Torture, the War on Terror, and the End of Reciprocity

Erscheinungsjahr 2009
ISBN: 978-0-521-73014-3
Verlag: Cambridge University Press

Buch, Englisch, 676 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 963 g

Why should America restrain itself in detaining, interrogating, and targeting terrorists when they show it no similar forbearance? Is it fair to expect one side to fight by more stringent rules than the other, placing itself at disadvantage? Is the disadvantaged side then permitted to use the tactics and strategies of its opponent? If so, then America's most controversial counterterrorism practices are justified as commensurate responses to indiscriminate terror. Yet different ethical standards prove entirely fitting, the author finds, in a conflict between a network of suicidal terrorists seeking mass atrocity at any cost and a constitutional democracy committed to respecting human dignity and the rule of law. The most important reciprocity involves neither uniform application of fair rules nor their enforcement by a simple-minded tit-for-tat. Real reciprocity instead entails contributing to an emergent global contract that encompasses the law of war and from which all peoples may mutually benefit.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Osiel, Mark J.

Osiel, Mark

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtsethik
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtsphilosophie, Rechtsethik
• Rechtswissenschaften Internationales Recht und Europarecht Internationales Recht Internationales Kriegsrecht, Territorialrecht, Humanitäres Recht
• Rechtswissenschaften Internationales Recht und Europarecht Internationales Recht Internationale Menschen- und Minderheitenrechte, Kinderrechte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politische Kultur Menschenrechte, Bürgerrechte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction; Part I. Reciprocity in Humanitarian Law: 1. Reciprocity in the law of war: ambient sightings, ambivalent soundings; 2. Reciprocity in humanitarian law: acceptance and repudiation; 3. Humanitarian vs. human rights law: the coming clash; Part II. The Ethics of Torture as Reciprocity: 4. Is torture uniquely degrading? The unpersuasive answer of liberal jurisprudence; 5. Fairness in terrorist war (1): Rawlsian reciprocity; 6. Fairness in terrorist war (2): Kantian reciprocity; 7. Humanitarian law as corrective justice: do targeted killing and torture 'correct' for terror?; Part III. Reciprocity in the Social Science of War: 8. Reciprocity as civilization: the terrorist as savage; 9. The inflationary rhetoric of terrorist threat: humanitarian law as deflationary check; 10. Reciprocity as tit-for-tat: rational retaliation in modern war; 11. The 'gift' of humanitarianism: soft power and benevolent signaling; Part IV. The End of Reciprocity: 12. Sources of national restraint in martial honor: the JAGs' intercession; 13. Sources of anti-reciprocity in national self-respect and transnational identity; Conclusion.

Über Autor(innen)

Osiel, Mark
Mark Osiel has written five books on the law of war, most recently Trying Tyrants: Making Sense of Mass Atrocity (Cambridge University Press, 2008) and Mass Atrocity, Ordinary Evil, and Hannah Arendt: Criminal Consciousness in Argentina's Dirty War (2002). He has lectured at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and advised on the prosecution of General Augusto Pinochet and the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide. He regularly consults to international organizations and governments in post-conflict societies on issues of transitional justice. Osiel has been a Visiting Fellow at Cambridge University, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, the London School of Economics, and universities in Argentina, Brazil, France, and India. He teaches law at the University of Iowa.