Suchergebnisse

This article analyses legal aspects of the `war on terror'. It argues that, by making recourse to a semantic of risk, danger and, in particular, precaution, the `war on terror' blurs crucial political and legal categories of public and private, of peace and war, of combatants and civilians, thus redefining the relationship between political responsibility, time and security. As a consequence, the extrajudicial killing of individuals becomes a form of risk management that takes place beyond established mechanisms of accountability.

''Rogue states'' have been high on the policy agenda for many years but their theoretical significance for international relations has remained poorly understood. In contrast to the bulk of writings on ''rogue states'' that address them merely as a policy challenge, this book studies what we can learn from deviance about international politics

Territory is central to the doctrine of international jurisdiction. However, the use of territory as the jurisdictional linchpin is a political choice, the result of a confluence of historically specific political, material, epistemic, and above all mapping practices. The political contingency of territory begs the question whether alternative, non-territorial jurisdictional concepts could be contemplated. In this contribution, community, temporality, and justice are explored. The territorial imbrications of these jurisdictional alternatives are acknowledged, but it is highlighted how territory can in fact be re-conceptualized in the service of 'its others'. Opting for the 'others' and for a novel conceptualization of territory remains a political choice. However, the political character of jurisdiction is not something to lament, but rather to celebrate, as it creates opportunities for a variety of political actors to have an impact on the actual appli- cation and construction of the un(der)determined notions of jurisdiction and territory, and ultimately on the modes of exercise of public authority. The salience of these theoretical ideas is exemplified by applying them to the case of transnational human rights litigation against corporations, a manifestation of socio-legal globalization that encapsulates the key role played by jurisdiction in negotiating claims of authority.

AbstractThe past few decades have witnessed a fundamental change in the perception of threats to the security of states and individuals. Issues of security are no longer primarily framed in terms of threats posed by an identifiable, conventional enemy. Instead, post-Cold War security policies have emphasised the global and radically uncertain nature of threats such as environmental degradation, terrorism and financial risks. What are the implications of this transformation for one of the constitutive principles of international society: state sovereignty? Existing literature has provided two possible answers to this question. The first focuses on the alleged need for states to seek international cooperation and to relax claims of national sovereignty. In Ulrich Beck's terminology, this would amount to a transformation of sovereign states into 'cosmopolitan states'. The second takes the opposite position: in response to uncertain threats states rely on their sovereign prerogatives to take exceptional measures and set aside provisions of positive law. In Beck's terminology, this would amount to the creation of a 'surveillance state'. None of these two answers, however, does justice to the complex relation between sovereignty, power and (international) law. As this article will show, the invocation of radical uncertainty has led to a transformation in sovereignty that cannot be captured in terms of the cosmopolitan/surveillance dichotomy. What is at stake is a more fundamental transformation of the way in which sovereignty is used to counter threats. Based on a study of the UN Counterterrorism Committee, this article demonstrates how state sovereignty is used as a governmental technology that aims to create proactive, responsible subjects.