The Law's Conscience
by Peter Charles HofferThe Law's Conscience is a history of equity in Anglo-American juris-prudence from the inception of the chancellor's court in medieval England to the recent civil rights and affirmative action decisions of the United States Supreme Court. Peter Hoffer argues that equity embodies a way of looking at law, including constitutions, based on ideas of mutual fairness, public trusteeship, and equal protection. His central theme is the tension between the ideal of equity and the actual availability of equitable remedies.Hoffer examines this tension in the trusteeship constitutionalism of John Locke and Thomas Jefferson; the incorporation of equity in the first American constitutions; the antebellum controversy over slavery; the fortunes of the Freedmen's Bureau after the Civil War; the emergence of the doctrine of "Balance of Equity" in twentieth-century public-interest law; and the desegregation and reverse discrimination cases of the past thirty-five years. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) was the most important equity suit in American history, and Hoffer begins and ends his book with a new interpretation of its lessons.
Law's Cosmos
by Victoria WohlRecent literary-critical work in legal studies reads law as a genre of literature, noting that Western law originated as a branch of rhetoric in classical Greece and lamenting the fact that the law has lost its connection to poetic language, narrative, and imagination. But modern legal scholarship has paid little attention to the actual juridical discourse of ancient Greece. This book rectifies that neglect through an analysis of the courtroom speeches from classical Athens, texts situated precisely at the intersection between law and literature. Reading these texts for their subtle literary qualities and their sophisticated legal philosophy, it proposes that in Athens' juridical discourse literary form and legal matter are inseparable. Through its distinctive focus on the literary form of Athenian forensic oratory, Law's Cosmos aims to shed new light on its juridical thought, and thus to change the way classicists read forensic oratory and legal historians view Athenian law.
Law's Cut on the Body of Human Rights: Female Circumcision, Torture and Sacred Flesh
by Juliet RogersScenes of violence and incisions into the flesh inform the demand for law. The scene of little girls being held down in practices of female circumcision has been a defining and definitive image that demands the attention of human rights, and the intervention of law. But the investment in protecting women and little girls from such a cut is not all that it seems. Law's Cut on the Body of Human Rights: Female Circumcision, Torture and Sacred Flesh considers how such images come to inform law and the investment of advocates of law in an imagination of this scene. Drawing on psychoanalytic and postcolonial theory, and accompanying ideas in political theology, Juliet Rogers examines the language, imagery and excitement that accompanies recent initiatives to legislate against what is called 'female genital mutilation'. The author compliments this examination with a consideration of the scene of torture exposed in images from Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. Rogers argues that the modes of fascination and excitement that accompany scenes of torture and female circumcision betray the fantasy of a political condition against which the subject of liberal law is imagined; this is subjectivity in a state of non-mutilation, non-prohibition or, in a psychoanalytic idiom, non-castration. To support the fantasy of this subject, the mutilated subject, the authors suggests, is rendered as flesh cut from the democratic nation state, deserving of only selective human rights, or none at all.
Law’s Detour: Justice Displaced in the Bush Administration (Critical America #24)
by Peter MarguliesFrom the Justice Department's memos defending coerced interrogation to Alberto Gonzales' firing of U.S. Attorneys who did not fit the Bush Administration's political needs, Law's Detour paints an alarming picture of the many detours that George W. Bush and his allies created to thwart transparency and undermine the rule of law after September 11, 2001. Pursuing those detours, Bush officials set up a law-free zone at Guantánamo, ordered massive immigration raids that separated families, and screened candidates for civil service jobs to ensure the hiring of "real Americans."While government needs flexibility to address genuine risks to national security--which certainly exist in the post-9/11 world--the Bush Administration's use of detours distracted the government from urgent priorities, tarnished America's reputation, and threatened voting and civil rights. In this comprehensive analysis of Bush officials' efforts to stretch and strain the justice system, Peter Margulies canvasses the costs of the Administration's many detours, from resisting accountability in the war on terrorism to thwarting economic and environmental regulation. Concise and full of compelling anecdotes, Law's Detour maps these aberrations, surveys the damage done, and reaffirms the virtues of transparency and dialog that the Bush administration dismissed.