"Can Law Guide the War on Terror, or Can’t It?
A Sad Question, a False Dilemma, and a New Way Around It"
Prepared for the
47
th
Annual International Studies Association Convention
22-25 March 2006 ~ San Diego, CA
Jennifer Abbassi
Associate Professor Political Science
Chair, Global Studies Program
Randolph-Macon Woman’s College
This is a draft of a draft. Please do not reprint without permission.
The paper makes the following main points:
•
International norms of behavior are not what drive US security policy, so we
need to wonder what it means to ask whether the law is too restrictive or
unrestrictive enough to accommodate said policy.
•
It may no longer make sense to charge the United States with “operating
outside the law” and instead (and sadly) consider that international rules as
they stand are operating outside a developing new security framework that is
unfriendly to existing laws.
•
A finer balance must be struck between the letter and spirit of human rights
law and the stated goals and needs of US security strategy; new, creative
synergies are needed to do this.
•
Once we agree that powerful states, with the United States in the lead, are not
likely to ease up on “fighting terrorism mercilessly,” it becomes important to
consider what leverage a reconceptualized body of law can have in tempering
the use and abuse of state power.
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